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
Minga
Sarai Patterson
2014-04-11
My first experience with Minga came on the Day of the Dead, when I was forcibly ejected from my peaceful slumber at five in the morning, handed a pair of boots and a machete, and pushed out the door with no more direction than “Follow them, today is Minga.” I sleepily splashed through the Lupi...
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Learning
Florin Langer
2014-04-11
I apprentice at la Mancomunidad del Pueblo Cañari, an organization that carries out projects to stimulate tourism, aid farmers, and protect natural resources by managing and preserving water resources, improving pasture herbage, implementing agroforesty systems, educating children and adults about the environment and ancestral heritage, managing cooperation agreements between groups, encouraging socioeconomic development by improving...
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Intentions
Madeline Lisaius
2014-04-11
As stepping on the plane to Ecuador was a huge transition, boarding the plane back to Seattle will be an equally unique challenge. Looking forward with the past year in mind, I have intentions for the coming months to foster a positive re-integration to the United States. I share them with you now both to...
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A Lesson I’ve Learned
Leah Mesh-Ferguson
2014-04-11
There is so much hate in our world. That thought has crossed my mind so many times this year, but I refuse to accept it. As I finished that last pages of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, I started to cry. At first it was a few tears, but soon they turned to tears of...
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Everyday Ecualife
Valerie Hurst
2014-04-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDTMt_9uDec&fmt=18 From home to work, check out what a day in the life looks like for me!
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The Little Things
Amanda Langan
2014-04-11
I’ll miss 25 cent bus rides and the overplayed latin bachata filling the ears of every passenger as the chofer swerves on dusty dirt roads up Andean slopes. I’ll miss being able to hail down any camioneta and hitch a free ride on the back. I’ll miss the lack of WiFi. I’ll miss being reminded...
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Speak up
Alexandra Lines
2014-04-11
The following video is a recording of my “speak up,” a presentation I recently made on the topic that I have come to care the most about: food! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycDaGLdAx38
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Para Irme
Madeline Lisaius
2014-04-11
Each day, my dad asks me, “¿Está emocionadísima para irse?” [So are you really excited to go?] At first, I was taken back. My papi and dates don’t seem to mix well, and that he was aware that the 9th of April was approaching lay uncomfortably in my stomach. Was he counting down the days...
Read MoreA Different Kind of Education
Abigail Clavin
2014-04-11
“What you hold on to you lose. What you give away you can never run out of…. You never fully grasp the fruits of your education until you give it away to another.” –Father Michael Himes A year and a half ago I sat at Fenway Park with my family and 20,000 other students, alumni...
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Original poem: What makes me different?
Olatunde Richardson
2014-04-11
What makes me different , I asked myself before So many different pathways, many different doors Staring at the Moon and speaking with the wind Learning from the World to understand whats within I thought my Heart would speak when I tried to listen Asking if its worth it to go and try to glisten...
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So far…
Olatunde Richardson
2014-04-07
So here I am, I apologize for being off the grid for so long, not posting pictures or posting blogs. I will not lie and say that part of the reason for not posting anything is partly because of procrastination, but I will say that the majority is just because that’s not how I do...
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Um, Actually, I’m Jewish
Leah Mesh-Ferguson
2014-04-07
I guess you could say it’s been interesting. I am a Jew living in a 95% Catholic country. The first time I dealt with this head-on was with my host family in Quito. I was sort of dreading the conversation, what with my very limited Spanish at the time. Finally, the question came one night...
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