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
KCOHS ERUTLUC
Madeline Lisaius
2013-12-30
Culture Shock: a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation (from the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary) When Global Citizen Year first presented the idea of culture shock in Fall Training, I was a little skeptical. I mean, I was pretty open minded...
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La Vida Guamoteña en 3:33
Amanda Langan
2013-12-30
A glimpse into my life in Guamote, Chimborazo, Ecuador! Espero que le guste (:
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Lucky
Isabel Burns
2013-12-16
“You’re blessed, you know. You can do anything. Not everyone has that opportunity. You can do whatever you want.” Growing up, I heard that kind of phrase a lot. Usually, it came from my parent’s friends, adults who’d had the same opportunities when they were young. The difference between us was that I was only 18, and I...
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The Power of Saying No
Soe Tha
2013-12-16
Life has a reputation of throwing things at you, sometimes good and sometimes…bad. And in a world where logos like “Just Do It”, slogans like “Yes We Can”, and screams of YOLO are everywhere, you may be inclined to just simply say yes. But let’s be honest with ourselves, most of our mistakes in the...
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Are Good Intentions Enough?
Aitran Doan
2013-12-16
In early September, all fifty-two of the Ecuado Fellows huddled in the small classroom in Quito debating the merits of Ivan Illich´s To Hell with Good Intentions: is Illich right about the inevitable role of the US volunteer as the ¨vacationing salesmen for the middle class American way of life?¨ Now, seven weeks later, living...
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Cacao
Lauren Guido
2013-12-16
Today was a big day, I was going to the cacao festival in Tena with my supervisor David. At approximately 5:30am I awoke, surprisingly not to roosters or the Spanish music my family blasts at that hour but instead to a torrential downpour. Upon arriving in the rain to David’s house 3 hours later I was taken aback that...
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The Amazon Allstars
Aden Gilmour
2013-12-16
After finishing my high school basketball career I thought I would never play competitively again. I only wanted to play on the best Division 1 basketball teams and I was not at that level. During my senior year I trained as if I had already failed and I was often frustrated during my games. I felt as though...
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Traffic Lights
Leah Mesh-Ferguson
2013-12-16
Before I talk about my perceptions of gender here in Ecuador, I want to mention something else. First, I want to emphasize that these are MY perceptions, MY truths, while for somebody else, they might not be true. About a week ago, I was at my second Training Seminar in Baños, just a couple hours north-west of Riobamba. For one...
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Motivations
Abigail Dring
2013-12-16
Motivation. What motivates people to make the decisions they do? Everyone has a motivation. People don’t do things just to do them. There is always an underlying reason whether it be conscious or subconscious. I have delayed this post because I could not articulate what mine are. Why have I chosen to stray from the...
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Out in the Open: A Human Rights Manifesto
JT Su
2013-12-16
“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” — Chimamanda Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story It all started with a book I bought hours before leaving for Ecuador, where I would be living for the next...
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Struggle
Alexandra Lines
2013-12-16
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. A group of Fellows met up in the absolutely stunning town of Baños, Ecuador to celebrate and participate in a training seminar. The food was delicious, the music loud and the laughter over-flowing. A few hours after dinner though, I started to feel like something wasn’t quite right with my...
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Napo, Where the Andes Meet the Amazon
Calvin Ross
2013-12-14
I’m loving life. I couldn’t ask for anything more. My little village of Santa Rita is so beautiful. A small village made to look smaller by the size of the mountain it nestles up against. Everything but the roads and houses is completely overgrown. In ten square feet of space you’ll find an uncountable number of plants and novel...
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