Fellow Stories

Simple Joys

Brianna Gilmore

2015-12-21

Recently, I found a missing piece of my life. I lacked the appreciation for simple joys. For the longest time, my life was a calendar full of different colored pen marks and no blank spaces. I orbited around a schedule. I always bounced from activity to activity, with barely any breaks in between. When I...

With 3 Months Left…

Mila Le

2015-12-20

I took a break from California. I took a break from traffic on highways and bright, neatly scattered street lights, from populated but polluted beaches, from waking up every saturday in my room to go downstairs, have breakfast while clearing out my DVR. I took a break from familiar faces, familiar places, familiar foods, I...

In-Country Orientation

Hugo Santiago

2015-12-20

      There’s was this one girl called Tali Bailes (she was in my Spanish class); a girl atteneding Cornell next year who without hesitance was able to catch onto all the little dull grammatical details our Quito Spanish teacher extolled. There was also this other kid named Daniel Horlocher, he was from the global private...

How I Lost 400 Bucks: Culture Shock & Budgeting in Another Country

Hugo Santiago

2015-12-20

    During, “Pre-Departure Training” I found out I won a small amount of award money from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the Smithsonian’s Latino Center, so as any other 17 year would do I went haywire with the, “Emergency Money” my mom gave me for this trip. Suddenly 400$ were gone. Like just-GONE. I’ve never really...

High School Seniors, Applying to College & Taking A Year off Before College

Hugo Santiago

2015-12-20

Ever since I found out I won the Gates Millennium Scholarship, I’ve felt this pressure to pull off a “Malala Yousafzai”. Meeting the other 999 Gates Scholars through our Facebook group only exacerbated this pressure. These kids were going to Harvard, Princeton, Cornell-you name it. To be honest with you, I didn’t even know what...

“When You Were Young” – Hugo Santiago

Hugo Santiago

2015-12-20

    I turned 18 last week, but I don’t feel 18. Actually, I feel like a little kid. It’s funny because when I was a kid-I was an adult…sort of. I didn’t have my parents around most of the time so I had to figure things out myself-the monsters under my bed, the peer pressure, puberty...

A Reminder

Ruby MacMillan

2015-12-20

In the southernmost reaches of Senegal, there sits a village known as Thianghe. Here, amidst a rough estimate of thirteen hundred others, lives a girl known as Hawa Diallo. She’s a toubab, or foreigner, and this she rarely forgets. She also has another name, yet this she often forgets. However, when it comes time to...

Eat the Cake

Talia Bailes

2015-12-17

Each day here I am being challenged to fully live in the moment. Part of living in the moment for me is embracing the amazing rivers here in the Amazon. Going to the river is a weekly event that I treasure. But how do the gorgeous rivers in the Amazon relate to eating cake? Listen...

I love teaching

Noah Hapke

2015-12-16

When I came to Oakland (over 4 months ago) I knew I wanted to teach. Of course, my understanding of what teaching abroad actually meant was very limited, considering I had practically no teaching experience as well as zero knowledge of how to communicate in Spanish. All I knew was that I wanted to teach....

Little Push, Big Changes.

Munyaradzi Munyati

2015-12-15

It finally happened. After months of wondering and days both long and short, questioning whether it would happen, it finally has. I feel that I’ve finally found just where my piece fits into the puzzle that is the Fernandez-Rodriguez family. In reality, it was not through any process I intentionally put myself through, but, like...

Happy Moments/LGBTQ/Host Family/ Music

Deonte' Lee

2015-12-15

Scars

Desire Mulla

2015-12-15

Every society has it wounds, while, some tend to be deeper than others all wounds never fail to leave behind scars – those visible to the eyes and those that we decide to hide- all scars stay to remind us of a moment of pain. Learning from the community that I was placed Ibarra of Imbabura province, Ecuador. The...