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
Breathing in Quito
Yani Alexander
2013-09-13
In Quito, where the altitude is 10,000 feet, I have learned to breathe more deeply. So I inhale Quito; taking in both the fresh air from the trees that cover the mountains which surround the city and the exhaust expelled by buses and cars that race along its streets. With each exhale I feel myself opening up. I was worried about...
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Lost in Quito
Lauren Guido
2013-09-13
The day started off well. I hiked Cotopaxi , one of the world’s highest volcanoes, managed to talk to my family almost completely in Spanish , ate dessert with my friend Charlotte and met a well known British puppeteer. After departing from my friend and the puppeteer my biggest fear came true, getting lost at night in Quito. A...
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Confiar
Abigail Clavin
2013-09-13
Well, I got lost. It was bound to happen living in city I don’t know and struggling to speak the language. I decided to trust my instincts and hop on the bus assuming it would just take me home. As I started to recognize less and less and lost sight of Pichincha, my landmark, I knew I was in...
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Neverwhere: Home, But Not
Libby Parker-Simkin
2013-09-13
In the 30+ hours I spent flying down to Brazil, I read Neil Gaiman’s fabulous book “Neverwhere.” Its about an ordinary man named Richard Mayhew who helps out a mysterious girl he finds injured in the street and is transported into an alternate version of London called London Below. London Below is part in the...
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The Difference of 34 Seconds.
Jaelen Buxton-Punch
2013-09-13
I’m sitting atop of a tree 30 feet high. Below, I see the faces of Fellows; white, black, brown, tan, all a physical manifestations of the diversity of social, economic, and cultural differences we’re comprised of. I can’t do it. I refuse. 34 seconds (the elapsed time from beginning to end) though quick and unnoticeable...
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Fear
JT Su
2013-09-13
Snip. Snip. Snip. Within ten minutes, my hair was eight inches shorter than it was. Having long hair for most of my life, I often get asked why I decided to get such a drastic makeover, and why so suddenly. I would often tell people it was simply for a new beginning–the start of a...
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I do things a little differently
Abigail Mejia
2013-09-13
He was working on what seemed to be a calendar, when I asked him for five minutes of his time. He looked at me blankly, sighed and almost reluctantly said “sure.” I remember sitting in the office starring at his back as I tried to gain the guts to tell him that I had decided to defer...
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Yes, and…
Eva Ackerman
2013-09-13
I have never been good at not being good at activities. The extracurriculars I continued throughout the years are the ones that came naturally to me, never the ones that took work, because I always quit either mentally or in actuality before I tried to persevere. For years I played soccer, yet instead of trying,...
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¡Estamos Perdido!
Claire Wohlers
2013-09-05
Today, I got lost. Probably the most lost I’ve ever been. After Spanish classes today, we visited the United States Embassy for a security briefing and explanation of what the Foreign Service does here. During the security briefing, we were warned about the dangers of Quito. The taxis, the streets, the evenings, the buses; apparently...
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