This January, bloggers living around the world are taking the challenge to start the year off with weekly blog posts on meaningful topics. We have over 80 folks living in about 30 different countries signed up, with more joining every day! Roughly one week ago, the first prompt was sent to them via e-mail.
The Prompt: Global Citizenship
Along with the prompt, Challenge participants also received some blog tips and a number of creative ideas to approach their response. Over the past week, their posts have been pouring out into the blogosphere and we’ve rounded them up for you here.
Highlights
These bloggers have impressed us! There was so many great, thoughtful posts this week. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to reflecting on Global Citizenship, so we’d like to focus more on the formats and techniques a few bloggers used.
We invite you to take some time to get to know more of our Blog Challenge bloggers by checking out the Round Up links we’ve included below. You can also find more posts highlighted on our Blog Challenge pinterest board.
Join us!
Want to participate? If you’d like to join the Blog Challenge and get the last couple blog post prompts in real time, sign up here. (more…)
Photo challenge participants get a prompt emailed to them at the beginning of the month, and follow-up emails periodically in the following weeks. They then share their best photos that follow along with the theme that month. This month’s theme was “Celebrate”.
The goal is to share captivating images online, with meaningful captions, in order to promote cross-cultural understanding in a fun, simple way.
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December’s Photo Challenge
December’s challenge was about all things celebratory. Participants used #celebrate to tag their pictures of celebrations from all over the world. Participants were also challenged to invite friends to join the challenge by tagging people in the caption of their picture. This month’s journey included German holiday cuisine, African wedding festivities, and Christmas tree decorating in Moldova, to name a few. We saw holiday filled landscapes, celebrations of faith, celebrations of change, and celebrations of life. This month was all about challenging bloggers and social media followers to expand their definition of ‘The Holiday Season’ outside their own cultural traditions, holidays, and festivities.
Let’s review the Top 5 photos of December’s ‘Celebrate’ Challenge:
Our mission at Blogging Abroad is to inspire and equip people living abroad to promote cross-cultural understanding through blogging and social media. This year, we’ve seen so many fantastic examples of cultural exchange online, we decided to round up the best of the best.
What makes a great cultural blog post?
Here are some of the top things we considered when composing our list:
Well-written, easy to read text
A positive, respectful outlook and promotion of cross-cultural understanding
A cohesive theme, rather than a running diary entry
A unique perspective or creative post format
Engaging, quality images
Interesting titles and headings
Responsible crediting of outside sources (including image credits)
Appropriate post length – not too long or rambling
We applaud each of our finalists for their excellent blog posts. And above all, we hope these examples will spark ideas and encourage more bloggers to join in the meaningful work of unofficial cultural ambassadorship!
You’ve got a big vacation planned, or maybe you’ve decided that you want to live and work abroad. You’ve decided that you want to share your experiences online with the rest of the world, either through a blog or even just on your personal social media profiles. But, you don’t just want it to be a travelogue or a diary, you really want to share the culture of the place you’re going.
It can be hard to dive into the culture of a place once you get there, and after you leave, sometimes you don’t feel like you learned enough to really share cross-cultural understanding. You may get to the end of your time abroad and realize that you aren’t sure how to meaningfully talk about what your destination is really like. It becomes really easy to fall back on sharing pretty pictures and writing a travel guide instead of diving deeper.
But, if you start out your adventure with a little extra planning, it’ll make finding those cultural experiences that much easier, and sharing them more meaningful. Here are four things to include in your plans for your time abroad to make sharing culture a breeze.
Festivals and Holidays
The Dance of the Terrifying Deities is one of the main dances of the Thimphu Teschu in Bhutan. Teschus are major religious festivals that take place around the country that involved masked dances performed by monks who enter full meditation during the performance.
Check your calendar and the calendar of where you are going and see when local festivals and holidays are happening. These are the times when the local people are especially proud of their culture and show off and celebrate what is culturally significant, making it much more accessible to visitors. Even if you don’t speak the local language, have a difficult time engaging with strangers or are traveling with a group, festivals and holidays make for a sure fire way of experiencing the local culture.
The author and Kumar, her guide, at the highest point on the Annapurna Circuit. At the end of the trek, Kumar gave the author a “khata” at the end of the trek, a tradition in Tibetan Buddhism to mark ceremonial occasions.
Local Guides
Guidebooks can only give you so much information and are no replacement for the people who live in there. Many travelers are resistant to hiring guides and prefer to rely on guidebooks or travel bloggers. However, a guide can provide a window and entry into the local culture. They’ll likely be able to share some local folklore, teach you some of the local language and explain cultural customs to you. Whether it’s a one-hour city walking tour or a multi-week trek in the mountains, spending your money on a guide shows that local culture is valued, can help prevent the march of globalization and injects money directly into the local economy. You may even end up with a new friend.
Local Transport
Motorcycle taxis are common throughout Cameroon. These motos can carry a surprising amount of things on them, including an entire other motorcycle.
Renting a car, chartering a taxi or even flying around the country can often be a real bargain and make your trip more comfortable. However, such modes of transportation often isolate you from the people of the country you are visiting and prevent cross-cultural exchange. Even if it’s just once on a short trip, travel the way the locals do. You’ll get a real sense of what life is like for people who live there and may help answer some of your cultural curiosities. Push past your discomfort and you’ll end up with a great story to share.
Books
Novels, collections of folklore and memoirs from your destination, ideally by a local author, can be an invaluable way to open up new cultural experiences. Descriptions of family traditions, beloved national dishes and even attitudes and beliefs can come through in books that you may otherwise miss entirely. You’ll be able to gain a deeper understanding of the place, beyond what you are experiencing in your day to day life. Head to your local library, pick up a copy at your local bookstore or download an e-book, whichever is most convenient for your lifestyle, and I guarantee it will enhance your experiences.
Have you done any of these things during your time abroad? Tell us how they helped you gain a deeper understanding of the host culture in the comments!
This is a guest post by Christine Bedenis, a well-traveled twenty-something from the Midwest. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Thailand), now living and working in Ghana. She was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.
Every blogger has a unique journey and style to share with the world. It’s our hope that Blogging Abroad can be a safe place for online story-tellers to exchange ideas, hone their craft, and support each other in promoting cross-cultural understanding online. In today’s post, we’d like to introduce you to a blogger from our community who just started her Peace Corps blog five months ago. We interviewed her about her perspective on the challenges and lessons learned so far – maybe you can relate…
Blogger, Gloria (left), with another member of her Peace Corps cohort at their swearing in ceremony.
Hometown: AR, then NC, but now Texas is home base.
Education/Work Background: I have a Bachelor’s in Spanish, MSW (Masters in Social Work), and am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
Peace Corps Placement (location and job): Youth in Development volunteer in Costa Rica.
How long have you been blogging?: I’ve blogged off and on over the years, but I have never been serious about it until now. I started this blog while in Peace Corps training.
What are the top reasons you chose to keep a blog while living abroad? I originally started this blog so my family and friends could keep up with what was going on during my service. However, after doing the Blogging Abroad course and realizing what all my community has to offer, I realized this would be a wonderful educational opportunity for others to learn about Osa, or the Zona Sur in general. This area is rich with biodiversity, indigenous culture, and beautiful souls who have made me feel at home. I want to share all that with anyone who is willing to read!
The Colegio Tecnico where Gloria volunteers in Costa Rica
Are there any challenges you’ve encountered with blogging while abroad? (If yes, have you found strategies to overcome any of them?) Finding consistent internet has been a huge issue, one that I haven’t quite figured out yet. I got a lot of good ideas from the blogging course, but sometimes I have a hard time putting things into words to adequately explain my heart about this place. I have a few ideas for some smaller posts like: what things cost, transportation, that kind of thing. It’s taking a little longer to put together than I thought it would.
What has been most rewarding about blogging? I’m much more aware of my surroundings in the sense that I’m always looking for things that would be interesting to share with others. It’s helped me start conversations with a lot more people and ask questions that I might have looked over before.
What advice would you give to new bloggers following in your footsteps? I think this experience is teaching me not to compare my blog to other blogs because each one is going to be very different. Also, be patient with yourself and your blog and give yourself time to figure out its personality. It’s likely that it will turn into something that wasn’t expected, and very likely better than was expected!
Photo challenge participants get 10 prompts by e-mail on the 1st of the month. They then share their best photo responses on their favorite social media account. All the prompts this month relate back to the theme of “My Town.”
The goal is to share captivating images online, with meaningful captions, in order to promote cross-cultural understanding in a fun, simple way.
A new format:
This month we tried a new edition of the Blogging Abroad Instagram Photo Challenge: one hashtag and as many posts as you want to contribute! In November’s #ThisIsMyLife challenge we saw a glimpse into the every day life of our bloggers abroad including everything from unusual grub to fantastic landscapes. However, most photo submissions were filled with the people that our bloggers see as a regular part of their life.
Let’s review the Top 5 photos of November’s ‘This Is My Life’ Challenge:
Writing a blog can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Sometimes the ideas are there and the words flow. At other times, your mind is blank, motivation waivers, and the words are—gone. Here are some exercises and ideas to help you get back on track and keep both you and your readers coming back for more:
1. The Cliff Hanger
One of the easiest ways to keep your readers (and yourself) interested is by enlisting in a method used by most prime time television shows worldwide: the cliff hanger.
You don’t have to match the drama in your life to that of a soap, but leaving a little mystery at the end of a post (even if you know the outcome) can draw readers back to your page. This doesn’t have to be a complex storyline, but simply a statement or two about future plans. If you know you’re going to a festival in a week’s time or that there is a special event at work, mention it in advance! Perhaps there is a local holiday or a wedding that you will attend in the near future… creating a little build-up for the event will not only bring your reader’s back but give you incentive to actually write about it!
2. Photos First
It has been said (just a handful of times) that a photograph is worth 1,000 words. If you enjoy photographing your journey use your pictures as inspiration.
When writer’s block gets to you, pick a photograph that is meaningful to you and write about it in detail! Explain the moment, your feelings at the time, how you got to that scenario… The next thing you know, a story unfolds itself. If you aren’t into photographing your blog, take a moment of meditation and reflect on the past week, try and pull an image or moment from memory that you can dissect in the same fashion.
3. Use Sense
In a writing course I took a couple of years ago, one of my first assignments was to go sit in a place of nature and write my way through 4 of the 5 senses: touch, smell, see, and hear. I sat down beside a creek in a Louisiana swamp and worked my way through them all… First by closing my eyes to listen and smell. With my eyes open, I really observed what was around me, touching the plants and grasses around me. I wrote down more detail than I’d ever imagine anyone wanting to read, but I still occasionally use the methods to bring more descriptive life to a scene.
4. A Simple Series
Find something that you enjoy writing about and look for it often. These may sound obvious, but the idea is to give your blog a reoccurring theme by discussing something that isn’t hard for you to experience regularly: different street foods, public transportation, food shopping, visiting a new hostel.
Set yourself an achievable goal given your subject choice, maybe bimonthly posts on trying a new recipe or a monthly post on discovering a new beautiful beach, and commit to that regular posting. You always have something to write about and your readers will enjoy following your discoveries and progress through the theme. (Note: this doesn’t have to be the main theme of your blog, just a component.)
5. Crowdsource
When you are really stumped for ideas, it doesn’t hurt to ask your friends, family and readers! They might not cure your writers’ block but they might provide enough ideas to send the creative sparks flying. Use this opportunity to write a post asking for feedback or ideas and give some appreciation to your readers and followers so far!
6. Duly Noted
My final and favorite piece of advice: carry a writing medium everywhere. It could be a small notebook and pen or the notepad application on your phone, but providing yourself with a quickly accessible way of recording ideas ensures that they are less likely to be lost and forgotten.
Learn more about creating and recording brilliant blog post ideas in Blogging Abroad’s Impact Academy course
Blog post ideas can be like buses, you wait forever for one and then they all come at once. Write down your ideas, no matter how small; write down something that inspires you or shocks you, makes you smile or frown. Create an idea bank for future posts and bear in mind the timelessness of each idea. A post about a current political situation or a seasonal festival should be posted in the moment. A post about the joys of children playing in a park is timeless and can be saved for a later date, if you hit a lull.
I hope some of these ideas will help you break through the block and get back to writing, or at least get some creative juices flowing again! One last thing to consider, from a personal perspective: sometimes it doesn’t hurt to take a break from blogging. I tried to start a blog 4 times in the last 3 years. Three of them lost momentum after just a few weeks (if that). I was in the midst of a university routine where the things I am most passionate about (the ocean, traveling, eating good food) were not really part of my life at the time. Trying to force myself to blog was doing more harm than good. After graduation, a few trips abroad and my acceptance into the Peace Corps, my inspiration and motivation found their way back to me. I have now been posting consistently, every 3-7 days, for over six months, and I have a dozen ideas in my ‘idea bank’!
As you are reading this, you are probably a part of the Blogging Abroad community and most likely abroad doing something you are passionate about. If you’re truly having writers’ block, allow yourself a blogging break, refocusing on your passions and the inspiration will come to you! In the meantime, these ideas are here to help, as are the other tools and resources on Blogging Abroad.
This is a guest post by Stav Friedman. Growing up, Stav lived across the globe with her family in exotic places such as Taiwan, Israel, England, and Guam. After high school, she went abroad on her own, adding Costa Rica and the US Virgin Islands to her ‘lived’ list. Once she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology, Stav joined the Peace Corps as a Coastal Resource Management Volunteer in the Philippines–where she is now! She loves to travel, eat great food, watch the sunrise, and spend as much time in the ocean as possible.
We live in a visual world these days. As digital cameras and cameras on phones have become the norm, it’s also become the norm to visually document everything. When you are writing a blog post, people don’t just want to read what you write, they want to see it, too.
You may be worried that since you don’t have a high quality camera, that you have to settle for mediocre images. The truth is, it’s not the gear that makes a photo great, it’s the eye that sees it, frames it and captures it.
Here are some tips to improve your photographic eye.
Look for Light
A monk is illuminated by butter lamps, or candles, in Boudhanath, Nepal. Rather than using a flash, which is distracting, I used the light from the candles to create a moodier picture.
Photography is all about light, so keep an eye on where your light sources are. Whether it’s the high-noon sun or buzzing fluorescent tubes or the glow of a fire, knowing what kind of light you are working with can help you look for interesting scenes to frame.
Using light and shadows in novel ways makes photos more interesting. An easy way to jazz up that sunset picture is to put someone in the frame; as long as you are still focusing on and exposing for the sky, they’ll turn out as a silhouette.
Using objects that cast shadows, like window blinds, can punch up photos taken indoors too. Don’t be afraid to move your positioning around to get better lighting for your framing.
Vary Your Vantage Points
The end of the first wash at a gold mine in Cameroon. By crouching down at the end of the wash, I was able to give a sense of importance to the machines being used here and get it all in my frame.
The vantage point from where your camera is when you take you picture can make all the difference. The easiest way to take a picture is to immediately put your camera up to the eye level you are seeing the scene at. However, that doesn’t always make for the most visually interesting images.
Shooting things from a low vantage point can make them seem bigger, and it imbues a sense of importance because the viewer is literally looking up at the subject. A high vantage point can make up for a fixed lens that doesn’t provide a wide angle view, and gives the viewer a sense of being above the subject. Even shooting from your waist can make the image more interesting, because it provides a new way of seeing things. Crouch down or find something to stand on to experiment with these framing techniques.
Do the Details
A shrine for protection on a bus in Thailand. These shrines are in almost every bus, and it’s a small detail that can set the scene for what bus travel is like.
Detail and scene setting images are just as interesting as action shots. While you may be used to seeing pots hanging on the wall above the indoor water cistern every day, those are the details that can be so interesting to your readers.
Look for small tableaus within the larger scene, like a single vendor and customer at a festival. If your equipment allows, focus just on the details and allow the background and foreground to blur or get close and crop everything else out.
If you are having trouble finding interesting details, look at what is grabbing the interest of children or ask them what they see. Kids see things that many adults overlook, simply because they are at a different eye level and they don’t always grasp the bigger picture.
Focus on Framing
Drummers at the Aboakyer festival in Ghana. Every part of the frame is filled, with the man in the foreground drumming and the man in the background. The main subject, the man in the foreground is cut off above the waist. However, the man in the background is rather awkwardly cut off at the knees.
Keep your frame in mind. Photography is inherently a selective activity because it only captures a framed portion of what is going on.
Think about every part of the frame and fill it. That may mean getting up close and in the middle of the action or it may mean stepping back to the edge of the crowd and getting everything, or somewhere in between.
Think about what those four edges are containing within them, and where they are cutting off. The natural places for people to be cut off at are the just below the shoulders, waist and full body; cutting people off at their legs looks really awkward. If something is in your framing that is distracting, either move it or move your body. You can also crop things out afterward.
Get experimental
Don’t be afraid to experiment. As long as you aren’t shooting on film, take a bunch of pictures. Try new angles, different settings, focusing on something unexpected, shooting through something like glass or fabric, using the self-timer or documenting something that seems mundane. This trial and error will give you plenty of practice to figure out how all of these techniques can make your images stronger. And you can always delete the ones that just didn’t work out.
This is a guest post by Christine Bedenis, a well-traveled twenty-something from the Midwest. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Thailand), now living and working in Ghana. She was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.
The instructor, Ben, is a photographer who happens to travel, but he’s also a really skilled teacher. He has a great way of explaining things that is easy to follow and keeps you engaged. This course has 37 video lessons and a dozen downloads that will help you:
choose the right camera and gear,
strategize to get more compelling images,
navigate the challenges of photography in foreign situations, and
master editing techniques in Lightroom and Photoshop
There are a number of social media scheduling tools that allow users to pre-schedule their posts on Instagram. The only one I’m aware of where you can actually “set it and forget it” is an Australian company called Schedugr.am. They found a loop hole to publish images and videos for you at whatever time you specify. They also charge a monthly fee and, in most cases, it will only be worthwhile for businesses (not so much for individuals publishing personal posts). Any other social media scheduler does not have the ability to post for you on Instagram, so what you do instead is set up the image and text for your post, and it will send a reminder to your smartphone at the specified time. You still have to manually hit publish.
Scheduling photo posts on Hootsuite
At Blogging Abroad, we run a monthly photo challenge that sends out 10 prompts by e-mail on the first of each month. Scheduling posts can really come in handy with something like this.
I (Michelle) actually schedule out all my photo responses to the #BAphotochallenge in advance, and it takes only about 20 minutes.
With a tool like Hootsuite (Buffer is another option), you can connect up to three social media accounts for free. With facebook and twitter, the posts you schedule will publish later automatically. With Instagram, you’ll need to install the Hootsuite app on your phone and manually publish the photo, but it will send you a notification at whatever time you designate with the photo and all the pre-written text.
Here’s the process I use to schedule posts on Instagram with Hootsuite:
1. On the first of the month, I pull up the #baphotochallenge prompts list and look through the pictures on my computer to find the images I want to use for each prompt.
2. I open the Hootsuite publisher on my computer, select my Instagram account, and upload the first picture. I then write a description with hashtags and select the date and time I want it to publish. Hit “schedule.”
3. Repeat step 2 for the remaining 9 photo prompts (or however many you already have images for).
4. At the scheduled time, I get a notification on my phone from the Hootsuite app. I click on it and it automatically puts the new image in my phone’s photo library and saves the pre-written text to my “clipboard.” It opens the photo in Instagram for me, I click “paste” to insert the pre-written text, and it’s ready to publish!
So now you know a little trick to save time and get all of your photo challenge pics posted at once! If you have any questions about the process, please post them in the comments below.
