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
Bare feet and labels
Kaya Hartley
2012-03-28
During my stay in Senegal I have been asked countless times who I am. To my Dakar host family, I am Haby Ndiaye. To the stranger on the street, I am toubab. The vendors call out ‘my sister!’ or ‘my friend!’ To my Potou host family I am Fatou Seye, to my host mother- my...
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A Saturday Night in the Sahel
Charlotte Benishek
2012-03-28
To be clear, the following occurred and was partially written in early February, but for various reasons I only finished the post recently: Megan, Kaya and I set out from my backyard, among the trash and goat poop, just as the dry heat of the Sahel Desert began to diminish, making the five mile walk...
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Finding Faiths
Winson Law
2012-03-28
Before coming to Brazil, I did enough research to find that the country is predominantly Roman Catholic, a legacy of Portuguese colonization centuries ago. Growing up in a Chinese Buddhist family, I prepared myself to be immersed in a faith I had little exposure to. In the months that I’ve spent in Bahia, however, I’ve...
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Carnaval en Cuenca (Part 2)
Trevor Porter
2012-03-27
It was our fourth day in Cuenca, and Tess and I were once completely lost as to what we were doing that day. When we had ventured out of our hostel onto the streets, water balloons, water, and foam had come careening down from the sky like homing missiles. Then, a couple minutes later, we...
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Investment: A Video Blog From Ecuador
Welcome Frye
2012-03-27
It’s been quite a year! I’ll post another blog update before returning to the states, but here’s a video for you all to watch in the meantime. Enjoy, and thanks for all the support! I can’t seem to insert the video into this blog, so you’ll have to copy and paste this link into your browser...
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Evening Song
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
Shadowed mountains trace uneven lines; the golden sky splits & tears– jagged halves, dark & light. All around, the lazy city moves in twilight: deliberate & unchanging, an afternoon ritual. The vegetable man stands expectantly awaiting passerby. His gold tooth flashes, cinnamon eyes crinkle a fleeting smile. He swims through his tomatoes,...
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Breaking the Cycle
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
Imagine you are a curious child, about 10 years old. You don’t know your exact birthday, because no one ever cared enough to write it down—you think it’s sometime in February. You long to go to school, but you have never been able to, what with seven little brothers and sisters to be looking after. ...
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Monkey Business
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
One vaccine down, four to go. It was a tiny bite—an incensed mono ardilla(squirrel monkey) had drawn just two drops of blood from my hand when I removed him from a tourist at the Parque Amazónico. This tiny scratch, however, ended in an eight-hour round-trip for the first vaccine and four-hour trips for the remaining...
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Carnaval en Cuenca (Part 1)
Trevor Porter
2012-03-27
Imagine yourself walking through a city with narrow cobblestone streets. Buildings flow seamlessly on either side of you, only interrupted by the occasional cast-iron gate leading away into a dusky unknown. A moon floats overhead, but you only know because every so often a beam of light sneaks through the copious covering of clouds to...
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Jacob’s Story
Mitchell Mankin
2012-03-27
Jacob* runs a little tienda sells just two things: local jewelry and books. Jacob appears much like many of the other store owners in town. I probably passed him many times without really noticing him. The first time I really saw Jacob, he was talking to a couple of enthralled Germans seated on the sidewalk....
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Painting the World: The World Map Project
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
It’s only a map…it’s only a map…it’s only a map… The words kept repeating in my head, but to no avail: no matter how I attempted to rationalize the situation to myself—and the absurdity of my reaction to it—I could not fall asleep on Monday night. I was terrified that none of the invited kids...
Read MoreMaking the Grade
Lily Ellenberg
2012-03-27
My one week site visit to San Ramon De Kuyaloma got off to a slow start. The first day I sat in the office, chatted in broken Spanish to the director of the school, Fredy, and ate lunch at 10:45 am. Day two seemed it would be more of the same…until, Fredy led me to...
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