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
Books
Allie Wallace
2013-01-03
I judge books by their covers. I’m not being euphemistic here, I just find that a book worth binding nicely and decorating with gold leaf and a ribbon bookmark is usually a book worth reading. You don’t see many books made like that anymore. But, surprisingly, these quality books pack the shelves of the little...
Read More
Another Reality
Ava Hoffman
2012-12-18
Two million, nine hundred ninety eight thousand and fifty six people live in the city of São Salvador de Bahia de Todos os Santos ₁. Of that population, six hundred and eight thousand and nine hundred seventy six inhabitants live in extreme poverty. — Salvador is beautiful in its own way. Always bustling, Salvador never...
Read More
Single Parenthood in the Andean Mountains
Tsion Horra
2012-12-11
One morning my host mother in Nizag and I were eating breakfast when I noticed the unusual abundance of eggs in the kitchen. Eggs, at $0.15 each, are expensive for my family. For this reason we eat eggs only occasionally. So I asked my host mom how we got them. My host mom bought the...
Read More
Snippets of Life
Benito Aranda-Comer
2012-12-11
I find that when I actively look for something amazing, interesting, or out of the ordinary to happen in my life I come up short. My actions remind me of the saying, “a watched kettle does not boil.” There are so many beautiful and wondrous things to glimpse, learn, and understand here in Brazil it’s sometimes hard to get...
Read More
Being Happy with Where You Are
Joshua Reason
2012-12-11
After our cohort’s first training seminar I was sick. It wasn’t anything serious, but nevertheless I decided that once I got back to Lençóis I would take it easy for a little while. I have been taking jiu jitsu classes for about a month now. I just bought a jiu jitsu kimono from Salvador before...
Read More
The Pith and The Pit: Biting Deeper Into The Essence Ecuador
Aidan Holloway-Bidwell
2012-12-07
Having spent two months in Los Bancos, I have come to a time of analysis and reflection. This experience has thrown so many new and unexpected situations at me daily, that only until recently have I felt qualified to categorize events, reflect on similar aspects, and make certain comparisons. To bring life to these reflections...
Read More
Competency
Meg Crenshaw
2012-12-05
I recently had a realization: While I was in the States, I was at least competent at the things I did in my daily life. Prepare breakfast? Check. Drive to school? Check. Lead a meeting? Check. Flush the toilet? Check. It’s a humbling experience to suddenly not be competent at everyday things. Flushing the toilet,...
Read More
Settling In
Drew Hayes
2012-12-05
Often when I tell people I’ll be living in Diogo for the next six months, they tell me how privileged I am. They gush about the beach, the sand dunes, and the river. Now that I’m here, I can confirm that Diogo, Bahia, Brazil is a place worth gushing about. It makes an awesome postcard....
Read MoreJigsaw Puzzles
Julia Carter
2012-12-04
When I was younger, I loved working on jigsaw puzzles with my grandmother. I loved getting down to eye level with the table and seeing life from the eyes of the puzzle pieces. With half my face revealed, I would watch as a picture magically materialized from what used to be 1000 little pieces of...
Read More