When Your “New Normal” Becomes A Memory
That’s a wrap.
A few days ago, the bajilionth plane I’d been on in the past month touched down, but this time it was more permanent. We landed in Philadelphia, and I was finally back home after five weeks of South America adventures.
Our cohort, as part of our pre-work assignments for this Social Sabbatical journey, chose the name “Team Cielo”. Cielo means “sky” in Spanish, which we felt had several relevant associations to our host country.
The Uruguay flag includes white and blue stripes, as well as a large (smiling) sun, so the “sky” theme certainly wasn’t a reach. There are also accounts that the name “Uruguay” means “river of painted birds”, so again there’s a metaphor. Additionally we liked the notion of the sky being a global unifier — no matter where you are in the world, we all look up to the same sky — AND that its bounds are limitless. That was what we adopted as our motto: Team Cielo, limitless like the sky.
I mention this because our last full day in Montevideo was dedicated to our final closing presentations, where each sub-team (the 12 of us were broken into four teams of 3, each assigned to a different project and host client) presented about their experience, project and final outcomes. We presented to each other, to colleagues from Pyxera Global and SAP (many dialed in virtually) and to the host clients themselves.
Watching each team share the work they’d completed in just a few short weeks, I realized that we’d brought that team motto to life. Despite fast-moving deadlines, battling bouts of jet lag, homesickness and the INSANE pollen counts in Montevideo and anything else that may have gotten in our way, we proved that our collective ability to ideate beyond the status quo and unlock new solutions for our host organizations was limitless. Like the sky.
In my team’s case, we rolled up our sleeves to help Anima identify a pathway towards socializing their successful dual studies learning model across Uruguay (doing so would help position so many more amazing youth from underserved communities to realize their academic and professional potential). Through lots of research, interviews and brainstorming, we created a plan for them to establish an Ambassador Network, where current and former students could spread the word about this immersive learning model and how it changed their lives. We created a launch strategy, communications plan, KPI scorecard and a toolkit of helpful resources, all with the goal to leave them in a position to realize their dream of a national dual studies learning model.
Another nice component of the final event was hearing some client organizations stand up and share what this experience had meant for them. It isn’t often that we get a true sense of the difference we might make in our day-to-day work, but in this case, we were gifted with that realization first-hand.
The rest of the day/night was a blur of laughs and tears. Anima treated our project team to lunch and surprised us with going away gifts…Team Cielo had a team building closing event where we shared our MBTI profiles and wrote each other going away messages….there was a dinner involved and then hugs and more tears as we started to say our goodbyes. Then I blinked, and those wheels were touching back down in Philadelphia.
I’ve shared some lessons and insights I’ve learned throughout my blog series. I’ll leave you with one last “a-ha” moment that I think summarizes nicely how I’ll bring these lessons with me forever.
My journey home included a four hour layover in Miami in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I don’t sleep on planes, so I was in a daze and desperate to just get home. Half-asleep, I got in line for a bagel stand at just past 6am. As I got near the front of the line, I heard the woman a few people in front of me place her order. Granted, I was now back home in the US where conversations were now mostly in English (which felt weird, I must say), but the woman and the employee weren’t understanding each other. The customer asked if they had just regular milk to use in her coffee, but the employee explained they only had half and half. The customer then said “I’ll just take plain”, but the employee again reiterated “we don’t have plain milk, we just have half and half”. As I mentioned, I was half asleep and about 3 people removed from the front seat of this discussion, but without thinking I said “I think she means she just wants her coffee black.” The customer confirmed, and the lightbulb of understanding went off for the employee, who began pouring the coffee. The customer turned and thanked me, and I surprised myself that I even got involved. I know why I did though; for the past 5 weeks (one week in Brazil, four weeks in Uruguay), I was at the mercy of others who had the patience and understanding to help me communicate. Whether it was our project assistant doing formal interpretation or a passer-by who heard me struggling with a waiter to ask for the check, every time someone was gracious enough to help me, it made a world of difference. So in that moment, where even in the same language I noticed a disconnect, I seized the opportunity to interject and help. It took barely any time, hardly any effort but made a huge difference. I’ve lived it….and now I’ll continue to seek ways to pay it forward.
So now I’m home, with the family I missed…and I find myself missing Uruguay, and those faces who became my family-away-from-home for all of those days. It helps that we’re in the throws of my favorite time of year, with my favorite holiday looming ahead (Christmas!) — but with this experience, I already received some of the greatest gifts I could hope for: memories, friendships, new perspectives and a newly found sense of inspiration.
THANK YOU: to SAP, to Pyxera Global, to Anima, to Uruguay, to the team who let me go for a month, to the cohort who worked alongside me for that same month….this will forever be one of the best experiences of my life.
#sapsocialsabbatical #sap4good #lifeatsap #uruguay #montevideo
