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
Choices
Galen Tsongas
2013-04-07
The beliefs we hold are shaped by our environment, our age, our upbringing in our environment, and the combination of experiences and sensations within our realities. Beliefs are passed down from parent to child, friend to friend, television to mind, eyes to mind, mouth to ears, and ears to mind. These are the sculptors of the masterpieces of human...
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The Concept of Being a Woman in Brasil
Jojo Guerrero
2013-04-07
I remember getting ready to go on this bridge year, preparing myself mentally and emotionally for it. I tried to get a glimpse of what exactly I would be experiencing in the next following few months through extensive Googling. I tried to prepare myself for the places I might see, the food I might eat,...
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Change through Empowerment
Chinyere Aniagoh
2013-04-07
My cohort and I, on arrival believed we could change Ecuador. We believed that if our communities didn’t have a clean water system we would be the ones to implement one or if there was an out break of Malaria we could get vaccines to everyone in our communities. These things are possible but we under estimated just how hard...
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The Courtyard
Peyton Foley
2013-04-07
I rest on the edge of a school courtyard wall. It appears ready to crumble, as if my weight were actually centering the worn bricks and pinning them together less they slide apart like Jenga blocks. The other, less fortunate walls lay fallen in the aged courtyard, scattered by time. Below my perch rest the cabbages, carrots, lettuce, and...
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Reaction to ‘Brazil on the Rise’ Chapter: Brazil Becoming a “Serious Country”
Jayshawn Anderson
2013-04-07
I am convinced Brazilians are a bit obsessed with comparing their country to the United States, not to put us down a peg but to raise their own status. In Brazil on the Rise by Larry Rohter, a book that our cohort read during our first training block, the chapter that most captured me was...
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Strong Medicine
Chloe Bash
2013-04-07
As we sat down to lunch one day, a fellow from a neighboring town mentioned that she hadn’t thrown up in months. “Even the water doesn’t seem to bother me anymore,” I responded. “Nor does the street food,” she observed. We concluded that we had become “acostumbradas,” accustomed to the Ecuadorian diet. I recognize, now, that we were tempting...
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A Story on the Coconut Coast
Drew Hayes
2013-04-04
Please click here to view my Photo Gallery. Manuel lives on a piece of land close to the town center of Diogo, the small coastal town of 500 inhabitants in which I’ve been living, but the tranquility on his property makes it seem isolated. I didn’t meet him until I’d been living in Diogo...
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Friends Made
Chinyere Aniagoh
2013-04-04
I’ve learned how to be a true friend through experiencing true friendship. I’ve had unimaginable hardships throughout my time in Ecuador. Challenges in my first community, issues with my family, my apprenticeship wasn’t what I expected, language barriers, and money and even my passport where stolen. Although I had Global Citizen Year support, truthfully if it wasn’t for my fellow fellow...
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I Want What You Have Without Being Who You Are…
Jayshawn Anderson
2013-04-04
How is it that the majority of Salvador crave what Americans are known for creating and consuming (iPhones, iPods, the latest Blockbuster hits, Nike shoes, the NBA, NFL, shirts that have phrases they can’t even read, the list goes on) while all the while criticizing our every move? This idea has baffled me since my...
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