From all we can gather it was a perfectly normal spring break. Students were slowly starting to pour back into the quaint little town that had been so quite without them. Some of the students were excited to be back, some were dreading the last two months in central Ohio. Everyone was probably busily catching up and exchanging stories. Records show some people had just gone home or to visit friends at other schools while others went to far more exotic locations. Some groups of friends had even gone to Cancun or the Bahamas but one group of two biology major, a psych major and a Spanish major had decided that they wanted to do something really special. History tells us Megan, Jasmine, Dave and Jorge had done their research. They found a small nature preserve in an Ecuadorian rain forest where they could explore pristine rain forest. It was still untouched save the few students and Biologists who tracked through every year. They had seen amazing plants and animals and were eager get their pictures developed and try to learn more about what they has seen.

     It’s funny how a day that will go down in the history of the world starts out like any other Monday. In reality it probably wasn’t Monday March 19th, 2001 that was really all that important but it was the first transmission of the virus they could ever pin point. Given the ease with which the virus moved from carrier to carrier it seems almost inevitable that everyone on the plane home with them was infected, but for some reason it was harder to pin down. Megan, Jasmine, Dave and Jorge’s world was so different from the world today, it’s almost hard to imagine. Megan was the first one to show symptoms but of course it was quite some time before the true severity of the situation became apparent.