It’s A Small World After All

Hallie Williams, Managing Editor in Chief

What does ‘It’s a Small World’ really mean?  According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, “It’s a Small World” involves showing surprise when one meets someone one knows at an unexpected place.

 

This summer, I spent two weeks in Africa on a safari with my family.  One morning in the middle of the Masai Mara in Kenya, my brother said, “Hey, isn’t that a Cardinals shirt in that safari vehicle?” As we got closer I thought to myself, wow that guy looks like Rafi, and then I said, “Wait… Stop. It is Rafi!” We got out of our car and stopped to talk to him and his family for a while. I was in complete shock, and then the next day we ran into him and his family again at a tiny airstrip and I still couldn’t believe it. We weren’t on the same plane, but he was actually headed to Tanzania, where I had just come from.

 

I wondered if other JBS students had experienced similar surprise meetings all over the globe. In a survey where over 100 current JBS students and alums were asked if they had ever run into another student in a different state or country, 51 people — more than half — responded yes! Check out some of these chance meetings across the country and world!

 

Canyon Conference

Over Spring Break 2018, Chloe Sowers ‘19, senior, was hiking out of the Grand Canyon with her father when they ran into her classmate, Jan Kasal ‘19.  “It was pretty funny,” says Sowers, “because I totally didn’t expect to see him.  There we were on the Bright Angel Trail on the south rim and [he] and his dad were hiking down.”

 

England Encounter

Kate Smith ‘21 was on a trip to England with her club field hockey team in late July, and one night she decided to sightsee in the city with her dad. They were walking in the South Bank of London when she saw her friend Emma Kovalic ‘21 across the street. “It was really weird to [see Kovalic] in a different place, not to mention a different country. I knew she was in London but had no idea where,” says Smith. The situation got even crazier when they were walking together and they saw another familiar face: a third member of their class, Delaney Frank ‘21, was also in London on the same street at the same time!

 

Bledsoe Blast

Katie Kuhlman ‘19, was spending time in New York City a few summers ago when she and her family decided to tour the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier. They were walking around on the deck when they saw “the entire Bledsoe family, including [her] classmate Isaac.” Kuhlman remembers thinking “it was just kinda funny how random it was that we ended up running into them on the deck of this huge ship in this huge city super far away from home.”

 

Spain Stopper

Dylan Fox ‘20 spent part of his summer in Salamanca, a small city in western Spain, taking part in a Spanish language and immersion program. A few days after they arrived, Fox and his sister, Sophia ‘18, were having dinner on the outdoor terrace of a restaurant centrally located in the Old City. Fox recounts, “As we waited for our tapas, Sophia distracted [by] her phone, I people-watched… I tapped Sophia on the shoulder, keeping my eyes on the decently tall, lanky brown-haired dude swaggering his way across the square.” At that point, he asked his sister, ‘Sophia, look! Is that Will DeWitt?” Fox immediately grabbed his phone and messaged DeWitt ‘20. Fox says, “In less than a minute he was introducing me to his Lebanese friends as we stood in the middle of the stunning Plaza Mayor of an old Spanish town, dumbfounded at the odds.”