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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The Guardian Rock
Gus Ruchman
2010-09-21
The Guardian Rock is rooted in the California earth, perched high above Petaluma, sitting reverent, immovable, and secure. A relatively short distance from the main campus of IONS, the home of our US Training Institute, the Guardian Rock marks a place of meditation removed from the noise and distraction of modern living, even in the...
Read MoreGood Grief
Ananda Day
2010-08-23
The idiom “good grief” has always seemed a bit oxymoronic to me. How can it be that grief is good in anyways? Perhaps this is why “good grief” is often used as an exclamation expressing something bad that has come along- like rain on a birthday cake outside with candles lit. Good grief, it’s raining!...
Read MoreA call from Sebi
Gaya Morris
2010-08-19
Its 3 pm on Sunday and I’m in my usual spot behind the terracotta table in my mom’s gallery/showroom in the South End of Boston, dabbing at little tufts of oil paint on paper plates, breathing in those thick fumes of turpentine and liquin and humming along to the fast tune Nitti Nit by Yoro...
Read MoreMy Year not in College
Hilary Brown
2010-08-07
September 2009, 32,000 ft in the air I was 6,137 miles from home headed for the western tip of Africa. I could have stuck with my peers, as many advised sitting in a college classroom on U.S. soil. But now, eight months later, no one questions what they then might have thought of as my...
Read MoreMy post for the ONE Campaign
Mathew Davis
2010-08-03
“Global Citizen Year fellow learns that poor farmers need support” – originally posted on the ONE Campaigns blog here: LINK Every year, Global Citizen Year chooses a group of young Americans to spend nine months working as apprentices in rural communities all over the world. Mat Davis, a 2009-2010 fellow, talks about his experience working...
Read More“Hingham student reaches out to Senegal”
Gaya Morris
2010-06-29
This article originally appeared in the Hingham Journal HERE After deciding to take off a “gap year” between high school and college last summer, Gaya Morris, a Hingham resident, recently returned from a stay in a rural village in Senegal as a participant in the Global Citizen Year Founding Fellow program. What do you think...
Read MoreDear Hassane
Gaya Morris
2010-06-10
***I wrote this blog a few weeks ago in the midst of that overly observant readjustment period and I sincerely hope some of the generalizations I have made aren’t offensive to anyone, because that’s really all they are – superficial generalizations in which you may sometimes find a grain of truth.*** Dear Hassane, Remember that...
Read MoreConclusions of many sorts
Gaya Morris
2010-05-06
Its not the first time I’ve remarked how hellos are much more important than goodbyes for the Senegalese. There is no question that greetings are of the utmost importance – to shake the person’s hand and go through the usual series of inquiries about your friends family, health and happiness – but then its so...
Read MoreA memory
Gaya Morris
2010-05-06
Here is a blog post I meant to post a couple weeks ago but somehow never found the chance to. I guess now you could call it a memory. My alarm rings at quarter to seven (as I am unable to prevent it from doing every single day due to the broken screen) and I...
Read MorePerchance to Dream
Ananda Day
2010-04-27
The phrase that keeps going through my head? It feels like a dream. When I actually say it out loud, I am referencing how surreal it is to be leaving my host family and Senegal – a fact that I have known, but something that was never quite manifest throughout this journey. When I think...
Read MoreMalaria – “the biggest problem in Senegal”
Alec Yeh
2010-04-24
Every once and a while, I’ll sit next to Seck to observe a consultation. But for the first time, I sat in the patients’ seat, facing the ominous head nurse. Fortunately for me, I was only sitting there for an interview, and not for health reasons. “My last question. What is the biggest problem in...
Read MoreYama my shadow
Gaya Morris
2010-04-19
Yama follows me absolutely everywhere. I might be in the school computer lab, out shopping at the épicerie, visiting a friend, or just out for a walk and someone will ask me ‘who’s the kid?’ I’ll suddenly remember she is there, clinging to my pinky or carrying my nalgene, or crouched over a little piece...
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