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
Month of Adaptation
Jacklyn Joy Byrd
2011-12-01
At the end of Fall Training at Stanford University, I learned I’d be working with CARE-International in Cayambe, Ecuador, instituting sexual health projects. Despite all warnings received from Global Citizen Year staff and friends and family at home, I started to make assumptions. I thought I’d be teaching sex ed. I thought I’d be handing...
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Oh Baby!
Heather Kurtz
2011-11-30
My baby sister On November 18th, my host mother here in Tena had a baby. She had a girl. It is very difficult to explain having a baby to people in Spanish. I received a call from my host mom at 3:20pm, on the 17th. She said that she was in labor. She called me because she...
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Expectations
Heather Kurtz
2011-11-30
Throughout Fall Training at Stanford, Global Citizen Year asked us what we expected when we got to Ecuador. Although I do not know what I expected when I got to Ecuador, I never thought I would be a well-known local celebrity. I figured that I would be just another volunteer coming to change the world. As...
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Both of My Dads
Nicolas Freschi
2011-11-30
I know few people funnier than Connor Delaney, an amateur comedian and my best friend back in the US. A standard night of Connor and I hanging out consists of us walking to the beach or waiting in line for ice cream and sparking up conversations with other kids. Just when our new friends begin...
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Definitions
Kirin Gupta
2011-11-30
Sex: Female. Age: 29. Children: 3. Status: Married. Income: $600 per month. Primary/Subsequent: Primary. Diagnosis: Tentative. Breast Cancer, Stage 4. Recommendation: Immediate visit to oncologist, Hospital of Tena. Filling this chart leaves me empty. My pen drops. Because how much can you see in the statistics, even when the notes are well-enough detailed? How...
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Sifting Through
Priyanka Rao
2011-11-30
Yesterday evening while sweeping the patio floor, I had a moment of realization. Examining the line of my life, I saw America, the sidewalk before me. And India, the concrete floor, and here I was sweeping the wooden slats of a Latin American patio, in a country verdant green, with the calls of chickens. ...
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Finding Family II
Priyanka Rao
2011-11-30
I got to go to the river the other day with my family in order to shower and wash my clothes because there was no water in the tank at home. This time I was prepared with dirty clothes and a skirt to change. I was relieved to find that this was only a laundry...
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Sinchi Aqua Center
Mitchell Mankin
2011-11-22
The pickup truck turns off the wide gravel road from Misahualli and onto a narrower track, carrying you and four members of your new family in the back. Thirty feet above your head, the trees nearly touch. You’re headed into the jungle. Then, to your right appears a half-constructed house, and chickens scatter back towards...
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Power
Michael Winfield
2011-11-22
Never underestimate the things you can do the stars above the sky is underneath your feet, can’t you see You can leave them breathless Only if you try All your mistakes turn into gold this very moment you’re king When you conquer you shall feast too. You can’t tell them what it is Only what...
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Requiem
Andre Olden
2011-11-17
Let me start by saying that I’ve had the displeasure of attending my fair share of funerals, but few things have touched me deeply as an Ecuadorian funeral. Subsequently, I’ve seldom been more mortified by the measures that must be taken to accommodate the departed. On a Tuesday morning the service was to be held...
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Under Her Wing
Molly Owens
2011-11-17
Sometimes I look around and I can’t believe where I am. When I first moved to Zuleta, a small indigenous community in the Andes Mountains, I experienced a shock like nothing I had felt before. I couldn’t imagine how I could live for six more months with a shower that consisted of heating up water...
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The Calm During the Storm
Joan Hanawi
2011-11-15
I don’t think I fully understood the definition of the word “rainforest” until I moved here. I’ve quickly learned that the rainforest is aptly named because it does, in fact, rain every day. As a Southern California native, my idea of rain is a ten minute drizzle storm that stops traffic and makes the top...
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