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
Vitamins
Galen Burns-Fulkerson
2012-04-17
Two weeks ago, I cried as I took my daily multivitamin. I’m not the kind of person who has trouble taking pills, and despite the size of my vitamins, I can usually get them down pretty easily. The last time I can remember crying about taking pills was when I was three or four and...
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Better In Time…
Elizabeth Warren
2012-04-17
Who can believe that it has already been eights months since I left my small town in Florida and came to live and volunteer in Ibarra, Ecuador. Only 18 years old and just out of high school, I was entering a whole other world and life than what I was used to. My first month...
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Ecuaproblems
Elizabeth Warren
2012-04-17
In any country you go into you are more than likely going to run into problems, some may be bad or just plain funny. I have my share of problems here in Ecuador, which I like to call Ecuaproblems! First, one of the problems I struggled with when I first got to Ecuador was the...
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The Big Red Machine
Nicolas Freschi
2012-04-17
In August, before leaving for our respective countries, the Global Citizen Year Fellows watched the movie Avatar together to help us understand our roles as foreigners entering a new culture in a faraway land. The alien race of the Na’vi is at one with nature while the human visitors are materialistic and tied...
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The Strings of my Heart
Galen Burns-Fulkerson
2012-04-02
Ecuador has tugged at my heartstrings plenty of times. I still remember how I felt the first time (and the second and the third… and maybe the fiftieth too) I saw the views from Pimampiro. When my little host brother told me that he loved me for the first time, I smiled from ear to...
Read MoreConnect Four
Sienna Walker
2012-03-30
In the past month, I spent a handfull of days in and out of the hospital, having CAT scans and blood tests, with an undecided but looming pre-diagnosis of tuberulosis. Much to my appreciation, my Quito host family took me in during those dramatic days. And one night during my stay, my sister invited me...
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Rosa Victoria: World Traveler
Welcome Frye
2012-03-30
While on the way to Misahuallí to start Training Seminar 3 with the other Napo Fellows, I took my seat next to an elderly Ecuadorian woman sound asleep with her head resting against the bus window. A few minutes later, a particularly bumpy section of road jolted her awake and, upon hearing my English conversation...
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Words From Ecuador
Lily Ellenberg
2012-03-30
I am from eight thirty bedtimes and rising with the sun. From devious little cousins and younger siblings. From fresh fruit juice, ecua-shoes, and a new system of time. From seemingly shy women and overtly forward men. From fried yucca, comidas tipicas and yogoso sabor a naranja. I am from open-air classrooms, school uniforms and...
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El Futuro, Sea lo que Sea
Trevor Porter
2012-03-30
Over the past couple of years of trying to decide what I want to ‘be’ when I’m older, I have simply not been able to. I have however; found one of my goals in life- exploring my passions for culture and languages by travelling, learning, and studying. My first venture in following my passions led...
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Cuando se van a pinchar
Trevor Porter
2012-03-30
‘Another dreary morning,’ I thought as I looked out my bedroom window to a gray sky heaving down rain that brought with it the promise of a very muddy walk to the caverns. But I was soon made aware I wasn’t the only person not quite impressed with this particular morning. A few minutes later,...
Read More Long Way Home
Stephanie Dunning
2012-03-28
March 20, 2012 There´s a law in Ecuador that buses are only allowed to transport passengers who are sitting down. I don’t know how long it´s actually been a law, but they have really been keeping track of it since Carnival when a bus got into an accident on the way to Espejo and over...
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A New Friend
Galen Burns-Fulkerson
2012-03-28
At 10:30 on Thursday morning, with my head hung in defeat and the fresh bag of bread still in my hands, I turned around to head home. After spending thirty minutes knocking on every door in the neighborhood and talking to as many neighbors as possible, I decided to save my mission for another day....
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