In the middle of October, Cotter senior Elaine Tan went through an ordeal all students fear: she lost her cell phone.

Elaine came to my room one afternoon on Sunday, she was really excited and she told me that the police would get her phone back. After she located her phone using an app on her ipad, she found her phone was in a house in Winona. So the Residence Assistant help to get the police.

It is very different now for many international students to live in a small town like Winona. A place with trees and grass everywhere, a place without any tall buildings, a place where the number of people in a school is same as the number of people  in a grade in my hometown.  I am from Beijing which has a population of 19 million and Elaine is from Yangzhou which has 4.5 million people.

Life is different without crowds of people everywhere, with ordered blocks one after another instead of building after building covering up the gray sky. It is amazing for people to say “hi” to a stranger on the road in a normal way and smiling  at a stranger doesn’t seem weird. This is a place where it hard to lose a phone or purse because friendly people send them back.

The story starts with a trip to Midtown foods. On a Friday, Oct.11,  Elaine and I went to Midtown for groceries and we waited at the seats near exits for a school van to pick us up. When the van came, we were in a hurry and she left her phone there.

After trying to find her phone in the car and bags from Midtown, we worriedly called Midtown and went back to Midtown foods. The workers there told us they did not get any phones turned in today, while some other workers searched the garbage can for us.

It was a new phone and Elaine was in need of a phone to call, so she was pretty sad. Getting back to the dorm, she tried to track the phone’s location and failed because the phone was not connected to the internet.

“I am so depressed that I have to buy a new one,” she said.

Later, on Oct. 13, she told me, still worried,  that she located her phone, and it was found in a house in Winona. It showed someone actually took it and brought it back to his or her house.

She sent messages to the phone, saying her dorm phone’s number to call, but there was no response. Then the RA helped to call the police. Elaine was going to go with the police, but they said it might be dangerous for her to go. The policeman told Elaine that if the person intended to keep it, she should be ready to go on court.

About 45 minutes later, the police came back, with her phone and the whole story was resolved. On the day we left Mid-town, a granny who used the same cart after we did, found the phone laying in the cart. She took it back, and she saw the messages.

But she did not know how to use the phone, and she thought the number showed was the phone’s number, so she didn’t call. Then the granny decided to wait till her daughter come back on the weekend to give back the phone. The problem solved and Elaine happily got her phone back. It was surprising because everyone thought it would be the other way.

“I was extremely excited,” Elaine said, “ Thanks to the granny and technology.”

So while many students miss their large cities, there are some hidden benefits to life is a small town.