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
Laundry Day
Amanda Brinegar
2010-12-13
The women in my family had washed and hung their clothes before I had even woken. They left sleep behind at prayer call, six in the morning, when the sun had only kissed the sky and not yet embraced it in a hug, When I climbed out of bed onto the sand speckled, cracked concrete...
Read More$2 a Day
Madeleine Balchan
2010-12-13
Recently I began researching the true cost of living in Leona.
Read MoreLife in Leona
Naomi Wright
2010-12-13
“So… what exactly have you been doing in Senegal?” I’ve heard this question posed in various ways by my parents, teachers, friends. I’ve tried to articulate it several times, and nothing has really done justice to my experience thus far as a Global Citizen Year fellow. So, here’s my answer: a mash up of my...
Read MoreObservations from a sand box
Erin Lang
2010-12-13
…Okay, so maybe not an ACTUAL sand box, it’s more like my personal pile of sand, situated right in front of a cement house that was never completely built. None the less, this sand mound is the only place where you will not be able to discover the town’s Toubaab, for it is where I...
Read MoreNgor Village
Johannes Raatz
2010-12-10
I had just left the Dakar headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after a meeting with Ms. Debbie Gueye, a malaria adviser, when I decided, rather than to return home immediately, to explore the area. Only about 150 meters from the office lay the great Atlantic coast. I stepped onto the...
Read MoreLost in Translation
Amanda Brinegar
2010-12-08
While I tell these stories in English, I live my life now in Wolof. My struggle to translate life to language seems impossible; I feel like a typist who holds her hands over the keys slightly off, the words coming out garbled. I am lost in translation. Like an infant, I am in a new...
Read MoreThere and Back Again
Gus Ruchman
2010-12-08
You did not think I would be doing this during my “freshman year” of university: Tey ci ngoon man dox naa fii ba Keur Massar maa fexe fekk “L’Hopital Traditionnel.” This afternoon I walked to Keur Massar so that I could try to find the “Hospital of Traditional Medicine.” Sori na de! Danga dof? It’s...
Read MoreKnowing the Difference
Clara Sekowski
2010-12-06
Even in the U.S. I was aware of how many aid organizations had irrelevant missions, or did more harm than good, so I went into this wanting to observe only and come back with enough research to make an actual difference in the way people see things back at home, you know, real things. Therefore,...
Read MoreBissap Revelations
Naomi Wright
2010-12-06
I am freshly showered—out of a bucket—and my Senegalese mother is waiting for me: we are going to the fields. Sun streaks through mosquito net, making lace on the mosaic tile floor. “Fatima Jow!” My host mom’s voice booms my newly-acquired Senegalese name. I shout Yaay! the Wolof word for mother, poking my head around...
Read MoreMy First Report
Clara Sekowski
2010-12-01
The clinic in Ross Bethio is made up of two buildings. The first is used, and the second is not. Why? Because there are only three doctors. Imagine all the different jobs at a hospital- anesthesiologist, nurse, doctor, surgeon, secretary, janitor, etc. The doctors must be all of those things, all the time. I usually...
Read MoreMy Sandbox
Amanda Brinegar
2010-11-30
Picked up from the pavement of Dakar, I was dropped off in the sun-soaked sand of my new village on November 2. Curling my toes to hold on to my sandals, I waded through the wind-blown earth until I reached my house, the home of the Ndiaye family, a last name I now claim as...
Read MoreAlong for the Ride
Naomi Wright
2010-11-30
What the heck am I doing here? Thinking two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, I raised my eyebrows at the car attendant gesturing animatedly, ushering me into the cave-dark of the canopied truck. I confusedly crawled in on all-fours. Sitting: knees nearly to chest, splay-legged, passenger in front wedged between,...
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