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
Singing to the Heavens
Elias Estabrook
2012-05-02
Rhythms run through the blood of the Senegalese. As much they depend on their daily dose of thiebudiene, rice and fish, or atayaa, sweet tea, seldom can you find them without music. Radios broadcasting ensembles of drums, some full and steady, others quick and pattering — the nation’s most popular genre, mbalakh — accompany my...
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How We Care for Each Other
Elias Estabrook
2012-05-02
In mid-October, the second week in my village, I caught the flu. Fatigued and dehydrated, I arrived at the local clinic, accompanied by my host father. After laying down, I proceeded to doze off. Still, I remember precisely how every few minutes, the blurriness cleared to reveal the distinct faces of members of the village...
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Des Choses Gratuites
Megan White
2012-05-02
On my first day in Senegal, I somehow lost 40,000 francs CFA. Welcome to Africa, kid. Since then, I’ve received plenty. Free love! And also, completely for free: -A leather/snakeskin pouch from a guy in the touristy artisanal market who tried to rip me off, but then softened when I told him I had no...
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The Girl Who Doesn’t Know Anything
Henrietta Conrad
2012-04-26
On one hand I wanted to keep my dignity. I’m proud of education I’ve received and I feel like I’ve always taken advantages of opportunities to expand my mind. On the other hand, he was right, I was here in Brazil to learn and learning is a humbling experience especially when that learning is in the school of life.
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God’s Children we are.
Albamarina Nahar
2012-04-26
Walking home after work I have always been noticing “tudos as crianças em na rua brincando”. But not with regular toys that one would buy at Toys R’Us back in the States. Most of the kids I see playing around create games out of bottle caps. They have so much fun flicking the bottle caps...
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Meu avo, dexia li!
Albamarina Nahar
2012-04-26
My host grandmother is the sweetest person ever. She is like the grandma of my street. She will tell the kids on my street to take showers or to be careful jumping around. She will give at least $5 R to our visino (neighbor). She will make sure I have eaten more than twice. She cares...
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Onibus, my own personal Amusement Park
Albamarina Nahar
2012-04-26
Everywhere I go, eu pego Onibus, (I take the bus). Now there is a difference of the bus in Boston and Bahia. You don’t enter from the front, you enter from the back here. I live in Piraja and take the Conjunction Piraja bus which is never empty. You have to literally fight to get...
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The Beginning of a Journey
Karina Rodriguez
2012-04-26
Life, the universe, gives us things when we are ready, how we maneuver through these gifts is our own obstacle. There are moments in my life where I feel alive in every part of my body, where there is a pain in my stomach and heart, where I feel like the wind has been kicked...
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Stuck Between a First World and a Third World Country
Mariah Donnelly
2012-04-25
Out of all three of the countries that Global Citizen Year takes students (the other two being Senegal and Ecuador) Brasil is by far the most developed. I think it would be pretty safe to say that two countries previously mentioned fall pretty well into the third world category, but what about Brasil? Where does...
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