Here is a summary I put together for Holly's website Center for Interim Programs. There are several people who contributed their experiences and you can find them on the website.
Have you ever had a day that made you seriously reconsider your career or working environment? Of course you have. About two years ago, after a particularly stressful day of patients, meetings, and general administrative problems, I got the idea for a break. I had worked long hours for twenty-six years in an academic medical school. A year break seemed like the right amount of time to get reoriented and rebalanced. I wanted to explore adventures other than medicine, those "always wanted to do , but never had time" possibilities. I wanted skill-building, not a vacation; excitement and stretching outside my comfort zone, not a plush travel experience.
I was giving a lecture at a conference in a distant city when fate intervened. The morning paper featured an article on a gap-year option for students. In my generation, a gap year occurred less often as we steadily plowed forward from one institution to another - high school, college, professional school, marriage, family, and now retirement - all very programmed, secure, and predictable. The gap-year concept sounded pretty good as a time to explore and experience new adventures. I called the lead organization featured in the article, the Center for Interim Programs. I represent a different demographic than their typical client. Kate Warren of Interim described it as "more mature" euphemistically referring to my fifty-five+ status and AARP membership. Holly Bull, president, arranged a detailed phone interview to better define my interests. My goal was to participate in three different experiences spread out over the year; each of sufficient time to allow an in-depth exposure, each relatively low cost, each in geographic locations I would not normally go, and each in areas of skill building that I could use in my hobby of house renovation. Interim tapped its database of over five thousand programs and made suggestions.
I have been considering remodeling a cabin in the NC mountains. I had been thinking about incorporating stonework in the cabin renovation, and so my first choice was to find an in-depth experience in the technical and artistic aspects of stone masonry. Kate and Holly suggested traveling to Alaska to work alongside Brian laying stone and building residential stone fireplaces. Wow - Alaska! Alaska was more fun than I could have imagined with super views of Denali, great summer weather and an unusual summer with only a few legendary Alaskan mosquitoes. Two months of hard manual labor in exchange for room and board had the added benefits of meeting some interesting characters and enjoying clean outdoor living.
To keep family and friends up to date on my activities, I created a blog as a focus point to chronicle my "year of adventure," sharing photos and musings on a nearly daily basis. The blog was another skill-building aspect of my "gap year."
My second adventure presented a much greater cultural challenge. I've always been interested in Eastern Medicine for its ancient roots and its holistic approach to the patient. Kate sought the assistance of a long-standing Interim contact to locate experienced health care professionals in Nepal to act as preceptors for an overview of Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine. The Nepali contact emailed me a draft daily schedule outlining a two-month cultural immersion program: one month of study focused on Tibetan medicine and one month focused on Ayurvedic medicine, combining didactic instruction and patient contact mixed with cultural experiences and excursions with local guides and homestays with local families. Nepal is a wonderful country and the local contacts, Vidhea and her son, Yanik, made the adventure safe, and enriching. It would be difficult to have this quality of experience without local contacts.
Tibetan medicine uses a different body of knowledge than western medicine with almost none of the examination or diagnostic techniques I've used in my twenty plus years of medical practice. Nonetheless, the patients are open, appreciative, and come to the physician with many of the same complaints as western patients. My Tibetan homestay and local language/culture lessons helped fill out my immersion with the local environment, diet, cultural and religious holidays. I gained a new perspective on Tibetan political issues by daily interaction with the Tibetan people who love their country and miss their independence.
There is a striking practical and philosophical difference between western medicine and Ayurvedic Medicine with strong links between mental health and disease; bringing the diseased body back into balance through a combination of diet, mental training, and behavior and lifestyle changes. The providers are much more holistic than the mechanistic-based western medicine providers. During my month of study, I had on average 4-5 hours of didactic instruction in various phases of Ayurvedic Medicine including diet, spices, food preparation, herbal plant qualities and medication formulations and uses. Each of the four instructors focused on differences between Ayurvedic and Western medicine, and learned from my western experience. This daily dialogue made the experience practical and interactive. For the month of immersion in Ayurvedic medicine, I stayed at the only Ayurvedic Health home in Nepal and sampled the massages, diets, and mental training and meditation. The health home is strictly vegetarian and the meals are substantial, healthy and varied. Food is prepared with only the freshest ingredients in combinations tailored to the individual patient. I ate with the patients staying in the health home and had good conversations with a predominantly German patient population there for a variety of illnesses.
Kathmandu is rich in the history of traders and ancient caravans. To round out the cultural immersion aspect of my adventure, the in-country coordinators booked weekly cultural excursions to local sites of historical or cultural interest led by a superb local guide; the type of excursion that transcends tour books. After an excursion, I was even more excited about updating my family and friends back home with blog entries and photos. Internet access was easily available at a local internet cafe (on average, 50 cents/hour for broad-band speed) with uninterrupted power supplies to deal with the periodic power outages in Kathmandu.
My third adventure was spontaneous, just something I’d always wanted to do. I’d done the usual homeowner furniture refinishing and now that I had time to explore, why not go to the pros and see how they did their artistry? Kate connected me for a 2 week experience in New England with a dealer in British antiques who did fine furniture repair, refinishing. and antique sales. The experience was more fun than I could have predicted – my tutor gave me an battered antique table to work on from start to finish
and guided me along the way. The finished product went onto his sales floor along with several other pieces I did under his guidance. What a sense of pride that he felt the work was good enough to sell! This confidence has continued at home with more advanced projects – after all, if I could redo a multi-thousand dollar pieces, my treasure finds from antique stores got a new life. An unexpected side benefit – my B&B has genuine haunted guests and I had several interesting encounters.
My final adventure of several months started out in discussions with Holly as archeology in Romania. I chose that because of an interest in archeology, but wanted to live with people who had experienced a communist regime. Romania is a fantastic country with Dracula-lore for tourists and scenic beauty and warm, friendly people. It is about 5 years behind in the US tourist trade, so I felt relatively alone touring the sites of Transylvania and Timisoara. Romania gave me a special connection to average people. Diggers at the site invited me for beer, my home stay family and project leaders went out of their way to help me see the spirit of the country. The fortification
was an early dig, still under archeology control, o basic archeology principles applied and I could see them at work. As the digging got deeper, we went from “modern” 17th century, through 14th century, to Dacian times at the base of the structure. The ground maintains objects remarkably well. Patient interpretation by the site project leaders made the site come alive for me. I asked about diagrams, they were able to let me see the plans from the 14th century and the 17th century so I could study castle lore during my visits to the local internet café. I talked with the regional planner and contributed my tiny bit of tourist lore to the enduring legacy of the site.
What did I accomplish in this year of adventure? At the start, I needed to break out of a routine. In Alaska and Nepal I learned artistry from a stone mason, compassion and a commitment to patient care from eastern medical physicians, and countless lessons from the people of Alaska and Nepal. In New Jersey I learned artistry. In Romania, I felt curiosity about life in the USA from a people who produced Vlad Dracula. I felt their sprit in the rugged and beautiful hills of Translvania. Any of these lessons required some work on my part to take the first step, but the reward was well worth it.
Tips for others considering a time of adventure:
1) Allow yourself to think outside the box. Consider things you always wanted to explore, but were stymied by one or another hurdle.
2) Choose guides well. The guide/facilitator is crucial to the success of your adventure, so the experience, contacts, and price are considerations that will make your time most worthwhile whether in the US or overseas.
3) Set realistic goals. Packing multiple adventures into a short timeframe lessens the value of each by imposing a sense of hurriedness. Leave yourself some reflection time to process the adventure. Mine spaced over a year with a bit more than 6 months gone from home and no less than a month home between adventures.
4) Mind your health. An adventure can be a challenging physical experience. Prepare well with preventive health measures and reasonable physical activity. Give yourself permission to try new foods.
5) Keep a diary. People will want to know about your adventure. While photos help, they do not capture the granularity of daily life. I chose to do a daily blog and found that it allowed me to focus the day into a one-page vignette with photos that captured the experience in the moment. Family and co-workers love to stay in contact and live your adventure through your journal.
6) Decide if this is to be a solo adventure or an adventure with a partner. Kathryn and I found the adjustment period of 2 weeks on each end of each adventure required some patience. She decided to visit for the last week of two of the adventures and that was a grand time to show off my new knowledge of the country.
7) Let each adventure crate its own opportunities for mental challenge. Each person who comes brings something different, and a more mature person brings the compendium of their life to date. People you visit will be interested to hear your story. Let the adventure show a new way of telling that story.
Are you feeling hesitant about taking that first step? If not now; when? Act to start this most adventuresome time of your life! "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain