Checking in from #DRM17

Halfway through the month, and we haven’t killed each other (or our computers) yet!

Day 1, coffee by the pool

We are nearing the end of our full second week here as a team in El Salvador in what is our inaugural Dynamo Remote Month! So much has happened since everyone arrived on April 1! So far, we have:

• Somehow, sort of, adjusted to the heat of Central America (the ocean is 30°C guys!),
• Cooked around 20+ group meals (aka, a lot of tacos 🌮),
• Gone through at least 16 giant carafons de agua (necessary when you can’t drink the tap water),
• Been the most casually dressed people at quite a fancy restaurant,
• Rode in the bed of a truck to get to said fancy restaurant,
• Lost one person who decided to return home early for personal reasons,
• Lost another person who is heading to 🇳🇮Nicaragua for some vacation time,
• Gained two more people who are joining us for the rest of the month,
• Realigned personal expectations for this adventure to the reality of living & working in a developing country,
• Volunteered twice at the REMAR Orphanage here in El Tunco (and we’ll be going back twice more),

Sharing a Pollo Campero lunch with the kids at REMAR

• Went through way more anti-perspirant than we thought was possible,
• Embraced local transportation 🚌 (chicken busses, I’m looking at you!),
• Done three massive group grocery runs into La Libertad (on a chicken bus, of course),
• Met and befriended other remote workers 💻 in the area,
• Started feeling like we are part of the little community of El Tunco,
• Hiked into a canyon and jumped into three different waterfalls (then proceeded to, almost all, get heat stroke from the walk back up),

Trying not to die as we climb up! Taminique Waterfalls

• Accepted, adjusted, and figured out how, to work with much slower internet speeds than we are used to (video calls, y’all!),
• Conquered the rocky beach walk at high-tide, between town and home, many, many times,
• Worked through a few different bouts of sickness (both of the physical and the bacterial kind),
• Troubleshooted many a flickering hangout call,
• Learned how to tag-team video meetings, as a group, when your home wifi network has decided to be even more slow than normal,
• Became over-communicators with our other colleagues, in order to keep the communication flow open,
• When the last thing you want to do is work from the house, we’ve discovered our new favourite places to work from (looking at you Kayu, even though the passing trucks are a menace to phone calls),
• Launched a website 🍾 🎉 (actually, technically, two!),

Special kids lessons with Puro Surf on Playa San Blas

• 🏄 Surfed nearly every single day we’ve been here,
• Realised we don’t necessarily need to see each others faces when we’re on calls with each other,
• Figured out what it means to work and live with your colleagues,
• Overcame our own individual worries and stresses when it comes to being able to produce good work while remote (and using slower internet)
• Practiced empathy in so many different ways, and experienced so much understanding and empathy from our co-workers that are not here,
• Watched “our dogs” chase a group of cows around our property (this happens nearly every day),
• Found our own individual routines that help us get into a work-zone,
• Started realizing what it takes to truly be a remote-friendly company.

If you haven’t been following along, we’ve been sharing quite a lot on our Instagram stories so make sure to check it out @DynamoMTL! Or follow our personal adventures using #DRM17.