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
Right Choice ≠ Easy Choice
Betty Gebre
2012-11-14
“Why am I doing this again?” I thought after my honeymoon phase in my host community had ended. I was scared, feeling lonely, and was experiencing culture shock. My smooth sailing had come to an end and reality started to hit. The fact that I would be spending six months in my community and the expectation of “change...
Read More
Adjustments
Marisa Comeau-Kerege
2012-11-14
I originally began writing this post about expectations, because let’s be real, who packs up their life for a year and moves to Africa without some sort of expectation as to what they are getting themselves into? Fall Training made everything seem so fun and happy all the time. Having spent the 10 days at Stanford living in the...
Read MoreThe Bubble Is Back
Emily Collins
2012-11-14
You know that feeling of pure happiness? Where you feel a bubble inside you begin to light and spread throughout each cell within you? The light shines threw in the form or a smile and the sound of a laugh. That feeling of having pure satisfaction and being content within. Where in a single moment...
Read More
The Floor
Allie Wallace
2012-11-14
Before I came to Senegal, I was fairly detached from the floor, or as detached as gravity allows. The floor was a convenient place to keep chairs and tables and trash cans and other such useful items. It was a chore, always needing to be vacuumed, swept or mopped. I never gave it much thought...
Read More
The Foundation of a Community
Carrie Hamilton
2012-11-13
Upon coming to my community in Ecuador, I was expecting to be introduced to a world where women tended to the home all day whilst men set off to do manual labor. What I was not prepared for, however, was the reality of Alto Tena, where women are responsible for nearly everything. They are the...
Read More
“Permanent Placement”
Camille LeBlanc
2012-11-13
Although I loved my high school, I always felt trapped in the confines of the classroom. I was living in a rut of text books and class discussions and research papers, and all I could think about was my desperate need to break out of that comfort, to immerse myself in a completely unfamiliar environment, and to see...
Read MoreMountain Monents
Chinyere Aniagoh
2012-11-10
It’s been a roller coaster in my time here so far. Driving down the mountains on our way to Los Bancos has been the most rewarding experience for me thus far. I became filled with a wave of intense emotions. I finally truly understand why I’m here, why I made this decision; better understanding myself, and what I want to...
Read More
Inspirational Tidbits
Lydia Collins
2012-11-10
The first week in my homestay here in Ibarra, Ecuador I felt myself riding an emotional rollercoaster like never before. The days were filled with random spurts of intense waves of realization of my situation. I am here. In Ecuador. I will not see my family for eight months. I have no idea what is going on. What has happened...
Read More
Playing Catch-Up
Hannah Bouline
2012-11-10
I have learned many things in my time thus far in Ecuador – the first being that I am terrible at keeping my blog up-to-date. My apologies on that one, and I’ll try my best to improve. In-country orientation has come and gone, and I’m now back in Imbabura for the long haul. But I’m...
Read More