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
Casa de Adobe
Diego Lasner
2017-10-09
After spending around two and a half weeks with my permanent host family, I feel like I have become familiar enough with the house and my family to talk about my homestay and its cultural differences. Firstly, I want to talk about my house-or rather my two houses. The first house, I live in with...
Read MoreLittle things
Phuong Nguyen
2017-10-09
I forgot to mention some logistical things when updating my blog posts..so here you go 🙂 We started with 50 Ecuador fellows at Stanford. Our cohort of 50 was split into the Northern Hub and Southern Hub. I am in the South. In the Southern Hub, there are three groups of 10 each. My...
Read MoreMeet My Regional Cohort: Rosé All Day!
Marissa Emerson
2017-10-07
Get to know my Ecuador Regional Cohort, Rosè All Day, in this quirky video inspired by questions found at: http://4hatsandfrugal.com/2014/05/100-questions-no-one-ever-asks.html [vc_video link=’ https://youtu.be/pMD7IdxrMmI’] (Filmed and edited on the iPhone 7 with iMovie) •Donate to the Global Citizen Year scholarship fund here: https://donate.globalcitizenyear.org/fundraise?fcid=978608 Click the links below to subscribe to the individual Ecuador Blogs of the fellows...
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Dear Lala
Elizabeth Ollila
2017-10-05
A month before I left on my Ecuador adventure, my incredible grandma Frances LaFontaine (Lala) passed away pretty unexpectedly. I cannot help but think of her daily, so I wrote her a letter that I wanted to share. An open letter to my Lala, I miss you and your beautiful soul more than you...
Read MoreTo Eat or Not to Eat
Jonas Gerken
2017-10-05
Food is a core component of culture. Many cultural aspects are structured around food. In some instances the evening meal can encompass entire traditions, such as the Thanksgiving dinner. During my first two weeks in Brazil, I found it almost impossible to avoid consuming foods that I had never encountered before; in most cases these...
Read MoreBlog Post
Malaak Glover
2017-10-04
Back again at my favorite place in Imbabura, this hotel/ resort serves as an oasis for me… even though I came here with my cohort I still feel a sense of peace that hasn’t been awoken before. I’m sitting on a swing set overlooking mountains and next to me is what I think to be a...
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Culture Shock: It’s the Little Things
Natalia Fischl-Lanzoni
2017-10-04
Ever since I stepped on that plane for Ecuador, I expected to go through some sort of culture shock. I think what I imagined was that in that first week or two, I would feel completely out of place and have my mind-blown by this new culture. I anticipated feeling completely foreign at first, but that...
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You’re Not in Oregon Anymore
Sophie Winter
2017-10-04
As my mosquito bites grow in number, so does my inept ability to sit through an entire conversation acting as if I understand. As my first month of being immersed comes to an end, I realize all of the subtle, yet different changes I have made in my life with the Bento family. We always have on...
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Lost in the Hea(r)t(h) of it all
Danny DeBare
2017-10-04
There’s this warmth, burning in the hearth of the home. Shifting from an electric blue to a flickering red and burnt orange, it flares up, reaching the cold corners of the house. As the weeks have progressed, I’ve precariously stepped from the outskirts of the light toward this new energy. Not adjacent, but from a...
Read MoreLearning to Be Vibrant
Alexi Strike
2017-10-04
If asked to describe my style, the words boring or plain would not come out of my mouth. I tend to stick to a few basics: blacks, whites, grays, and greens. Yet when i asked my host mom to describe it, expecting her to use chato (boring), she laughed, saying morto… Brazil is vibrant. you...
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Super Cool Shirt
Soraya Waller
2017-10-03
Today I was under the weather, so I stayed in. By the end of the day, I was bursting with stir-craziness. I’ve been having a sort of psychological dilemma these past few days, and with nothing else to do, I simply stewed in it. That could have been good or bad, but luckily, I think...
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Saludos desde Ecuador!
Layla Solatan
2017-10-03
It's been a month since we were told that our flight to Ecuador was being cancelled due to Hurricane Harvey. Luckily, this was the only setback we had to deal with as a result of this hurricane. Still, it’s not the best news to receive the day before your flight to Ecuador for 8 months—the...
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