Fellow Stories
True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!
Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!
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Class Year
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“R.I.P Queso” or “Wherever you are, come home”
Toluwani Roberts
2017-12-11
This blog post is way overdue. It’s about time I told y’all a lil about my host family and apprenticeship. I’m a new member of the Andrango family. The family consists of Yauri, my 21 year old brother who is currently studying in the capital of Quito; Yarina, my 18 year old sister...
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Serendipity and Obama
Phuong Nguyen
2017-12-08
This blog post is a little about two things I already knew intersecting to create a new lesson. Serendipity and Obama. Serendipity is a fortunate happenstance. I like to think of it as when you find a dollar on the street. Something good happens to you by chance, without you putting the effort...
Read MoreHOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU PREPARE PLANTAINS?
JuliaGrace Walker
2017-12-06
When I came to Ecuador, I came with the preconceived notion that platano meant banana in all Spanish-speaking countries. I did not realize a simple fruit’s name could change based on the country you are in. I assumed platano was a universal word in Spanish. Ecuador does not take their produce lightly. They harvest at...
Read MoreDia de los Difuntos – A Photo Essay
Maya Wilcox
2017-12-05
A photo essay about November 2nd, Día de los Difuntos, also known as Day of the Dead, not to be confused with the similar, but distinct, Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos. At 10:30am, we arrive at cemetery #1 in Ilumán, my host community. My host sister, Laymi, posing with flowers for the dead. My...
Read MoreThe Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Allison Vaught
2017-12-05
As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, time has felt like an unknown concept I feel as though every time I blink and turn around twice it’s a new month which means April creeps closer and closer, these past three months I feel that I have experienced the good, the...
Read MoreThe things you’ll need for the places you’ll go
Olivia Dutra
2017-12-04
You’ll need to be able to go with the flow, this will be especially helpful when within the first few days of arriving at your host families house, they bring you on a trip that starts with nine people fitting into a car for five on a car ride that somehow takes four hours even...
Read MoreBefore They’re Gone
Marissa Emerson
2017-12-04
The last two weeks have been a doozy. Not the, “day after day has an amazing, new surprise” kind of doozy, but a, “hardship after purpose-questioning hardship” kind of doozy. How much I’ve started to miss my at-times monotonous, daily life and the number of blessings I seem to have overlooked makes me realize how...
Read More3 Moons
Elise Steenburgh
2017-12-04
When we arrived to Brazil on September 3rd, the bright full moon lit up the night sky as we sat outside under a tree at Morro Das Pedras hotel in Florianópolis, for our first in country get-to-know-you. Today, December 3rd, a supermoon – the biggest, brightest, and last full moon of the year – marks 3 months...
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10 Life Lessons From My Irritated Bowels
McKenna Daily
2017-12-01
This past week, in the beautiful cloud forest of Mindo, I was finally initiated into the sacred rite of having serious diarrhea. Three months and many parasites in, it’s even become a badge of honor in our cohort to have shit your pants. I am now among those proudly inducted. I invite you to...
Read MoreJust So Dang Grateful
Elizabeth Ollila
2017-11-26
Right now I am sitting in my living room watching my host dad make a nativity scene out of recycled boxes and my host mom string tinsel on the tree that they just cut from outside. Yesterday, my family celebrated Thanksgiving with me. They gave me a day to invite a friend and make the...
Read MoreStranger Things
Natalie Choi
2017-11-26
Obviously, when one moves from a highly metropolitan city in East Asia to a small town in Latin America, there are going to be some things that seems a bit unusual to me. However, I chose to used the word ‘stranger’, instead of ‘strange’ not only because I thought that would be more captivating as...
Read Morewhat happens to people like me?
Malaak Glover
2017-11-24
What happens to people like me? Trying to understand life is hard ,when you’ve just started living . I wanna know whats next, where do I go after this , and I’m not talking about college . What does life have planned for me next , who do I ask? Spiritual advisors , life gurus,...
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