A Chance Meeting

Sometimes life presents you with a person so appropriate for your setting, here and now, that it really just blows you away. Someone with as may similarities as differences, that you can teach as well as learn from, creating an effortless friendship that seems fluid and comfortable from the get-go. It's like God decided a long time ago that further on down the road, you two would come together in a somewhat obscure situation, so he began planting your little idiosyncrasies to match one another's in the years building up to this. We may not have known we'd be here a year or even six months ago, but He did. Right now, Nina is that person for me. Though we grew up only six states apart, it took half the length of the world for us to meet. We were born seven years apart, but the difference doesn't seem great. When we each found out the other would be here, we were relieved that we wouldn't be completely alone in our endeavor, but of course held our reservations about living with someone we've never met for an extended period of time. Through emails we seemed like two totally different people. (She used phrases like 'your efforts would have been futile,' and blogged about politics, and thought I was a hillbilly because I grew up on a farm) I've dealt with my fair share of incompatible roommates, and though I hoped for the best, I prepared for the worst. Upon meeting we realized we were both a little more human than our preconceived notions and had a lot more in common than we could have imagined. From our deep love (and swooning) of little-known artists, to encountering the exact same sports injury (on the same knee!) to our taste in music, and obviously the fact that we had both been led to this exact place....to come here, to these children, at this exact time, in this exact house, in this exact little neighborhood, all the way across the world. We could have gone so many other places.

Nina and I have realized that we were brought here, to do this together, for a reason. We will change our lives together, and hopefully, together change the lives of those around us.

Click to view Nina's blog, An Abundance of Samosas.

(Also linked as 'The Other Akka' in the right-hand margin under 'My Trip to India.')