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
A Closer Look
Sam Reeve
2013-01-15
By American standards, I currently live a “poor”, simplistic lifestyle. I boil water from a local river to drink; most of my meals consist of potatoes, rice, yucca, or other high-starch, cheap, local foods; I scrub and scrub the dirt out of my clothes with river water over a large rock; and I live with a mother part-time employed...
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Strangers Like Me
Meliza Windmoeller
2013-01-15
Everybody has seen Tarzan. Or at least I hope everyone has…if you haven’t I would strongly recommend you get on that. Now, what does Tarzan, a Walt Disney 90’s classic, have to to do with my life as a Global Citizen Year Citizen? Let’s think about that for a minute. In the movie, a man who grew up in...
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La Novena: Giving and Receiving
Mackenzie McMillen
2013-01-15
I sit silently looking at the Christmas decorations around the living room of my oldest host brother’s house. Though I have a vague idea, I’m still looking for clues as to what exactly we’re doing here this evening. When I asked my mom where we were going she used a word I didn’t understand and in the moment, as...
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Women of Kebemer: The Lives of Bebe, Adja, and Alima
Mary Modisette
2013-01-15
At first glance, one notices little gender dominance in the sandy market town that is Kebemer. Amidst the bustling street stands and boutiques, an outsider can hardly tell the difference between who is the shop owner, the buyer, and the friend stopping by for midday glass of attaya and a chat. However, if there is...
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So What Does Senegal Look Like?
Barker Carlock
2013-01-15
It’s not easy to describe Senegal in words; therefore, I thought that the best way to show people what Senegal looks like was through video. Here are four videos that I made to help those outside of Senegal get a glimpse into the culture, people, and atmosphere. Enjoy! 1. Sand Painting Demonstration (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ctJR-t-jV4&feature=plcp) Here is...
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The Ones in Orange
Talia Katz
2013-01-15
It begins before the rise of the sun, before the first cry of the rooster. They leave their clay hut compounds and begin a steady trickle onto la route nationale. Their destination- jurato- Tomboronkoto’s gold mine. The diverse crowd steps together- an old man who parts with nostalgia for the days when this very hour...
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Negão
Joshua Reason
2013-01-15
People call me by many different names here. I originally introduced myself as “Joshua” to everyone I met, but I soon learned that the “ua” part was difficult to pronounce for some locals. Eventually I started telling people to call me “Josh”, but ending on the “sh” sound was hard for a lot of people...
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Getting Dirty
John Villanueva
2013-01-14
When it comes to hygiene, many of us Fellows find it difficult to feel and stay clean throughout the day. I don’t mean to call Ecuador a “dirty” country, but it’s easy get dirty here. Especially for me, staying clean is quite a difficult task. That’s because my apprenticeship at Fundación UTOPIA exemplifies dirtiness. Every two weeks we hold...
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Better Late Than Never….
Amalia Rowan
2013-01-14
Although I left the charming town of Capão over three months ago, I never uploaded the video I made of the time I spent there and the people that I met. I don’t take many pictures where I’m living now, so here is something to fill the void in my blog posts, and an update...
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Stranded on the Beach
Drew Hayes
2013-01-09
I remember the buzz about cities. In Ted Talks and magazine articles, people were raving about the efficiency of cities because, according to some grandiose regressions, the larger a city gets the more productive it becomes per capita. Megacities were claimed the future of mankind. I was not impressed. I lived in a mid-sized city...
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What the Bugs Gave Me
Emily Ford
2013-01-09
Bugs. Of shapes and sizes I didn’t couldn’t have imagined to be biologically possible. This is my first memory of my village. It was reaching dusk as I sat down on a mat in this unfamiliar place surrounded by strangers, when the hordes appeared. Cockroaches scurried from cracks in cement; beetles dug themselves out of the sand, and oddly...
Read MoreDay in My Life
Dianne Perez
2013-01-09
7 am wake up! Take a nice cold shower to get the heart pumping. (Side note I have not had a hot shower since I left the states) Make some breakfast “caffe de amanha” which usually consist of a fruit salad, cheese sandwich and one scramble egg. Sometimes in the morning, if there is time my host mother and...
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