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
Updates and Anecdotes Part II
Aidan Holloway-Bidwell
2013-03-27
Time grows short here in Los Bancos. With two weeks left I start to think back: “How exactly have a spent these past seven months, that it all went by so quickly?” Well, my routine made weeks fly by. Teaching English classes, giving environmental and recycling presentations, painting, building, traveling to and from communities…that was...
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The Dark, or Rather Light, Side of Senegalese Beauty
Aissatou Barrie-Rose
2013-03-26
What does a lady having a consultation at her plastic surgeon’s office in Beverly Hills have in common with a woman in Senegal religiously rubbing her body with skin bleaching cream? They are doing everything they can to make themselves more “beautiful”. Now, stop for a moment and picture the three most beautiful women you...
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Cameras
Camille LeBlanc
2013-03-26
At a Stanford cafeteria table back in August, I had my first meeting with my Team Leader, Sol. I had thirty minutes to express my interests and passions and to explain exactly what I wanted out of this year. Although I probably made very little sense at the time, art was at the forefront of my mind. I wanted...
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Vending on a Bus
Lauren Holt
2013-03-26
“Papas, secos, heladitos, papa’s, secos, heladitos!” “Potato chips, chicken, ice cream, potato chips, chicken, ice cream!” This is the sound you are guaranteed to hear on a bus. Each time I am on a bus, whether I’m traveling or coming home from a day in Ibarra, vendors come on and sell food and trinkets such...
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Preparing for Departure: A Feelings Post
Emily Hwang
2013-03-19
Words are elusive to me now. Perhaps the effects of the monstrous exhaust fumes that billow out from behind Riobamba buses like parachutes and dissipate into small portions of carcinogens to be inhaled by unsuspecting townspeople are manifesting on my tongue, because it feels ashen and heavy. I lack words. The titanic shadow of the...
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The Girl Effect and The Golden Rule
Julia Carter
2013-03-18
The Girl Effect is a movement powered by the Nike Foundation where adolescent girls are called upon to help solve poverty within their communities. By reducing the percentage of child marriage, teenage pregnancy and the spread of HIV, a young teenage girl has the potential to break generations of poverty and change the life of her family and...
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Parent Post: The Joy in Living
Global Citizen Year
2013-03-18
The following is a blog by Pam Ricker, mother of Global Citizen Year Fellow Jordan Ricker, written after a trip to Senegal to visit her son. When my son Scott and I arrived in Dakar just before 6:00am, it was really 1:00am to us and we had only slept about two and a half...
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The Girl Effect: Part II
Kim Asenbeck
2013-03-16
Here’s the setting: I’m sitting on the bus, speaking in English to a fellow Fellow, who is seated next to me. Across the aisle, a ten-year-old girl has her eyes glued to me. Everything about me must have been intriguing–the language I was speaking that she didn’t understand, my fair skin, and the far away...
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Unapologetic Pride
Danielle Livneh
2013-03-14
With her bubble gum pink shall, bowler hat, long anako skirt, and shoes that garishly advertises Jesus as he savior, she stands defiantly on the side of the road. She is fourteen-year-old indigenous girl of Guamote. As her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents do, she speaks Kichwa. Unlike her relatives, however, she also knows Spanish. She attends a bilingual school,...
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