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
Country
Quick Update
Caroline Blanchard
2013-05-02
October was terrible. Every negative adjective applies. I cried almost everyday and spent close to $100 on phone credit calling my family in the US trying to find some comfort in the fact that I wouldn’t be home until April. The only days I felt slightly like myself were Sundays where I would a few...
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Straight From China/ World History
Christopher LaBorde
2013-05-02
This one’s for you, Covey If you look at the history of the world, it’s all been kind of random, and following the path of human nature. The advention of institutionalized religion, the human conquest of the world, slavery. Even now we think we are advanced. Think about how far we’ve come. Think about how...
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Final Video Conclusion
Barker Carlock
2013-05-02
Here is a video that is a final summary of my experiences in Senegal as a 2012-2013 Global Citizen Year Fellow. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB15gB2MUAY
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Souvenirs
Claire Amsden
2013-05-02
In Senegal, taking photos is called taking souvenirs. I can’t tell you how many times I asked my Senegalese friends and family to let me take a souvenir of them during my last two weeks there. (My photo count is telling: I had 400-something photos at the beginning of March, and had more than doubled that...
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Africa
Matthew Travers
2013-04-23
When I woke up in Dindefello, a quaint village littered with tourists in Kedougou, I felt for the first time since my arrival I was living the “authentic African experience” foreigners seek when they come to this country. A hut over my head and a digital camera full of pictures of wildlife and women with...
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Old Enough to Change the World, Young Enough to Still Want To
Matthew Travers
2013-04-23
There are nights where I wake up in a lukewarm sweat, still saturated with the dream that doesn’t let me sleep. In this nocturnal vision, I am back at home in my room, or somewhere in San Jose, California, and I am looking for a way to charge credit on my Senegalese phone to make...
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In The Tomato Field
Matthew Travers
2013-04-23
My greatest insights are revealed to me in the tomato field. Knee to chest, hands to ground, root to soil, I spend my mornings alongside what I confidently call my friends, sixteen Senegalese seeds themselves that, through struggle and effort, now bear the fruits of laughter and companionship. Together we plant row after row of...
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The Toubab Dilemna
Matthew Travers
2013-04-23
Words here in Senegal are a valuable commodity. The wisest people string the neatest webs of words, and a new word learned in Wolof is a new tool to use. However, since the beginning of my time here, one word in particular has followed me wherever I go: Toubab. As you walk down the road...
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One Word
Mary Modisette
2013-04-23
It’s funny how we look at things over the passing of time, the way our minds once saw something a certain way but one day see it again, as something else completely different. How what was once a judgment becomes an understanding, how insecurities turn into pride, and so on. I came to find this...
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Toubab! Eh, toubab!
Olivia Hill
2013-04-23
I can become fluent in Wolof, I can wear the exotic clothes, I can cook ceebu gen bu suff (rice and fish that is tasty), and I can get myself a Senegalese husband, but there is one thing I cannot do. I cannot change the color of my skin. I’ve even asked if there are...
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Birth Order
Caroline Blanchard
2013-04-23
When I arrived in Boussoura on October 2, 2012, the Souare compound was a fully functioning family of 9. One dad, two moms, 2 little girls and 4 little boys all under age 11. I wanted more than anything to be a part of this family. For the first month, I wasn’t. I was a...
Read More A Self-Diagnosis
Grace Bachmann
2013-04-23
Dindefelo lacks a certified M.D., let alone any sort of therapist or psychiatrist. Thus, I take it upon myself to access my own mental health condition. Diagnosis: Frantic Socialite Syndrome Frantic Socialite Syndrome is a type of anxiety disorder derrived from assimilating a social and cultural code but lacking the ability to default to said...
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