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15 Sep Creative Ideas to Share Your Time Abroad

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A common obstacle that many bloggers run into is running out of inspiration. After a few months or years, the newness wears off, work routines settle in and the cultural differences are second nature, so blog posts frequency trails off until it’s time to go home. The blogger returns home and reminisces about their time abroad and goes back to their blog to try and remember all the little things they forgot about. And the posts kind of peter out. That doesn’t have to be the end of the blog though!

Blogging abroad doesn’t just have to happen while the blogger is physically away from their home country; blogging abroad can encompass all of the things relating to time spent away. And with the wide variety of creative expressions out there, blogging doesn’t just have to be words, pictures and videos.

Here are some ideas on how to creatively process experiences abroad, even after you’ve returned home.

Compose Songskeith-may

Maybe you spent your downtime abroad learning how to play some simple songs on the guitar. Or maybe you picked up a local instrument to foster a connection with your school’s music class. Or maybe you were making music for years before you went overseas. Either way, writing songs can be a great way to commemorate some of those relationships or experiences that are hard to explain through a blog post.

Keith May wrote and recorded an entire album, “127 Daughters,” about his time teaching English at a university in China, and is reaching a new audience by playing small shows in his hometown.

You don’t have to do a full album, it could just be a song that you post occasionally, but music is a great way to share your cultural experience.

Create Visual Art

Sometimes you’re too busy taking everything in and enjoying the experience to take out your camera to capture it all. Other times you have a decent picture but you can’t quite get the lighting right or get rid of the blur. Maybe you had a small sketchbook with you the whole time you were abroad. Sketching, drawing or painting these memories from your experiences can be another way to share the things that really stand out about your time abroad.

They don’t have to be big, grand scenes, they can be the small, intimate moments of how the woman at the market was always hunched over her table of vegetables or the student on the side of the volleyball court who kept score. Of course, it could also be that gorgeous sunset that you saw everyday. Either way, visual art can create a new window into the culture you spent so much time in.

Make a Comic

Everyone who’s ever lived abroad has small stories to tell, and some of them take a lot of time to set up – by setting the scene, explaining who was there and the social cues and reaction of the other people. You can side step all of that through illustrating these stories in a comic form.

It’s the ultimate way to “show, not tell” what was happening at the time, and an easy way to highlight cultural differences (people dressed differently, facial expressions, etc.) that are difficult to work into a written story.

A fun thing could be creating the comics chronicling your time abroad, allowing the subtle changes in your own behavior, dress and reactions show in the art work. While not a comic about a time abroad, Rocket Llama, a thru-hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail, is illustrating her time long-distance hiking which can provide some inspiration.

comic

Image courtesy of Rocket Llama

There are lots of other ways to get creative with sharing your cultural experience abroad. Here are some other ideas which you could always share online in a photo or video clip:

  • Embroidery
  • Wood carving
  • Sewing
  • Pottery
  • Dub poetry
  • Collage on objects
  • Tree ornaments

What are some creative hobbies you have that you could use to share about your time abroad on your blog?

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 in Ghana, and was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.

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30 Aug August Photo Challenge Highlights: #Food

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We’re back with another edition of our monthly Photo Challenge round up!

What is the #baphotochallenge?

In a nut shell: Photo challenge participants get 10 prompts by e-mail and share their best photo responses on their favorite social media account. All the prompts this month relate back to the theme of “Food.”

The goal is to share captivating images online, with meaningful captions, in order to promote cross-cultural understanding in a fun, simple way.

We hope many more will join in to share the stories of their host countries by either using ten of our previous prompts, or signing up to get a fresh set of prompts on the 1st of each month.

Join our monthly Photo Challenge!

Note: If you are viewing this post by e-mail or feed reader, please click here to see the full post properly formatted.

#Sweets



#Fruit



#Seasonal



#NotMyFavorite


@bloggingabroad From TOP to BOTTOM (L➡️R), we have 1. Pârjoale (pr. Par-JOLE-ay), fried ground meat patties made from #beef #pork #lamb or all of the above. 2. Sliced fresh tomato (roșii), cucumber (caștraveți), onion (ceapa) and cheese (cașcaval). 3. Fried vânătă (VUH-nuh-tuh), #eggplant typically prepared with mayo. 4. Frigorui (pr. FRIG-or-RU-ee), BBQ pork, chicken or beef. 5. Șubă (pr. SHOE-buh), a layered combo of beets, potato, carrot, onion, fish and mayo. 6. Plăcentă (literally pie, pr. pluh-CHIN-tuh) stuffed with what appears to be brînză (goat cheese) and egg. And finally, up front and center, 7. răcitură (pr. ruh-CHI-TOUR-uh), which is #notmyfavorite 😳 Fried #chicken or #duck is placed in the center of a platter and the preparer adds liquid dressings onto the plate. Afterwhich the platter is placed into the refrigerator to congeal. The result: this gelatinous plate of "goodness". 😳 For the life of me, I've yet to get passed the thought of #cold #savory #jello in my #mouth and therefore have never quite indulged in this #moldovan #delicacy. Shout out to @roseerineide for the superb photo! All your traditional Moldovan eats right here! #baphotochallenge #food #moldova #poftăbună

A photo posted by izzygirl (@izzie_gal) on


#Bread

@bloggingabroad Bread!! That's it. 😊 Glumesc (joking). Bread (or pîine pr. puh-naay) has been a staple for most European countries since Neolithic times (some 10,000 years ago) and still remains a staple today. It is cheap, easy to make and rather filling when there is nothing else to #eat Today, #Moldovans continue to practice old #Russian traditions. For example, when #moldoveni welcome guests (as they did us #peacecorpsvolunteers ), natives dress in traditional clothing and present guests with #bread and #salt. In general, bread (in particular a colac), is covered with a hand-made #embroidered cloth and the salt sits inside a tub within the #colac where guests are instructed to break a piece off, dip the bread and eat it. Afterwhich, guests are said to have plentiful lives. ❤️ Pictured here are an array of creative ways to prepare bread. My #favorite is in the lower left, where #hostmom has made two continuous braids. Bread can also be purchased from local stores (middle right). But guess what, typically those are home-made too! Bread is served at weddings, on Christmas and at EVERY #masa (of which I steer clear) but I LOVE bread with yummy home-made preserves or butter. You have not lived until you've had Moldovan butter! #poftăbună #baphotochallenge #food

A photo posted by izzygirl (@izzie_gal) on



#Unexpected



#SpecialOccasion



#WhatsForDinner



#MyPantry



#StreetFood

Another #food post for the August @bloggingabroad #BAPhotoChallenge before I leave my beloved #Moldova for vacation in Romania. This stand at the bus station has one of my favorite Moldovan foods: pies! These delicious items are bread stuffed with different fillings (here, from left to right they are stuffed with cheese, cabbage, and potatoes). This is a dish I'm told every woman *should* master in order to become a good wife and mother. There are different recipes and styles. For example, I prefer baked pies; these are fried. These are savory pies, there are also sweet ones filled with apples, cherries, or other fruit. There are so many delicious pies out there, but the most delicious placinte I know of are made by my first host mom, Mrs. Rusu in Budesti. Pies bought like this, as #streetfood, are usually filling and taste okay. Hers are a culinary art! #PeaceCorpsVegetarians #pcveats #HowISeePC

A photo posted by Rebecca Lehman (@lehmanrebecca) on



Join the next photo challenge with all new prompts on the 1st of the month. Sign up here!

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4 Tips for Sharing Cultural Posts on Social Media

07 Aug 4 Tips for Sharing Cultural Posts on Social Media

Posted at 13:18h in Photo Challenge 0 Comments
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These days, most of us document our lives digitally, sharing online updates with high school acquaintances, that guy you hung out with on a solo weekend trip to an island, your cousins who moved to Europe and, in some cases, total strangers.

As someone who is living abroad, the vast majority of the people you are connected with through social media won’t have the chance to experience another culture in-depth and first hand. But second hand, from your pictures, videos and stories is a way that your connections can experience a bit about your community.

Not only that, but social media posts are a much more passive way for them to learn about the culture that you are immersed in. Your posts will pop up in feeds they already have a habit of checking, as opposed to actively clicking the link to your blog. This is why taking a little extra time to consciously craft your posts on social media can be so important.

Picture Captions

Thoughtful captions can give people a base understanding of what is happening in the picture. Explain the basics of the festival that you’re at. Mention the beliefs for why certain jewelry is worn. Detail the relationship between the people pictured. Explore the significance of the symbols used in the architecture.

Whatever is in your photos, I guarantee there is something in there that can share a piece of the culture you live in, even if it is mundane to you.

Try to keep it to two or three sentences, so that the captions don’t get clipped. If you do end up writing more, have the first sentence or two be something that causes curiosity and inspires people to click “Read more…”

Captions may also inspire people to ask more thoughtful questions; good captions can provide the information they need to probe a bit more.

Video Clips

Keep video clips short. There are a variety of video editing apps for smart phones out there (the one above uses the “Quik” app). Find one that suits your skills and needs.

Instagram limits videos to one minute, but that doesn’t mean you need to use the full minute if the action is only for 20 seconds.

Cut your video down to the essential part of what you want to share. Some of the best kinds of short videos are able to tell a very short story, or have a beginning, middle and end to them. Whether it’s the beginning, middle and end of a dance through the market or the beginning, middle and end of a rock, paper, scissors throw-down. You can add additional clarifying information in the caption to give context to your video, particularly if the video you’re sharing is a snippet of your day or an event, and not an edited-together kind of production.

Conversations

Share snippets of your conversations with people, particularly when you learn something new or surprising, or maybe when you’ve done something that gives you a sense of belonging.

Give a bit of context to the conversation, such as who the other people are and where, but try and let the cultural information come from the back and forth. Maybe you want to share how you bargained and were able to get the price down to less than half of the initial offer. Traditional back and forth greetings are another example of conversations that are cultural markers.

Again, no matter how mundane it is to your life now, it’s a part of the culture you live in now, and that is really what can open up people’s eyes to other cultures.

Tagging


Put some careful thought into hashtags.

Add some that even locals are using for what you are posting about, that way the people who see your post can find posts from people who are a part of the culture.

Don’t be afraid to make up your own hashtag to give some context or tell a fuller story of what’s going on. Think of the hashtags as a bit of insider information.

Also consider tagging the location of your photos. We live in a world of Google Street View, where people can see nearly anywhere by dropping a little yellow person on a map. But by tagging your location, you’ll be able to make those places on the map that much more real to the people you are connected with.

—

What have been some of the more successful ways you’ve been able to share cross-cultural information through social media? Leave your tips 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 in Ghana, and was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.

 

Join our monthly Photo Challenge to promote cross-cultural understanding on social media!

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4 Mistakes to Avoid On Your Cross-Culture Blog | Blogging Abroad

02 Aug 4 Mistakes To Avoid on Your Cross-Culture Blog

Posted at 08:17h in Blog Tips 0 Comments
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There are plenty of benefits to blogging while you’re abroad. But if you aren’t careful, you could run into some pitfalls as well.

To help you avoid the mistakes that we see over and over again on blogs around the world, we compiled this quick list to keep you on track:

Missed Opportunities

Cuenca-Ecuador - 40

You will be hard pressed to find a more captive audience than when people are following your blog while you’re abroad. People want to live vicariously through your adventure, and they will be inspired by it.

The true power of your blog is that it will multiply the number of people who get to benefit from what you’re experiencing abroad. You will inevitably be learning and growing through your cross-cultural exchanges, but so will your readers! Don’t miss the chance to multiply your impact by promoting cross-cultural understanding through your blog posts.

Think of yourself as a digital Ambassador. You represent your home country to your host community. And you gather valuable insights from your host community to share with folks back home. You get to explore the best of both cultures and demonstrate their value to each other. You’ll likely become an expert in the downfalls of both cultures, as well, and will thus have the tricky responsibility of painting an honest and balanced picture for your readers.

Too Much Info, Too Little Editing

The people who read your blog will either be interested in you or what you’re doing – or both – and there’s no doubt that they’ll want to hear from you. But even your closest friend is going to struggle if all of your blog posts are overwhelmingly long and rambling.

Consider what things might be most interesting to your audience. A play-by-play of your entire day may be too much information and better left to your personal journal. Instead, try to share only one theme or story per blog post and practice editing your thoughts into something cohesive and easy-to-read.

Always proofread. Your readers are taking time out of their day to check in on your blog, so make sure you’re publishing something of quality. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but a sloppy blog post is not going to inspire people to come back for more.

Risky Business

university-student-1464467_1280

Many new bloggers forget how public their blog really is. Although you may assume that only friends and family are reading, unless the blog is password protected, the truth is that any random stranger can find it.

That’s why it’s always wise to limit what personal information you share on your blog. Publishing your address, or even sharing pictures of your front door, could be problematic if it falls into the wrong hands.

Consider having another method to share private or culturally sensitive information only with people you trust – whether it’s a private facebook group, e-mail list, or in one-on-one conversations.

Watch Your Language

When living abroad, you’ll probably experience all kinds of new things. It’s easy to let words like “weird” or “crazy” slip out when describing incomprehensible cultural things to people back home.

Remember that what may be “common sense” where you come from, may not be “common” or “sensible” in other cultures – and vise versa. It is important to guard against our natural tendency to be critical of cultural practices and attitudes which are different from our own.

Try to look at cultural differences objectively, avoid words that portray them negatively, and use your blog to promote cross-cultural understanding by explaining the Why behind these behaviors and attitudes in your host culture. You don’t have to like it or agree with it, but you can help others understand why it happens.

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29 Jul July’s Photo Challenge Highlights: #Community

Posted at 15:30h in Photo Challenge 0 Comments
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Welcome to our fourth monthly Photo Challenge round up!

What is the #baphotochallenge?

In a nut shell: Photo challenge participants get 10 prompts by e-mail and share their best photo responses on their favorite social media account. All the prompts this month relate back to the theme of “community.”

The goal is to share captivating images online, with meaningful captions, in order to promote cross-cultural understanding in a fun, simple way.

We hope many more will join in to share the stories of their host countries by either using ten of our previous prompts, or signing up to get a fresh set of prompts on the 1st of each month.

Join our monthly Photo Challenge!

Note: If you are viewing this post by e-mail or feed reader, please click here to see the full post properly formatted.

#StreetLife




 #HiddenGem



 #Pets

BAphotochallenge pets

#Green

My morning walk has been looking exceptionally #green the past few days, thanks to this unexpected rain. #BAphotochallenge

A photo posted by Ashlyn Anderson (@ashlyn_renae14) on



#School



#Inspired



#Neighbor



#CultureShock



“#Bloggingabroad #Jamaica #Community #Cultureshock Apparently these plants grow fake hair! Things I saw on the way home from the river!”

#SomethingILove



#AmericaEverywhere



Join the next photo challenge with all new prompts on the 1st of the month. Sign up here!

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Common mistakes to avoid on your blog's About page - for culture bloggers | Blogging Abroad

17 Jul Common Mistakes To Avoid On Your Blog’s About Page

Posted at 08:58h in Blog Tips 0 Comments
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As managers of a fantastic community of bloggers from around the world, we are regularly interacting with hundreds of different blogs. We’ve seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.

Since our aim is to better equip folks who are bridging cultures through blogging, we wanted to share a few simple tweaks that could improve the effectiveness and quality of your blog.

The About page

There are a few foundational elements that every blog needs in order to connect effectively with readers. The “About page” is one of these key elements.

An About page is one of the most important and most commonly viewed pages on almost any blog. It may go by different names (About Me, FAQs, etc.), but essentially, it introduces the readers to the blog and its author(s). Because so many readers visit the About page, bloggers should be very intentional about what is published there.

Think about it from a new reader’s perspective. What are they looking for? What do they need to know?

To help you answer these questions and create a more effective blog, we’ve put together this list of the most common mistakes we’ve seen on blog About pages.

Mistakes to avoid on your About page

    1. Not having one

      We were shocked to come across blogs that don’t have any About page at all. As a new reader, we immediately look for more information about the author and when we can’t find it, there’s a big disconnect. Most often, we won’t bother coming back.

      Granted, some folks prefer to remain anonymous, and there are a few ways to do this. For example, you can use your initials or an alias instead of your full name. Giving general background info without being too specific still helps satiate the reader (You could say you’re a teacher from “the Northwest,” rather than naming the exact town you come from).

      If you don’t want strangers reading your updates, most blogs can be made private or you can password-protect certain posts. Alternatively, you may want to consider sending your updates by e-mail so they’re not public on the web at all.

 

    1. Oversharing contact info

      Consider that just about anyone can find and access your online blog – from your taxi driver to the bots that want to send you spam. As we mentioned in the first point, there are ways to protect your personal information even if you have a very public blog.

      For safety reasons, we recommend only giving out your physical address and e-mail to friends and family by using a more private forum. If new blog readers want to get in touch with you, try setting up a contact form on your site.

 

    1. Out of date info

      Perhaps the most common mistake people make with their About pages is they “set it and forget it.” It’s a bit confusing when an About page reads, “I’m going to Paris next month to study French!” but they’ve been blogging from France for the past year already.

      If you wrote your About page when you first set up your blog, it’s time to check on it! Make sure the information is still accurate and, preferably, in present tense.

 

  1. Omitting the big questions

    A truly great About page will put the reader first. What do they want to know?

    Usually there are just a few big questions that most readers want to know: Who are you? Where are you? What are you doing abroad? Why are you doing it? When and for how long?

    It’s a good idea to include a current picture of yourself, especially if it’s an image that gives a sense of your daily life abroad, and perhaps a map (if you’re somewhere people may not be familiar with). You could even do a Frequently Asked Questions section based on the most common things friends, family, and strangers back home are curious about.

We hope this article has provided you some simple steps to refine your About page.

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04 Jul How to Find Freedom in a Daily Blogging Practice

Posted at 14:22h in Blog Tips 0 Comments
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This post is by Tory Paez, a member of our Blogging Abroad community who is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer with her partner in Costa Rica. 

Prior to Peace Corps, I never actively wrote about or reflected on my experiences abroad. I flew, drove, bused, boated, and walked — documenting through Facebook, Instagram, letters and emails to loved ones, and the occasional random journal entry. My memories of trips are scattered, with only the most unforgettable moments imprinted in my mind.

But as my partner, Dan, and I prepared to enter into the Peace Corps, we knew we wanted to have a collected history of our experience. We also knew we wanted to share our daily triumphs and failures with our family and friends back home.

We scoured the internet for inspiration and advice on how best to maintain a blog for two years, given obvious challenges like management of workload, lack of consistent access to wi-fi, and simply not “needing it” anymore.

We decided to keep our blogging process simple: one post a day. We selected the Tumblr platform and created the guidelines listed below.

Tory With CR Women

Tory working with Costa Rican women

Guidelines for Daily Blogging

  • Share any type of media: We tell stories through words, photos, videos, links, songs, quotes — anything to fully and accurately capture our experience. We select each daily post with a single purpose: depict something about today. It can be sentimental, upsetting, silly — anything, really. Anything.
  • Write as little or as much as you want: We don’t have a minimum or maximum word count. A post can simply be about a Costa Rican dicho (phrase) or it can be multiple paragraphs describing our quest to discover all the soccer fields on this beautiful island. We freed ourselves from having to meet preconceived expectations of what a blog should be.
  • No “soul searching” requirements: I often felt intimidated when reading about people’s life-changing Peace Corps experiences. How could every day be so life altering, so profound? We felt unnecessary pressure to create unique, insightful content all the time. With our blog, we write more sentimental posts, but not every day. We depict the day as it comes.
  • It’s not all about you: Though we are the primary authors of our blog, we strive not to be center stage. Peace Corps has a third goal: to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. Our blog aims to highlight the people of Costa Rica and of our site: Isla de Chira. From the food to the landscape to the many talents of our friends to the universal usage of emojis, nothing is off limits.

 

And this brings me to our final guideline: When depicting your experience, be true to yourself. Over four months into service, we are still excited to contribute to our blog. It’s authentic to who we are as individuals and as a couple. It’s not trying to be anything it’s not.

Dan On Boat

Dan getting a different perspective of the region by boat

Reflect on your blogging goals. Determine what is most important to you. Create a realistic blogging regimen. Document your experience in a way that is enjoyable for both you and your readers. Be true to your personality, your experience and maybe entertain just a bit.

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Blogging Abroad Photo Challenge Round Up for June: #Home Away From Home

28 Jun June’s Photo Challenge Highlights: #Home

Posted at 07:41h in Photo Challenge 0 Comments
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Welcome to our third monthly Photo Challenge round up! This month has been all about everyone’s Home Away From Home. Photo challenge participants get 10 prompts by e-mail and share their best photo responses on their favorite social media account.

The goal is to share captivating images online, with meaningful captions, in order to promote cross-cultural understanding in a fun, simple way.

We hope many more will join in to share the stories of their host countries by either using ten of our previous prompts, or signing up to get a fresh set of prompts on the 1st of each month.

Join our monthly Photo Challenge!

Note: If you are viewing this post by e-mail or feed reader, please click here to see the full post properly formatted.

#ViewFromMyWindow

#ViewFromMyWindow Blogging Abroad Photo Challenge (more…)

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24 Jun The importance of being an ethnographer online

Posted at 09:09h in Blog Tips 1 Comment
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One of the best parts about living abroad is the window into different lives that your relationships can provide. Just by becoming friends with people in your new country of residence, you’ll find yourself taking part in new customs and rituals, and sometimes incorporating them into your own life. You may find these rituals exciting and want to share them with your readers, but when you try to do more research online about them, your searches come up empty.

The further afield you are from the capital city, the more likely you are to find and take part in customs and rituals that likely haven’t been written about in English before, which makes you as a blogger an important voice for your community, and the world at large.

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There are several ways to approach writing about these in a cross-culturally sensitive way. Pick one that suits you and your blog’s voice and style best.

Narrative

Stretch your creative writing muscles and tell the story of your unique experience from beginning to end. Remember to include good storytelling conventions such as building tension, climax and a resolution. Engage all of the senses of your readers, describing not just what is going on during the ritual, but the sounds, the smells, the tastes. Be sure to include some dialogue, or paraphrased dialogue from your community members, as they are going to be the best explainers for what is happening and why at the event. Try to center them and what the ritual is for them and their culture, rather than your own interpretation of it.

Ethnographic

Think of yourself as an anthropologist; anthropologists, when working on ethnographies try to generate cultural understanding by providing context through an in depth look and multiple data sources. Your writing for this may be more technical and formal than the narrative style. You’ll want to talk to a number of people about the custom and include their points of view and interpretations. Allow them to answer questions that are open-ended. Try your best to remain objective and leave your own experiences out of the writing.

Interview

Oftentimes, there is someone who is the center or facilitator of a cultural custom. Find out who that person is for what it is that you want to write about, or someone who would have in depth knowledge, and interview them. Prepare a set of questions ahead of time and format your blog post as a sort of Q and A. As in the ethnographic style, try to ask open-ended questions, to allow them to talk about what they think is important for the ritual. But don’t be afraid to ask about any specifics you may have noticed when you took part.

Visually

So many customs, festivals and rituals provide such a rich visual feast. These are also often the time that we as guests in the community are encouraged to take pictures and videos. Use that to your advantage, if it is something that you are encouraged to do, and take as many pictures and videos you can. Compile a photo essay or edit together a video of what you saw and experienced. However, this doesn’t get you off the hook from talking to people. Make sure that you are captioning your pictures or perhaps adding a voiceover to your video explaining the meaning and reasoning behind what is happening in the visuals. Try to place the pictures in context, both culturally and for what is happening in the custom.

Dive in deeper and check out some great examples of culturally-focused writing from our Blog Challenge round-ups:

Is there anything you’ve written about that seems like it’s the first time in English? Are there any things in your host culture that you’ve tried to learn more about, but haven’t been able to? Let us know in the comments; we’d love to hear your thoughts on how to write about these things.

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 in Ghana, and was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.

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Why Blogging Abroad Is Meaningful Work - Guest post by Peace Corps Volunteer | BloggingAbroad.org

12 Jun Why Blogging Abroad Is Meaningful Work

Posted at 08:22h in Blog Tips 0 Comments
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Bridging cultures

As countries around the world seek to advance and connect, Peace Corps has long been an organization at the forefront of both development and cross-cultural connection. This is evident in the three goals of Peace Corps:

    1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained Volunteers.
    2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
    3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Peace Corps Volunteers of the 21st century have access to technology that their predecessors never dreamed of. But with the power of access comes great responsibility: the Peace Corps Blog was born.

Volunteer bloggers

Volunteers often start blogging strong. Their excitement fuels updates, committing cultural faux pas provide easy and hilarious content, and everything seems so new…for a while.

Then an incredible transition happens. Through integration, gaining cultural understanding, and the simple passing of time, a PCV’s host country becomes a little more like home. Volunteers might say later that this is when they really started to feel like they hit their stride, but it is also often where their blogging faded away. It doesn’t have to be though.

Why it’s worth it

Keeping a Peace Corps Blog can be meaningful and worthwhile work. Even if it hasn’t been updated in what you feel is too long, here are six reasons to find some Internet, get yourself a cup of tea (or mate, or kava, or airag, or…) , and give blogging another go:

Peace Corps’ 3rd Goal: “to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” – Sharing about our host country, people, customs, and more is literally a third of the Peace Corps job description. While our 3rd goal work continues long after we return to the states, you will never again have such a captivated audience as you do during your actual service. Whether you’re a month in, a year in, or only have a few months left, it’s never too late to capitalize on that intrigue. Peace Corps blogging can be an integral part of your job as a volunteer.

Blog to record your memories and to create a treasure trove of stories. – When we’re living an adventure, it’s easy to think that we will remember every little detail for the rest of our lives: how bright and colorful the houses are, the smells of the market, the way the children run and tackle you when you arrive at school. And while we will remember a lot, there’s much and more that can be lost to time. Blogging your stories and experiences, both big and small, can help you create a collection to look back on years in the future.

Writing can be a creative outlet and/or a new skill to hone. – Creative PCVs can find a wonderful release in the craft of writing, but even those who do not consider themselves wordsmiths have something to gain as well. Learning or improving your writing skills makes you more competitive in today’s work world. Resumes and cover letters get your foot in the door, succinct and effective reports are essential for funding and grants, and a well-crafted email can almost be considered magic.

Reflective volunteers are effective volunteers. – In the world of education, having a reflective practice is highly encouraged. As an educator and PCV in the Education Sector, I’ve personally experienced the value of reflecting on my lessons, connections, struggles and successes and believe they have made me a better teacher. The same can be said for Peace Corps Volunteers. Blogging gives Volunteers both a platform for personal and professional reflection. Reflections on successes as well as struggles can also help readers understand why Peace Corps is called the “toughest job you’ll ever love.”

Seeing is believing. – Using pictures and media brings your stories to life. While some friends and family might be lucky enough to visit you in country and immerse themselves in your post first hand, for the rest of the world your stories will be just that, stories. Blogging gives PCVs a chance to combine stories with visuals and sounds to help those back home experience a bit of the country you’ve come to love.

You never know what connections you’ll make! – If your blog is open for anyone to view, you never know who might stumble upon your site and connect with you. Whether RPCVs from your host country, current PCVs stationed in posts around the world, or people from non-profits looking to connect with someone on the ground to get a project running, you are the world’s oyster. Once we even had someone who works at Peace Corps Headquarters send us this:
“I was asked to provide a quick story of Education Volunteer success for the Performance and Accountability Review that goes to Congress annually. On a hunch, I went to yours and Andrew’s blog and pulled off your comment on the STEP program. So you’ve helped us justify ourselves to Congress.”

In this ever-increasingly connected world, connections matter, and your blog can help you reach contacts you never dreamed of.

Whether you started blogging strong and slowly faded, or you’re still posting away, may these 6 reasons help you vanquish your writer’s block and reconnect you to the meaningful work that is Peace Corps blogging.

This is a guest post by a member of the Blogging Abroad global community, Emily Nilsen. She and her husband are Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Nicaragua and blogging at May We Suggest.

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