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
Day by Day
Dora Lee
2016-08-28
Just when I feel as though I’m done with all the goodbyes, there is someone else that I have to say “see you in 8 months” to. Just when I feel like I’m mentally/emotionally prepared, tears overcome me thinking about the inevitable struggles I will face. Just when I think I’m ready...
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About my nap year.
Jasen Lo
2016-08-28
Hi. I'm Jasen. This is my blog. It is a blog of a perpetually confused, endlessly blabbering teenage adult. A Singaporean who never served, a Hong Konger who escaped home and politics to distant lands. Senegal. I write this in honorable memory of the coming adventure and under the obligation of my scholarship (Cheers Katie)....
Read MoreCarta de Introdução
Fernanda Savaris Nunes
2016-08-27
Oi!Passei muito tempo pensando no que escrever como minha primeira publicação nesse blog, mas percebi que não faria sentido eu escrever algo sobre como a vida está indo e sobre como me sinto sem primeiro explicar o que é que realmente estou fazendo mundo afora de novo (e um pouco de quem sou eu, pra...
Read MoreSteps
Pablo Quezada Cortés
2016-08-26
Things to pack are spread over the room and, as a learned ritual, I start to open the baggages and put them into place. The feeling has been always the same: excitement and nervousness come up together in a strange mix that leaves me with wonders and prospects. It is time to leave again the house, to...
Read MorePreDeparture Training: Anxiety and Anticipation
Kyle Healy
2016-08-26
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I received my acceptance letter to Global Citizen Year. Many thoughts flew through my head as I peeled the adhesive-bound envelope open to take a look at the next 10 months of my life. Thoughts such as “am I ready for this kind of commitment?” and “can I...
Read Morewhere I need to be
Anne Cohen
2016-08-25
These first few days have been a continuous reminder that although I might not want to be here all of the time, this is exactly where I need to be. With each passing session and conversation, I feel more and more strongly that this is where I should be. And that I am on the...
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Wednesday hope
Armi Katariina Kauppila
2016-06-08
April 20th. I feel obliged to publish some kind of a reflection now that I'm back "home" again. I feel obliged to make an effort to describe why Senegal, this sort-of-random country that first felt so foreign to me eventually made me sob on the floor of the airport departure hall after bag-drop, repeating again...
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PHOTO ESSAY: THE LAST DAY IN DOUGNANE
eirikowl
2016-06-05
In my first blog post I made a soundtrack which featured the various sounds that surrounded me at the farm I worked at. At the end of my global citizen year all those sounds that had initially confused me, were now sounds that I connected with a deep sense of familiarity and belonging. That language...
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Notes while in Senegal/ Annotations en francais aussi
Josue Morales Vivas
2016-06-03
Things not to forget about Mboro: I look around and realize there aren’t car garages in the neighborhood. There aren’t many cars. Instead, an economically stable family would have a horse-drawn vehicle, which still is, one of the main sources of transportation. Holidays are interesting. Today was the Magal fest. But everything has closed since...
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THE PEOPLE WE MEET AGAIN
eirikowl
2016-06-01
On the flip side of being fortune to have wonderful people come into your life there is a straining process attached having to say goodbye to all the people who pass in and out of your life. It was in early April when I spent my last Senegalese days at the farm of the Mbaye family that I learned the importance of how to say goodbye to...
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THERE IS ALWAYS A BOWL OF RICE
eirikowl
2016-06-01
I have attended a good amount of awkward dinners. The times are plentiful where I have unintentionally crashed a dinner and nobody has had the courage to tell me to leave. Leaving me to awkwardly sit at the dinner table feeling like an imposter and picking up on the subtle hint that tells me that the dinner was intended for someone other...
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A MOTHER’S RECOGNITION
eirikowl
2016-06-01
When I told my host mother I was soon to leave Senegal, she paused for a second and said she would cry an awful lot. I was sure this was a true sign of her appreciating me. She took a second pause and told me to send her 500 euros as soon as I would get home. I...
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