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
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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Abaraka
Talia Katz
2013-01-22
For the past four months, my life has largely existed without the word “Thank You.” This absence does not by any means indicate a lack of gratitude or appreciation. It doesn’t mean that my passing of the hot pepper at the dinner bowl was a worthless action, nor does it mean that bringing cotton balls...
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Julia Carter
2013-01-22
What do you see in the picture above? Two realities exist, whether you see the young woman or an elderly woman. Illusions like this are meant to make you look twice, to train not only your eyes, but also your imagination to see things in a different perspective. Many aspects of society often beg multiple...
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Ventanas
Ella Wegman-Lawless
2013-01-17
Let me tell you about a sweet little village called Ventanas in the middle of the Ecuadorian jungle country. This part of the country is a mix between the Amazonian Jungle and the coast, leaving us with an almost always cloudy but still hot climate. In the words of pretty much all Ecuadorians that have been to this village...
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