This definitely falls into the "small world" category

Have you ever been to summer camp? You know, one of those places where nobody knows anybody else when you first arrive, everyone is a long way from home, and you are going to be together for what seems like a long time. If you have been in this or a similar situation, you know how strong the bonds are that you forge with the others in your group.

The same thing happens when you study abroad, except that you know it will be for longer than those few weeks at summer camp. For me this was in September 1972, when I arrived in Heidelberg to study for my college junior year abroad. I didn't know anyone on that side of the Atlantic, and I loved every bit of the unfamiliarity and the anticipation of all the new, but as yet unimaginable, experiences my year abroad would bring.

I loved it so much I stayed four years.

Now, it is 36 years later (can it be so long), and in spite of losing track of some of my Heidelberg friends, I still am in contact with some of those people I bonded with so long ago. One of them lives in Cape Town. We haven't seen each other in over 30 years, and I've never met his wife and three sons, but I have a feeling that 5 minutes into the meeting, we will be talking like our time in Heidelberg was only yesterday.

That's how is was when I visited Germany in 2004 for the first time since I had returned to the the States in 1976. My husband Mark and I flew into Frankfurt and took a train to Koblenz, where my very good friend Uschi (German nickname for Ursula) and her husband Peter met us and took us back to their house. Uschi and I had become fast friends during our student days. I had visited her hometown of Daun in the Eifel Mountains and stayed with her family; she and her husband still lived there, but we were meeting each other's husbands for the first time. Uschi and I had kept in touch for years, lost touch for more than that, and then I had found her again (hooray for the Internet!) a couple of months before our trip to Germany. And within 5 minutes we were talking and laughing and hugging and time slipped away. And our husbands hit it off, too!

When my daughter Caitlin left last August for her junior year abroad in Heidelberg, it was Uschi and Peter who picked her up at the airport, took her home to Daun with them for a week, introduced her to their son and daughter who were also studying at university (but not in Heidelberg), gave her kitchen items and bedding for her student apartment, and drove her to Heidelberg and made sure she was settled in. (Did I tell you that Uschi was a good friend?) And Caitlin has made the same kind of fast friends in her time there. She will miss them when she comes home next week.

Now to the "small world" part. Uschi and I hadn't written in a couple of months, but I heard from her recently. She shared the news that her son Martin is finishing up his studies in urban planning and is starting a three-month internship this week for the city of--are you ready?--Cape Town!! Uschi didn't know about my plans until I wrote her back, and neither of us could believe it. Of course I won't be able to return all the kindness she and Peter showed Caitlin, but Martin and I are already in touch and I plan to at least take him out for a nice dinner.

And I know I will meet wonderful people volunteering through Cross-Cultural Solutions and even more locals at my placement--more friendships that I hope stand the test of time, more people to visit in various parts of the world, and more people to visit me.

And it is, indeed, a small world.