Six Degrees of Separation

Sometimes the random connections that I identify with people I meet in Kenya are really mind-boggling.  It started when I arrived here and starting talking with Joe, who has become a great friend.  We realized that his girlfriend Caitlyn was the daughter of one of my professors at Vanderbilt.  Then we realized his best college buddy Whitlow went to high school with me, and that MY dad had completely remodeled WHITLOW'S dad's house.  A little bit freaky...

These crazy realizations continue to happen.  This weekend I was sent to go pick up some Americans and bring them to a cookout, and after searching for the white people on the side of the road, I met Dusty and Cecily.  We got to talking, and I told them about how my brother Preston just decided to take a church intern job in Jackson Hole.  They said, "wait, I think we know about him!"  Turns out that last week Dusty and Cecily were in the DC airport when they met a guy named David on their flight to Ethiopia.  Dusty and Cecily spent the last few years in Malibu, so when they mentioned this, David told them about his good friend Preston, who had just applied for a job in Malibu but decided to take one in Jackson Hole instead.  Well, Dusty had applied for the same job in Malibu - small world! 

It continues, though.  DAVID was flying to Ethiopia and then onwards to Rwanda, where he was spending a couple of weeks with a Peace Corps volunteer named Caitlyn.  While he was there, he hung out with Caitlyn's boyfriend Joe for a week.  On Saturday, JOE flew back to Kenya and came to hang out with me, Dusty, and Cecily at the cookout - yep, same Joe that's one of my best friends! 

I think that the "six degrees of separation" shrink to about 2 or 3 for white people in East Africa...