Fellow Stories
True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!
Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!
Category
Class Year
Country
Pelourinho: A City Within A City
Sarah Coyne
2011-10-03
Pelourhino resides in the Centro Histórico of Salvador, Bahia. Its cobblestone streets and colonial architecture holds the largest accumulation of historic wealth from the seventeenth and eighteen centuries in the Americas, and remains as a mark of national identity for Bahians all across the state. Watch the video to learn more!
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One Step at a Time
Stephanie Dunning
2011-10-03
I’ll start with the first day and we’ll see how far we get from there. Saturday was a day filled with anticipation. Those of us unlucky enough to know just enough Spanish to get by had to go to class for a final cramming-session before loading into buses and heading to our eventual long-term...
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The Best Lemonade
Stephanie Dunning
2011-10-03
I am very excited to announce that you will be spending your year as a 2012 Global Citizen Year Fellow in ECUADOR!!! My family and friends breathed a giant sigh of relief. I almost felt like crying. My heart had been set on going to Senegal where surely, few others would dare to venture. How,...
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More than a Pair of Jeans
Abigail Hindson
2011-10-03
“¿Puedo lavar mi ropa?” I sheepishly held up my jeans, filthy from a long day cleaning up tree limbs outside for my apprenticeship at El Parque Amazónico. It was 5:30 on Friday afternoon, and my host mother was lounging with my baby brother, Aron, in the evening light. She glanced at my displayed garment and smiled...
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Mountains
Heather Kurtz
2011-10-03
Everyone climbs mountains of some form. Well, today the 30 of September we climbed mountain Pasochoa. This was a great climb and learned many things. I realized some of the mountains I have climbed here and some that I am still climbing. Pasochoa was a beautiful mountain. I loved climbing it and seeing all of...
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A New Perspective on Islam
Paulina Personius
2011-10-03
In the US talk of Islam and Muslims in general often comes alongside talk of war and violence. At home the news talks about Muslims as terrorists and makes it seem as if the majority of them are extreme jihadists. Here in Senegal I have discovered a new, very peaceful version of Islam that vastly...
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Catching the Monkey
Charlotte Benishek
2011-10-03
Of all the Wolof words and phrases I learned during my one week stay in Leona, the village where I will work and live this year, I can easily identify that which I’ve seen most represented in the Senegalese psyche. “Ndank a ndank,” or little by little, was a constant refrain during my stay. Actually,...
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Mas Duro
Nicolas Freschi
2011-10-03
If there’s one thing I learned this week, it’s that there is a big difference between saying “I’m going to be living in rural Ecuador on a Global Citizen Year,” and living in rural Ecuador on a Global Citizen Year. There is one phrase that was beaten into my head these past few days that...
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My first day in Brazil
Jean Ulysse
2011-10-03
This is my second full day in Brazil, sitting down by the ocean where I can let nature be my teacher, the ocean sing me a lullaby get lost into my thoughts….. Sometimes in life we wish we did not do certain things but “hey” what can we do about them. Making my way to...
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Out of the Mata Concreta
Holli Sullivan
2011-10-03
My Global Citizen Year has officially begun. We’ve all been having a magical time, haven’t we fellows? One month is sooo much longer than we’ve ever imagined. Stanford, hostel, more hostel…It’s been great. But for me personally, it hasn’t felt so much like a life changing experience just yet. While in the past month I’ve seen thousands...
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Adaptation
Heather Kurtz
2011-10-03
One of the hardest things I have learned my first few weeks in Ecuador is to adapt. I never knew how valuable a quality that is. To be able to see something and to not react but instead to realize it is different and change yourself so that things work for the better. My week...
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Michael Ratliff
2011-10-01
As the end of our training approached, I was struck by how we had come full circle. From the Skype conference call with a former Stanford professor about international development to a lecture from a Brazilian professor on the same topic but in Portuguese, speaking about PIB (produto interno bruto) instead of GDP.But there was...
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