Keeping Your Connection Overseas

Those with hemophilia might just be among the most cosmopolitan folks around, considering the number of international friendships formed at hemophilia camps around the world. An international friendship can indeed be a special relationship, allowing each individual to learn about the other’s culture and providing a constantly-rewarding friendship. In many instances, friendships that begin at a hemophilia camp become the foundation for a lifelong friendship.

So, visit them! Obviously you won’t be able to visit frequently, given the cost and time required when your friend lives overseas, but it’s good to make an effort to see each other every now and again. Sometimes, you might be able to arrange to meet somewhere for a vacation that’s halfway between your two homes. And if the other person can host you, it automatically cuts down on your vacation costs.

In the not-too-distant past, keeping in touch with long-distance friends, when visits were out of the question, was restricted to letter writing. These days, letter writing is a bold, old-school approach, but it still feels great to get an actual letter in the mail. Every once in a while, take time to write one to your friend. It can make for a really personal communication, and because it takes time to sit down and write something instead of shooting off an email, it can make for a unique form of communication. Although letter writing is still a solid approach to keeping in touch, there are a number of other tools available that can make maintaining these friendships easier:

1) Skype/Video-chat: Technology has vastly improved in recent years. Enough, in fact, to make video chat one of the best ways to keep in touch with your overseas friends. Sometimes, you want to see your friends face or try to replicate an in-person chat. For those moments, Skype can really be fun.

2) Social media: Just about everyone is on Facebook these days, and why not? It’s a great way to keep in touch with your friends, share photos, videos, and exchange messages with one another on a daily basis. Social media makes the distance shrink when you can easily browse photos of your friends’ weekend barbecue, or see a video from their family vacation. Tumblr is a fun micro-blogging platform that people can also tap into – just follow your friends’ blogs and share links to interesting news stories, or more photos and videos.

3) Email: If you bonded over your similar taste in music, why not send one email per week about what you’re listening to? It’s a great way to keep one another up-to-date on your recent discoveries, particularly if it’s the subject that you first bonded over.

However you keep in touch, remember how unique an overseas friendship is and how fortunate you are to have close connections with people from other cultures.