Keeping in Touch Across Borders
Fresh ways to stay connected to friends around the world
This article was published in Abroad View's fall 2009 magazine.
By Molly Lister
Phone, e-mail, snail mail, and Facebook are probably the best options for keeping in touch with friends, whether you are about to study abroad or you recently returned home—but how about participating in a little creative communication?
Thor Steinhovden, a senior at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, is originally from Norway, so he plays online games with his friends to stay in touch. “I think with the available communication capabilities of today’s world, conversing with people far away is so continuous and occurs so frequently,” Steinhovden says. “So by playing games rather than just ‘catching up,’ it lets us communicate as if we were together.”
Northwestern University sophomore Dylan Lewis is trying a different route. He hopes to use music to keep in touch with his closest friends while they’re all abroad in different locations. Lewis will start off by creating an original piece of music on his guitar. He will then pass this along to his friend who plays the piano, and his next friend will complement it with another element. As it is passed along to other friends, each person will make an addition to the song that is influenced by his or her background, passions, and region. “Not only does it include something unique about every person’s study abroad experience,” Lewis says, “but it also helps us stay in contact through a passion that we all share.”
Others have returned to the pen-pal days of letter writing and package sending, two of the more personal ways to keep in touch. Both take some extra time and effort but are usually more valued and treasured by the receiver. Remember: to mail letters internationally, it is best to get stamps at your host country’s post office rather than in the States.
And for a more modern take on writing a letter—try recording one. You can use a handheld recorder, recording program on your computer, or cell phone and then e-mail the audio file to a friend. This makes e-mail a little more personal, as the recipient gets to hear the update in your own voice. And if a message isn’t enough, you can simulate a hangout session. Just pop in the same movie as your friend across the globe, hop on Skype, keep the video screen open, and it’s almost a date.
Whether you want to catch up through online games, a musical composition, or a “traveling item” you pass around, get together with your friends before studying abroad or before returning to the States, and make a plan. Make “dates” for phone conversations or weekly e-mails to ensure that everyone will be available. Keeping in touch globally has never been easier with so many methods of communication—the best way to do it is to find something you and your friends are passionate about, make a commitment, and keep it.