We Really Are the Heart of It All

I can tell you the exact moment it hit me that I’m living in India.  In my first few days here, I was so focused on logistics that the larger sense that I was on the other side of the world somehow eluded me.  But yesterday, sitting with a friend under an arch of a thirteenth-century madrasa, overlooking a giant medieval royal water reservoir, and watching exotic birds and Indian families pass by, it suddenly registered.  I am on the other side of the world.  When did that happen?

Of course, the other side of the world isn’t quite out of the reach of my family.  I went out to dinner the other night with my roommate and some of her colleagues.  At one point I mentioned that I was from Ohio, and her colleague from Nepal told me that he went to school at Kenyon.   I was surprised to hear familiarity with Ohio, but I casually mentioned that my sister went to Kenyon as well.  “Oh, Stephanie?  Of course, we lived in the same dorm freshman year!”  Life is weird.