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
Evening Song
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
Shadowed mountains trace uneven lines; the golden sky splits & tears– jagged halves, dark & light. All around, the lazy city moves in twilight: deliberate & unchanging, an afternoon ritual. The vegetable man stands expectantly awaiting passerby. His gold tooth flashes, cinnamon eyes crinkle a fleeting smile. He swims through his tomatoes,...
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Breaking the Cycle
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
Imagine you are a curious child, about 10 years old. You don’t know your exact birthday, because no one ever cared enough to write it down—you think it’s sometime in February. You long to go to school, but you have never been able to, what with seven little brothers and sisters to be looking after. ...
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Monkey Business
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
One vaccine down, four to go. It was a tiny bite—an incensed mono ardilla(squirrel monkey) had drawn just two drops of blood from my hand when I removed him from a tourist at the Parque Amazónico. This tiny scratch, however, ended in an eight-hour round-trip for the first vaccine and four-hour trips for the remaining...
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Carnaval en Cuenca (Part 1)
Trevor Porter
2012-03-27
Imagine yourself walking through a city with narrow cobblestone streets. Buildings flow seamlessly on either side of you, only interrupted by the occasional cast-iron gate leading away into a dusky unknown. A moon floats overhead, but you only know because every so often a beam of light sneaks through the copious covering of clouds to...
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Jacob’s Story
Mitchell Mankin
2012-03-27
Jacob* runs a little tienda sells just two things: local jewelry and books. Jacob appears much like many of the other store owners in town. I probably passed him many times without really noticing him. The first time I really saw Jacob, he was talking to a couple of enthralled Germans seated on the sidewalk....
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Painting the World: The World Map Project
Abigail Hindson
2012-03-27
It’s only a map…it’s only a map…it’s only a map… The words kept repeating in my head, but to no avail: no matter how I attempted to rationalize the situation to myself—and the absurdity of my reaction to it—I could not fall asleep on Monday night. I was terrified that none of the invited kids...
Read MoreMaking the Grade
Lily Ellenberg
2012-03-27
My one week site visit to San Ramon De Kuyaloma got off to a slow start. The first day I sat in the office, chatted in broken Spanish to the director of the school, Fredy, and ate lunch at 10:45 am. Day two seemed it would be more of the same…until, Fredy led me to...
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Una Navidad Bailando
Trevor Porter
2012-03-27
After working on Christmas, I was NOT expecting much that night. My hopes weren’t that high from the day before either where I saw an impromptu street parade and people at several tiendas in Archidona dancing to blaring techno music. That night however, I was pleasantly surprised. That Christmas night couldn’t have ended up more...
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A Kichwa Dream
Tessalyn Morrison
2012-03-27
[Note: This event happened near Christmas, but the message is still applicable to my life now.] “Do you want to go [incoherent words in Spanish]?” “Sure. Where are we going?” “[Incoherent name of town in Ecuador]!” “Alright. What time do we leave?” “Six in the morning on Saturday.” It was...
Read MoreMadrina
Heather Kurtz
2012-03-23
One of the last things my mom told me before I left for Ecuador was to not come home with a man or a baby. Well I half listened. I do not have a man here. I have a daughter! Wait Before you all start panicking and getting plan tickets to Ecuador to punish me. ...
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Sounds Like Me
Priyanka Rao
2012-03-22
In my little wooden room in the Amazon, I will sometimes spend hours under the cracks of light that sift through the wooden boards, and watch as my three lives begin to make sense. The Hindi, the Spanish, the English. Maybe you can take a minute, to lay there with me. In the Amaden, District...
Read MoreWoven Together
Priyanka Rao
2012-03-22
Thoughts are woven together in interesting patterns. Perhaps this string of journal clippings will give you a snapshot of the passing of time in Ecuador, and even a sense of that tentative undying hope we Global Citizen Fellows seemed to be imbued with: Sunday 16th October: Hello again. It’s late at night and I wanted...
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