Remote Year: Adult Summer Camp or Village?
Today I ended up at a cute hipster cafe in old town Montevideo with another girl from the program.
We sat down at the marble table in the air conditioned room with bright windows, fresh baked loaves of bread, glasses of bright aguas saborizadas and had our first one-on-one conversation.
While meeting everyone and doing our big group dinners and activities has been fun and exciting, two weeks into it, a lot of us are starting to need and want a bit more alone time and smaller group interactions. I’ve enjoyed dinners with four total people at the table and other individual interactions where I got to spend an hour or two getting to know someone more in-depth than our introductory cocktail party pitch of hometown, recent location, job, sports/activities, and travel experience.
Many of us have joked that this whole Remote Year experience is like adult summer camp — more so than we imagined or anticipated.
Most of that, obviously, is an inevitable part of putting 75 strangers together in one place with activities planned by group leaders. Human instinct is to come in hot with excitement and anxiety, trying to present ourselves and make the “right” first impression while also adjusting to a brand new country and lifestyle.
It started off, naturally, deep in the freshman year of college orientation / summer camp / travel retreat phase. It makes sense that we look to Dave and Jason — our RY 2 Battuta (that’s our particular group name) staff — to tell us where to go and what to do. We are trying to make new friends so that we don’t feel isolated within the group of people we’re about to spend 12 months living and traveling with all over the globe. We’re networking to find out better ways to work remotely and evolve professionally.
But what comes next? We’re already transitioning a bit: not going to massive 30 person dinners as often. People are doing activities alone or in small groups. We’re finding our rhythm for work schedules and use of the coworking space. Now that we can pair most names and faces, we’re starting to get to know each other beyond our job title and previous location.
It’s a lot to be confronted with and try to navigate while also maintaining your work (or find a new job). So I don’t think anyone expects these first few weeks or even month in Montevideo to be particularly representative of what our entire Remote Year experience will look like.
However, there’s not some predetermined way that this experience and group dynamic will evolve — that’s up to us to define and cultivate.
Those of us that are older than 25 (in general) have been living more independently in the world for several years now. I know from conversations that I’m not alone in having a personal come-to-Jesus moment when I realized I was getting caught up in FOMO and high-school-cafeteria-seating stress, sacrificing some of my priorities and personal needs.
I intentionally didn’t do much research about my fellow RYers or read many blogs by the current group or really spend much time thinking about the actual experience much in advance.
First of all, I was so busy saying goodbye and preparing to come that I didn’t have the bandwidth to do those things and work and think about anything else. But I also didn’t want to come in with too many preconceptions about everyone or major expectations about what this experience would be like.
I signed up for Remote Year because it would provide me with a community when I needed it as well as structure / help with all the planning that a remote work + traveling lifestyle requires. But I also wanted to maintain my personal identity and independent lifestyle.
I have spent much of the past 3 years in particular learning how to be an independent, individual adult. I suppose that’s basically what all of life is about, but it’s been more pronounced and conscious recently.
I first started going to coffee shops by myself with a book, then movies, and later meals alone— previously an idea that sounded nightmarish and depressing. When I lived in New York, I started to spend my weekends going to yoga class, a coffee shop, one of the museums I was a member at, and maybe even a Broadway show — all by myself. Last year, once I settled into being a digital nomad, I did a 6 week solo trip around SE Asia.
I love doing things with other people, will excitedly talk someone’s ear off, happily get in front of a crowd — but I’ve found that I love doing things alone also.
And it’s not just a matter of enjoying it, I’m learning how it facilitates certain things that only develop and evolve when spending time by myself — things I don’t want to stop happening this year, or ever.
I’ve discovered that I’m much more creative than I previously thought. When I spend some time away from a computer and other people, observing the world and exploring on my own, I am constantly thinking about things I want to make or write or do. I have learned what I most enjoy about a city or out in nature — and what doesn’t interest me at all. I know what zaps my energy and what brings me back to life — whether that’s an activity out in the world or ensconced in my current “home”.
Over the past two weeks, I realized, I did very little of the things that I know are critical to my mental health and ensuring that I have a balanced life as an individual.
I have had some moments of discomfort and stress, sometimes because of incidents and situations, but also because my brain and body are reacting to this overwhelming adult summer camp dynamic.
I’ll feel panicky that I’m a social outcast and become sure that I will have no friends for the next 12 months because nobody likes me. I will text several people to ask about dinner plans even after spending a day or weekend surrounded by people. I worry about missing the next great meal or beautiful sunset or dance party or cute cafe or unique local cultural experience.
But I am starting to recognize the signs and symptoms, and I am getting back to being the current 29 year old adult version of me — not the 18 year old version of me immersed in welcome weekend overwhelm.
Last Monday, for the first time since leaving home, I practiced yoga, which has been a significant part of my life and physical + emotional health for the past couple years (including teacher training with my mom in India in April 2015). I am finally doing my research on activities in MVD that I am interested in and planning out what I want (and can safely) do alone. I am finding time to FaceTime / Skype friends and family back home. I am writing my therapist (via Talkspace, more on that to come).
As we talked over coffee today, we realized that Remote Year needs to (and will naturally) transition away from being adult summer camp into something else. But what should it become?
We were (thoughtfully) discussing someone from the group, trading insights about something we thought they might be feeling and struggling with, considering how one of us could potentially approach them to offer support or help.
As we talked about the situation, “it takes a village” popped into my head. I love reading definitions in the Oxford Dictionary app on my computer, so I looked up the phrase:
It takes a village is a proverb that leverages the cultural context and belief that it takes an entire community to raise a child. A child has the best ability to become a healthy adult if the entire community takes an active role in contributing to the rearing of the child.
Even after we’re over 18, even though we pay taxes and sign leases and drink alcohol legally, even we’re no longer considered children by society, we still need a village.
Humans are social creatures, and we are so much happier and healthier when we have a community around us, fulfilling different needs for one another — and both the giving and receiving are critical so each member feels both useful and supported.
Religion used to provide that for most people — and still does for many — creating a community with a regular routine, a support structure, a network for professional and personal needs, a social life. In college, the school is our village, providing almost if not all of the services that the community of students and faculty need to survive and flourish. Companies are now often the village for many people — look at Google, Apple and Facebook as quintessential examples of an employer providing more than just a workplace. Sports bring together millions of people to have shared experiences on a regular basis, often communing over food and drink, both in homes and public places. We are always seeking out our village.
Remote Year, to me, is filling the newly created niche need of establishing the village for people who work remotely and travel. Being a digital nomad is a new lifestyle, dependent on and a result of the ability to work remotely thanks to technology. There’s little existing precedent as to how to fashion and foster a community for people living this lifestyle.
As the second group ever of Remote Year, we Battutas have a unique opportunity to define that together, and we need to thoughtfully approach how our village will function and what our individual roles are in our special little community.
We are spending a year traveling around the world. We will spend one month in each city, long enough to become familiar but too short to consider it home. We will be in South America, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia — exciting places but not as easy to integrate into as Western Europe. We will experience personal and professional challenges and changes. We will miss home and loved ones. We will experience friction in our group. We will struggle with unforeseen difficulties and anticipated trials. We will long for our comfort zones even as we cherish the adventures we have outside of them.
We need to take an active part in contributing to the growth and success of our fellow RY Battutas. We can work to establish a true fellowship with one another. We can nourish and support and enrich each other’s lives. We can celebrate and grieve together.
We can be so much more than a fun adult summer camp — we can be a village. And, really, we will need to.
Katherine is a digital nomad, working remotely while she travels the world — living on the road since June 2014. She’s part of Remote Year 2 Battuta, starting February 2016.
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