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
A History Written in the Sands
Elias Estabrook
2011-12-12
Silhouetted against a crackling fire, the children chant. To me, the words are a song of dynamic gibberish, though I know them to be beautiful verses of the Koran. The recited text is passed around the circle of restless brothers, sisters, and cousins, one child reading at a time while the rest provide a fervent...
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Bambi Grows Up
Lucy Blumberg
2011-12-12
I had forgotten how far I had progressed in Wolof. I was stressing over the little things, the fact that I could understand about 20% of the words in a sentence but couldn’t string them together to make any kind of sense. All conversations that I observed during work at the Poste de Sante or...
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We Heart Reproductive Rights!
Emily Hanna
2011-12-11
How does one talk about family planning and reproductive rights in a country where it’s taboo to acknowledge that a woman is pregnant? Loudly and enthusiastically, as it turns out, with lots of important people for an audience and plenty of media coverage to help spread the word. This uncharacteristic openness was but one of...
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The Next Step
Charlotte Benishek
2011-12-08
“What is that prescription for?” I ask the nurse at the local health post as she scribbled on her notepad. “Hypertension,” she replies. “Is that a common problem here?” In response, she pushed the record book across her desk and pointed to the “diagnosis” column. Common would be an understatement. Surveying the column, I estimated...
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Explaining Myself
Charlotte Benishek
2011-12-02
The preferred form of public transportation in Leona is the “auto,” a pickup truck from the 1960’s (and rarely a slightly later model) with a sort of frame affixed over the bed to facilitate squeezing the maximum number of humans inside (and on top) for the journey. Like the locals, this is the primary means...
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Initiation
Madeline Ripa
2011-12-01
“ C’est quoi?” (“What is it?”) I asked, in response to what my new host mother had just told me. When I first arrived at my new home in Palmarin, my French had been less than mediocre and my Serere was non-existent. Consequently, “C’est quoi?” became a popular phrase. I would sit while my family...
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A Baby and the Belgians
Madeline Ripa
2011-12-01
I took a moment to appreciate the beautiful baby girl in my arms. Just around 4 minutes ago, she had been a bump in her mothers’ stomach. I watched as she opened her eyes to blink at the big new world she was now a part of. I smiled and handed the unnamed baby to...
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Tabaski Week Recap
Russell Bollag-Miller
2011-11-23
This was the week of the Senegalese holiday Tabaski. At a glance, the week fostered an absurd amount of new experiences for me. Ram slaughtering, wrestling matches, onion farming, Islamic praying, hitchhiking with Moroccan legume salesmen, African dance parties, outrageous fun. Enough cultural exploits for at least five separate blog posts. I’m going to talk...
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My New Skills
Charlotte Benishek
2011-11-23
Before I left for Senegal, I expected to learn most through my apprenticeship. However, much to my surprise, I have gained numerous skills and insights from just participating in everyday life in a rural village in Senegal for a month. Although I haven’t done much formal work for my apprenticeship yet, I acquire new skills...
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A New Approach
Charlotte Benishek
2011-11-16
Four weeks ago I was dropped off in Lèona, energetic, optimistic and above all impatient to begin my apprenticeship. The only problem was the vagueness of my assignment of “working with the Millennium Villages Project.” There is no central office here in Lèona, but the effects of the project are clearly visible – a new...
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Dance, Tubab, Dance
Emily Hanna
2011-11-15
I will never be able to dance like a Senegalese woman. This rueful and self-defeating axiom runs through my mind over and over, growing steadily more certain the longer my friend – and fellow Fellow – Fatima Ndiaye (Natalie Davidson), her host sister Fatou, and I watch the sabat (drumming-and-dancing ceremony) the inhabitants of our...
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A New Kind of Home
Semira Sanchez
2011-11-11
In my room. Fan on. Raining outside. Its 10:30 am on a Sunday. While I sit here pondering what to write as my first Senegal post for Global Citizen Year, I feel as if I should give the post some justice. I want people who read my post to go through a mix of emotions....
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