Small worlds filled with great people

Since I've gotten resettled in Bellingham, I keep meeting people who are connected to the people and places I experienced in India. It's so wild to take a place that seemed so foreign and exotic while I was there, and see that its ties to my life at home are stealth but strong.

Here are some examples:
1. Within my first week back in Bellingham, I ran into my friend Jared when he came into the Registrar's office where I was working. He told me he was leaving in a week for India and Nepal to do a village studies program through Fairhaven College, and would be spending a few weeks in Dharamsala. I gave him a few contacts and suggestions for what he couldn't miss and what he would do best to avoid (like the food at Hotel Tibet).

2. At poetry night at the Darkroom, Sean Conlon read as the feature. He just recently graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst. While I was in Dharamsala, I made friends with students from Hampshire who were also in Dharamsala: Alana and Khenrab. Speaking to Sean after the reading, we made the connection of our mutual friends.

3. Just Thursday night, I met a friend's roommate who just got back from traveling around India. He spent two and a half weeks in Dharamsala, the majority of those nights on the roof of Carpe Diem Cafe kicking it with the usual crowd: Raju, Ramu, Artu, Satary, and Company.

Of course, relating these connections makes me heartsick for the village, but it's also an incredibly encouraging realization that the people we meet, come to love, and then leave behind are in many ways always with us.