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
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Cold Showers (Or Life in Africa)
Christopher LaBorde
2013-01-28
Note: This blog was written in many pieces at different times, and my attitude changes just like the weather, quickly and drastically, but I hope that this gives you a better idea of what I was going through at the beginning of my journey on this side of the Atlantic. I tried to write a book once. It was the...
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Define Collaboration
Hannah Bouline
2013-01-28
I must have re-written this blog post a thousand times. If not on my computer, then at least in my thoughts. As I navigate each day living with an Indigenous family in rural Ecuador, my version of this blog post has constantly been changing. I suspect that this arises from my continually changing vocabulary. Yes,...
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Beyond the Drawing Board
Aidan Holloway-Bidwell
2013-01-28
Development: noun. The process of developing or being developed. A specific state of growth or advancement. Being so general, the formal definition of the word “development” is open to many interpretations, and can be applied to an array of situations. Animals develop biologically, countries develop economically, plans, plots, and people also all develop. The definition...
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Stagnant lake
Galen Tsongas
2013-01-25
Belay all judgments. Think. Observe. Ask. When words like weird, disorganized, and crazy are used, what is happening? Why do I perceive that someone is disorganized, or weird? I lived in a relatively small capsule where thoughts converged to funnel certain thoughts down rivulets that led to a lake of stagnant thoughts. The thoughts of...
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My First Day of School
Caroline Blanchard
2013-01-25
The fact that it’s called “school” pretty much ends the similarities to any American school I have ever seen. My sister and I walked up to school and saw the children of Boussoura just waiting to be let in to the two locked rooms. When the teacher showed up, I went into the class with...
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A Portrait of the Pulaar Family
Grace Bachmann
2013-01-24
Each family has a patriarch. He may have more than one wife, though I observe most commonly that a man has no more than two wives in one household. They have many children if they are fortunate; child mortality rates are relatively high. When a wife passes, the partriarch may take another wife. When the...
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Earplugs
Lydia Collins
2013-01-24
One of the first bits of Ecuadorian cultural advice I remember receiving at Stanford is to expect a lot of noise. Our innocent, pre-departure selves were told that the dogs bark more here, the music is played louder, and the cars never cease to honk. I listened to the advice, processed it, and then forgot about it. I was...
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Looking Up: From Sympathy to Respect
Sydni Heron
2013-01-24
A version of this blog has also been featured on Everyday Ambassador. Follow this link to read the story there. _____________________________________ ¨ANTECEDENTES: El Patronato es un organismo de carácter social, creado para dar protección social a los grupos humanos más vulnerables del cantón. El accionar parte de las políticas trazadas por el Gobierno Cantonal...
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An Astounding Fact
Bijan Sanchez
2013-01-22
(This post was originally a speech I made for my “Speak-up” presentation addressed to the entire Ecuador cohort during Training Seminar 2 in Esmeraldas. I left most of the speech as is for some soundness.) This post has to do with the most profound thing I have ever heard that came up in a class during the last semester of...
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