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
Traffic Lights
Leah Mesh-Ferguson
2013-12-16
Before I talk about my perceptions of gender here in Ecuador, I want to mention something else. First, I want to emphasize that these are MY perceptions, MY truths, while for somebody else, they might not be true. About a week ago, I was at my second Training Seminar in Baños, just a couple hours north-west of Riobamba. For one...
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Motivations
Abigail Dring
2013-12-16
Motivation. What motivates people to make the decisions they do? Everyone has a motivation. People don’t do things just to do them. There is always an underlying reason whether it be conscious or subconscious. I have delayed this post because I could not articulate what mine are. Why have I chosen to stray from the...
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Out in the Open: A Human Rights Manifesto
JT Su
2013-12-16
“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” — Chimamanda Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story It all started with a book I bought hours before leaving for Ecuador, where I would be living for the next...
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Struggle
Alexandra Lines
2013-12-16
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. A group of Fellows met up in the absolutely stunning town of Baños, Ecuador to celebrate and participate in a training seminar. The food was delicious, the music loud and the laughter over-flowing. A few hours after dinner though, I started to feel like something wasn’t quite right with my...
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Napo, Where the Andes Meet the Amazon
Calvin Ross
2013-12-14
I’m loving life. I couldn’t ask for anything more. My little village of Santa Rita is so beautiful. A small village made to look smaller by the size of the mountain it nestles up against. Everything but the roads and houses is completely overgrown. In ten square feet of space you’ll find an uncountable number of plants and novel...
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Simply Being
Allie McKinney
2013-12-13
Last week I met a 21 year old Senegalese guy named Aziz. Aziz is studying English at the University of Dakar and wanted to practice with a native English speaker, so my Aunt Bebe introduced us. I was immediately impressed with his fluency; Aziz kept up with my pace, and hardly ever asked me to repeat myself. I was...
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Views are a’changin’
Eva Ackerman
2013-12-05
Throughout my teenage years, whenever I heard of people sending clothing, sports supplies, or money to a developing country, I got upset. There are people in the United States who suffer a great deal, yet it isn’t as glamorous to help improve their lives. I thought of all the people ten minutes away from my mainly wealthy community with...
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Rambling Update from the Field
Mouna Algahaithi
2013-12-05
Written on October 22, 2013 I just spent the last 3 hours scrubbing my clothes. Laundry is an extremely tedious task in the rest of the world. Spread across the sand of my backyard were three buckets. The first one was for washing, the second one was for scrubbing with a bar of soap, and...
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"being" vs. "doing"
Kristen Lee
2013-12-05
Not all of a gap year is glamorous. I spend a lot of time alone. I spend a lot of time sitting under the sun. I spend a lot of time being confused. I spend a lot of time waiting. I spend a lot of time thinking. I spend a lot of time sweating while...
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