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
The Night Watchman
Welcome Frye
2011-10-17
It’s 5 a.m. and the cacophony has started. I hear the thump of music in the neighbor’s house, dogs barking, a mother hen ushering her chickens around like a drill sergeant, my younger brothers laughing as they get ready for school, and the insistent honk of the first bus leaving for Archidona. My first response...
Read MoreSaying Goodbye
Heather Kurtz
2011-10-14
I’m going to miss the strawberries, because they are sweet and organic and cheap, and I will miss the carrots because one is almost enough to be a complete meal. I will miss getting on my bus on my way to Ambato and feeling the wave of relief that it actually showed up. Even though...
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To the Bathroom
Priyanka Rao
2011-10-14
It’s 3:41 in the morning, and I just got back quivering into my bed. I’d had to go pee for several hours but hadn’t figured out how I would make it alive. I knew I was living in the rainforest region but this truly clarifies: I am living IN it. The rain droplets can be...
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One Step at a Time
Stephanie Dunning
2011-10-03
I’ll start with the first day and we’ll see how far we get from there. Saturday was a day filled with anticipation. Those of us unlucky enough to know just enough Spanish to get by had to go to class for a final cramming-session before loading into buses and heading to our eventual long-term...
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The Best Lemonade
Stephanie Dunning
2011-10-03
I am very excited to announce that you will be spending your year as a 2012 Global Citizen Year Fellow in ECUADOR!!! My family and friends breathed a giant sigh of relief. I almost felt like crying. My heart had been set on going to Senegal where surely, few others would dare to venture. How,...
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More than a Pair of Jeans
Abigail Hindson
2011-10-03
“¿Puedo lavar mi ropa?” I sheepishly held up my jeans, filthy from a long day cleaning up tree limbs outside for my apprenticeship at El Parque Amazónico. It was 5:30 on Friday afternoon, and my host mother was lounging with my baby brother, Aron, in the evening light. She glanced at my displayed garment and smiled...
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Mountains
Heather Kurtz
2011-10-03
Everyone climbs mountains of some form. Well, today the 30 of September we climbed mountain Pasochoa. This was a great climb and learned many things. I realized some of the mountains I have climbed here and some that I am still climbing. Pasochoa was a beautiful mountain. I loved climbing it and seeing all of...
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Mas Duro
Nicolas Freschi
2011-10-03
If there’s one thing I learned this week, it’s that there is a big difference between saying “I’m going to be living in rural Ecuador on a Global Citizen Year,” and living in rural Ecuador on a Global Citizen Year. There is one phrase that was beaten into my head these past few days that...
Read More Adaptation
Heather Kurtz
2011-10-03
One of the hardest things I have learned my first few weeks in Ecuador is to adapt. I never knew how valuable a quality that is. To be able to see something and to not react but instead to realize it is different and change yourself so that things work for the better. My week...
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Sin Bici No Hay Paraiso
Priyanka Rao
2011-10-01
Just coming back from Cumbaya, the cutest town in Ecuador, and suffering from the paradise syndrome. A stucco church with bell tower edges a hedge-rowed garden park complete with a trickling fountain in the center. Boutiques surround the square across a cobblestone road that leads past the mission-style Educativo where the uniformed school-children are getting...
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Arrival
Priyanka Rao
2011-10-01
I’m here bumping along on the road to Tena. We drove through flat lands of farms and now we are going through those mountain roads that follow a river up through the wallowing hills. It’s all the browns and greens of moss and heather. Clay- the ground is saturated with water. And we feel very...
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Ask
Priyanka Rao
2011-10-01
I have been very proud to learn how to ask questions, not only questions that arise in the end-of-a-chapter Review, but the ones that actually reflect what I am thinking. The ones that reflect the true issues that complicate me, but also questions that can bring out very interesting answers. Effective questions. They give me...
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