Fellow Stories

Welcome to my blog!

Aissatou Tagaty Badio

2018-10-18

Welcome to my Global Citizen Year blog! Subscribe and follow along on on my adventures during my gap year abroad.

What am I doing in Senegal? – Part 2

2018-10-15

Continuing from my first post, I am going to talk about my personal agenda in this one. Two weeks into Senegal, I have made up some expectations for myself such as learning languages, having a family and being fit. My first goal is learning languages because I believe that languages would be my lasting connection...

Every individual is a unique existence of this world.

Qianran Yang

2018-10-12

Every individual is a unique existence of this world. “We live alone, we die alone” “Everything else is just an illusion.” ———“The art of getting by” I guess the existence of every individual on this earth is unique and irreplaceable. What are you doing while I’m writing this text? Probably reading a book? Watching a...

Chapter 4: The Goats Here, They Burp

Xandra Coleman

2018-10-11

Perhaps my largest intention for this trip is to focus on my personal development and self-discovery. In order to do that, I’ve been told that it is important to become more mindful of one’s surroundings, environment, and self. Therefore, as part of this journey, each month I will be writing one blog focused on one...

Running Relatively Blind

Ellie Van Gorden

2018-10-11

Running relatively blind has its pros and cons. On one hand, the colors at dusk blend together and create a beautiful orange glow all around you; but on the other hand, you can’t quite distinguish where the puddles of water turn into mud. I had yet to consider how I was going to go running...

Beautiful People and Happenings

Ellie Van Gorden

2018-10-11

I slowly wake to the sound of Taps bellowing out of the ancient speakers lining the walls of the military base about 100 yards out from my bedroom window. The sun creeps in through my draping white curtain, and I hear the rooster crow. I feel the footsteps approaching; the troops chant and sing in...

“Desaprender lo que creo haber aprendido”: musings of a guatemalteca in Senegal

Phoebe Shea Perez

2018-10-08

After five weeks of living in Touba Toul, I’m proud to say that even though kids in the streets tirelessly still call me toubab (Wolof for westerner), my family consistently mentions I’m becoming Senegalese. Two Fridays ago, at my cousin’s wedding in Doudoul, when we had finished cooking a colossal amount of beñe (1) and...

Little birthday wish

Salome-Valdivieso

2018-10-06

(View from my house 05/10/2018 evening) A strong feeling of homesickness comes to my 19th birthday here in Senegal. Nostalgia fills me when I remember all my friends and family members in my 16th and last birthday in Ecuador. Nostalgia comes to my heart when I remember my last two birthdays; by the fjord, in...

Dalal ak jàmm!

Paula Medina

2018-10-06

8 Sept 2018 Today I arrived to my host family in this yet unknown country for me. My senegalese name is ‘Yaay Faatu’, the identity with which I will be recognised by my new neighbours. The life awaiting for me at this point is to observe, learn, play and feel necessary confusion. Someone told me...

Easy

London Samson

2018-10-05

I’d say it’s easy to fall in love with a place when the sun sneaks into your room through thin metal shutters at 7 am and the birds accompany it in song. When your instant coffee and breakfast baguette pair well with staring off into the sky carelessly. When walking down the street has become...

“A World Ahead”: lessons from my playlists and suitcases

Phoebe Shea Perez

2018-10-05

[Image description: photo of myself at the Orlando Museum of Art in front of Dan Halter’s Rifugiato Mappa del Mondo] Packing my suitcase for the next eight months in Senegal brought an initially incomprehensible sense of déjà vu. For days I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I had already packed for this sojourn, but...

Riding African Sand Dunes, Seeking Medical Attention, and Meeting My Dad’s Second Wife… Oh My!

Peter Dull

2018-10-04

It has been a little over a month since arriving here in Senegal. Here is a list of things that I did not expect coming here: – how every kid will call you tubbab (Westerner in Wolof) and go up to you and stroke your hair and skin (now I am fine with kids calling...