............................ After meeting by serendipity in an airport in Frankfurt, Germany, Gitanjali Pinto (top) and Despina Panagopoulou soon found they had much more in common than a Smith College destination.   Related story: What in the World is CFLAC?   ............................

It's a Small World (College) Smith College is represented all over the world. Gitanjali Pinto '00 found that out one night back in August 1996, when she sat distraught in the international airport in Frankfurt, Germany. She had just been informed that she would be spending the night in Germany due to unexpected technical problems. Hours earlier she'd said goodbye to her family in Bombay and set off for her first year at Smith. "It was difficult leaving home because I knew I wouldn't be seeing [my family] again for a while," she recalls. "Being alone and traveling alone for the first time out of the country, I just flipped out. I had my head in my hands." Pinto wore a Smith sweatshirt. As she sat crying, a friend asked her to look up. Before her stood another woman wearing a Smith sweatshirt, Despina Panagopoulou, on her way to Smith from Athens to join the class of 2000. The fellow first-years talked together for about 10 minutes about the unlikelihood of their meeting when Despina asked Gitanjali, "What's your mother's name?" Gitanjali told her. "And at that point, I could not speak," says Despina. "I thought, no way could this happen." The two new Smithies realized their mothers had not only been members of the class of 1970 together, but roommates at Smith and good friends for several years after graduating. "It was amazing," Despina says. "I never believed this coincidence could happen." Despina's mother, Lillian Agapalidou '70, and Gitanjali's mother, Zarin Minocher-Homji (now Pinto) MA '70, had lost contact for several years before their daughters' serendipitous meeting in Frankfurt. Since reuniting via their daughters, the two alums have maintained steady contact from their homes in India and Greece. From Frankfurt the new Smithies took separate flights to the U.S. but arranged to meet again at the International Students Pre-orientation. They ended up being roommates during their first week at Smith, carrying on the tradition their mothers had started a generation earlier. Shortly after their daughters met, Zarin wrote to Lillian: "For so many years we kept in touch by writing letters and then I don't how or why we stopped. We were not meant to lose each other, and our daughters brought us together again."

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