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
The Red Crayon, or the Blue?
Mary Modisette
2012-11-29
“What activity do you think the kids should do?” Tonton Njame asked me in French, referring to the group of five and six-year-olds in the Grande Section of Casa de Tout Petit, a nursery school I had been formally working in for a not even a week. Naturally my mind seemed to run a total...
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Waste Not, Want Not
Emily Ford
2012-11-29
The singular light bulb in my room went out. No big deal, I thought. It was late in the evening when I noticed and I didn’t want to disturb my family. Using my flashlight, I simply went to sleep, vowing to ask for a light bulb the next morning. However I didn’t remember until I returned home from...
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“Everyone eats today”
Marisa Comeau-Kerege
2012-11-29
We all sat around two long tables in anticipation of our Thanksgiving feast. “There is going to be so much food,” we were told over and over again. We were all bubbling with excitement. When our meals came, one thing stuck out to me. There was a lot of food, but there were also 33...
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Dafa Metti
Emily Ford
2012-11-29
I find myself wishing for rougher hands so that I wouldn’t wince from the heat of the rice as I eat. I want my spine to be perfectly aligned to avoid the sore back I endure after spending hours picking bissap. And I curse my eyes for being so sensitive that they tear up from the smoke as I...
Read MoreEighteen
Talia Katz
2012-11-29
Tang Aning Segi — Malinke Eighteen — English Dix-huit — Francais Fuk ak Djurom Nyet — Wolof Maybe it’s because we scrutinize that which is closest to us, but I think I’ve begun to over analize the number 18. Although logically 18 is a number and thus should retain a certain universal meaning, I’ve...
Read MoreThe Domino Effect
Claire Amsden
2012-11-27
Sometimes you have to get rid of your inhibitions and dance like no one is watching. That’s not just a corny saying, I mean that literally. Sometimes, when the TV show Dakar Ne Dort Pas (Dakar Doesn’t Sleep) is filming on the street in front of your homestay family’s house, you have to get up...
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Chalil’s Prayer
Ariel Vardy
2012-11-26
He pushes us through crowded streets, past shouting vendors, ducking through soccer games, and across streets that have a constant flow of traffic. Unmaintained through traffic light, I follow him into the middle of the road, and absorb the moment—a bus almost hits me as it tries to change lanes, dipping into the incoming traffic...
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Kids Will Be Kids
Jordan Ricker
2012-11-21
By Serigne Saliou Sarr (aka Jordan Ricker) My Senegalese family is pretty average-sized. There’s my father, only one mother (even though polygamy is practiced in Senegal), my five younger siblings, and me. My oldest rakk bu góor (younger brother) is also named Serigne Saliou, 14 years-old, and in troisième (the equivalent of 9th grade), while my youngest is 2 and...
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Introducing Fama Siby
Marisa Comeau-Kerege
2012-11-21
Throughout the application process and my Summer Campaign, so many people told me that I would come back a completely different person. I would nod and politely smile at them but I never really believed it. I thought I would go to this other country, which I knew nothing about, learn a new language, maybe a few cultural dances,...
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Off to Joal
Barker Carlock
2012-11-21
Here is the second video documenting my time in Senegal! Off to Joal
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Adjustments
Marisa Comeau-Kerege
2012-11-14
I originally began writing this post about expectations, because let’s be real, who packs up their life for a year and moves to Africa without some sort of expectation as to what they are getting themselves into? Fall Training made everything seem so fun and happy all the time. Having spent the 10 days at Stanford living in the...
Read MoreThe Bubble Is Back
Emily Collins
2012-11-14
You know that feeling of pure happiness? Where you feel a bubble inside you begin to light and spread throughout each cell within you? The light shines threw in the form or a smile and the sound of a laugh. That feeling of having pure satisfaction and being content within. Where in a single moment...
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