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
Something New
Daniel Schwarz
2012-07-10
Hello all. My name is Daniel Schwarz, born and raised in the Philadelphia area. I got my primary education in a town called Havertown. I went to Oakmont Elementary, which is sadly no longer a school today. I then attended Haverford Middle School. My next and last institution was Haverford Senior High School; this is...
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What’s Your Story
Ava Hoffman
2012-07-10
In my senior year Existentialism class, my teacher, Ms. Workman, introduced me to the existential extraordinaire Albert Camus. In The Plague, set in the French-settled town of Oran, Algeria, Camus describes a scene in which the main character, Dr. Rieux, and his friend, Tarrou, momentarily escape the plague-stricken town for a breath of fresh air...
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Gestalt
Cheyenne Tessier
2012-07-10
As I have learned in life, we can’t be with people or places forever. They die; we move; we lose touch: every relationship comes to an end. It took me a long time to realize this. It’s okay to not be with a person, even a person we love, especially if we want to grow...
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Seeing the World
Caroline Blanchard
2012-07-10
Hi! My name is Caroline Blanchard. I am 17 years old and I have never been out of the country. Well, not really anyway. And now I am about to leave on a 9-month adventure in Senegal that I never pictured myself going on. The summer before my senior year, I was sitting at a...
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“You Might Be More Cut Out For This Than You Think”
Grace Bachmann
2012-07-10
I heard a pen click and scribble as the forensic investigator hung up the telephone and marked off the name of a decedent’s relative. He pivoted his chair and studied me: the intern sitting in a swivel office chair at the desk next to him, my hands restlessly toying with latex gloves, damp from my...
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Community
Sammy Gachagua
2012-07-10
I am Samuel Gachagua and I hail from Kenya! I arrived in the US three years ago from a small orphanage in Nyeri, Kenya. Exactly ten years ago, I was living in the streets of Kenya without food, shelter or anyone to take care of me. One thing that has kept me sane, breathing and...
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Full Feeling
Emily Ford
2012-07-10
As I sit in my compact dorm room at boarding school in Indiana, my three roommates watch, entertained yet baffled, my interactions with my Indian host family over Skype. It has been a year since our tear-stained, poignant departure after a summer immersion/service program where I first understood the meaning of “full feeling”. The simple...
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Liberation By Multiculturalism
Drew Hayes
2012-07-10
I remember a family friend, who had recently emigrated from the Philippines to my hometown in Minnesota, describing her bilingualism as “having two machines in my head.” Makes sense, I thought, just like people have machines in their heads for doing math or playing instruments. As I grew older, though, I came to believe her...
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I’m Ready
Aissatou Barrie-Rose
2012-07-10
Hello Everyone! My name is Aissatou, and I am more than thrilled to spend the upcoming eight months learning somewhere other than a boring classroom. To start, here are a few random facts about me: I enjoy sunbathing much more than the average person, I’m always listening to music, I buy the majority of my...
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A License-less Monolingual
John Villanueva
2012-07-10
Two things: I’m not bilingual and I can’t drive. With full Filipino blood running through me, many find it surprising that I can’t speak my ethnic language of Tagalog, or at the very least understand it. It surprises me too, honestly, and I am full of pent up discontent when Filipino TV shows, potential friends,...
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Opportunity
Josh Thompson
2012-07-10
Hi. My name is Josh Thompson. During my freshman year of High School I traveled to Nicaragua on a week long “missions trip” with my church. While I am not certain about the impact of the trip (there are legitimate concerns about the efficacy and wisdom of short term missions), I was definitely enlightened by...
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And My Journey Begins
Carrie Hamilton
2012-07-10
I have fallen in love with travel many times. It happened as I drove with my family through the Midwest of the US, mesmerized by the golden hues that colored the plains like acrylics on a canvas. It happened as I watched flamenco dancers in Madrid, twisting and turning in the same way that pieces...
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