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
Where I Am
Carly Sitrin
2012-11-10
And there is a chance that everything we did was incorrect, but stasis itself is criminal for those with the means to move, and the means to weave communion between people. -Dave Eggers So here I am. From Hillsborough, New Jersey to California to Quito to Riobamba to Bayushig, Ecuador. After weeks of planning, packing, and anticipating I found...
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Dorothy, I Don’t Think We are in Phoenix Anymore.
Kalea Moore
2012-11-10
Hello everyone, I’m back after a short 2 months! Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday I said my goodbyes and started on this 8 month journey. We spent our first 5 weeks studying our Spanish, volunteering and expanding our knowledge about Ecuador. My time here has been nothing less than exciting from meeting my...
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ALL UNDER THE SAME SUN
Sammy Gachagua
2012-11-08
Hola all! Just dropping in for a checkin! I am well down here in Ecuador. I am staying at a place called Salinas, in the province of Imbabura, Ecuador. This is one of the few places thats inhabited by Afro-Ecuadorians. This place is full of culture, which dates all the way back to the slaverly period....
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An Immediate Response, A Triumphant Community
Kimberly Nerea Tellez
2012-11-08
As I was calmly finishing up my 50 cent lunch at school the other day, which consisted of a small bowl of rice with potatoes, I glanced down to my cellphone to see what time it was. 10:39 They ring the school bell, signaling what I thought was the end of recess. Surprised at their...
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And I’m Still Moving
Aidan Holloway-Bidwell
2012-11-05
The days leading up to my departure from Northampton, Massachusetts, then the week in Palo Alto, California, finally the month in Quito, Ecuador, each was connected to the other by a lengthening string of preoccupations about my six month stay in rural Ecuador. What might it be like living with no running water? Without showers?...
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Just A Small Town Girl
Chloe Bash
2012-11-05
When I first I first arrived in La Abundancia, I questioned my decision to be placed in a small community. I walked down the single paved road, peering into the handful of shops and restaurants, and wondered what I would do for the next six months. I couldn’t head over to a library to study, a coffee shop to...
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Motorcycle Diaries
Chloe Bash
2012-11-04
“No te creo, no te creo.” “I don’t believe you.” Of course I must have ridden on a motorcycle. I explain that they were dangerous to ride in my city, a city like Quito. My sister runs to tell my brother, and next thing I know the motorcycle has been pulled onto the street and he is motioning for...
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Niños Malcreados
Gabe Jackman
2012-10-31
I have been teaching here in Pedro Vicente Maldonado for two weeks now. Pretty much all the kids know me, which is pretty impressive considering there are 984 students in this school grades 2-7. They all run up to me in the yard, calling me “Profe” or “Teacher.” The wee ones ask for high fives,...
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Blind Faith
Mackenzie McMillen
2012-10-31
About thirty minutes before we were all about to meet our Quiteño host families I decided I needed to call home, which I hadn’t done since we arrived in Quito four days before. This was not, per se, the best thing I could have done in that moment because as soon as I heard my mom’s voice through that...
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Ñuca Yachashcacuna: Part II
Sam Garcia
2012-10-31
I have had a lot of time just to think during my time in Ecuador, which, in the past, is something that I have not had a lot of time to do. I have been able to contemplate how I want my life to be and how I want my gap year to be. I have come to...
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Ñuca Yachashcacuna: Part I
Sam Garcia
2012-10-31
Over the past two months, I can say without a shadow of doubt that I have learned and grown more than I can fully appreciate right now. That is in no way saying that my experience has been easy, in fact, this is certainly a testament to how challenging it has been. It has taken longer than...
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Taking a Leap of Faith
Abby Lindsay
2012-10-31
I find myself thinking a lot about Abby Falik’s metaphor of the monkeybars at this moment in time: I started at home where both my hands were firmly planted and comfortable, swung over to San Francisco, had a moment of panic in a mid-air suspension until I met people I clicked with and started having...
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