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
My New Bike
Cameron Carrick
2014-02-19
Dear cherished reader, I realize that it’s been a while since my last post and for that I apologize. It’s proven much more difficult than I originally anticipated to bring a blog from conception to your screens. Posting requires a delicate coordination of weather, willpower, paper-to-binary money transfers, patience, concentration, timing, and after all that...
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Aissatou’s Wedding
Kaitlyn Johnke
2014-02-03
When holidays or special events arise, I view them with significantly more apprehension than excitement because for a whole day or even week, I have yet again landed in another world: different greetings are said, I am supposed to follow a course of actions everyone understands but me, we wear different clothes, and I am...
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Reference to Home
Samuel Normington
2014-01-24
Home sickness is like a hurricane. You are only vaguely aware of it brooding in the distance but it is determined to not just be a bad day or a little storm, it’s determined to knock you off your feet, and leave you stunned and stinging, questioning everything in existence, physical or not. What is...
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The Beginning of Something New
Riley Markham
2014-01-24
In my first month here in Senegal, I noticed many cultural differences between the US and Senegal. One in particular is that when you eat here in senegal you only use your right hand. The reason being is that your left hand is to only be used for bathroom purposes because, as you might have...
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Timeline
Emily Stevens
2014-01-24
I apologize for having not publicly documented anything for the past five and a half months. Hopefully this timeline will adequately catch you up on the most important points and periods. September: Smelly, sweaty September. I spent the first month in a Wolof family with two American study-abroad sisters. By day I went to French,...
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A Day In Dindefelo
Vruj Patel
2014-01-11
Hello, my friends. It’s been a long time and I apologize for taking so long to update everybody on what’s been going on, but it’s been a very full three (has it been so long already?) months and there is a dearth of electricity and internet in my hut. Here’s an average day in my life, which I hope...
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The Things I Carry
Alexandra Ding
2014-01-11
The announcement I carried a parasite was met with mild hysteria amongst the inhabitants of Grove Circle. My mother was frenetic, as mothers are wont to, and locked in vigorous debate with my father—and really, anyone who would listen—on the merits of hiring a hazmat team to cleanse my entire 400-person West African village. They...
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What the Wind Sees
Cameron Carrick
2014-01-09
“The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers, (Winter has given them gold for silver To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks) From different throats intone one language. So I believe that if we were strong enough to listen without Divisions of desire and terror To the storm of...
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Tree
Maximilian Chen
2014-01-06
An unfortunate burden that I’ve had to shoulder for most of my life has been my troubled history as a juvenile con artist. In my earlier years, I recall exhibiting a predilection for faking advanced literary capability. As do most delinquents, I started small. Scores upon scores of elementary school classroom minutes were spent frantically turning through installment after...
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Becoming a Part of the Family—Highlights continued
Aly Counsell
2013-12-30
December 11, 2013 Here are more highlights of my time in Ndande so far. This afternoon, I was walking through one of the main streets in my neighborhood, which is lined with small boutiques and tents where men weld iron. In front of one of the boutiques, there were several women selling food, and I knew one of...
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Finding a Home in Ndande—Highlights of the Past Eight Weeks
Aly Counsell
2013-12-30
December 6, 2013 So much has happened in the past eight weeks and there are so many things that I want to write about! I’m currently volunteering at the health post, preschool, and high school in Ndande, which has given me a wide variety of experiences in the community, and I’m continuing to improve my Wolof (the local...
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Learning to Walk
Aly Counsell
2013-12-30
November 5, 2013 It was a typical evening in Ndande, the village where I have been living since the beginning of October. I had just eaten a dinner of cere, which is a coarse couscous-like dish made from millet flour, and I was sitting on a straw mat watching TV with my family, when suddenly my aunt walked...
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