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
Tur
Paulina Personius
2012-04-02
I hear the sharp sound of the drum starting to lay down the beat of the song at the weekly dance called a “tur” that is held in my town for girls my age. Ran-tan-tan, ran-tan, ran-tan. Soon more drums join in and the beat is almost lost to my untrained ear in the cacophony...
Read More
The Uniform is All
Lucy Blumberg
2012-04-02
Senegal has taught me many things. The most important I would say is “just go with it.” “It” may be reading children’s books in Wolof to a group of toddlers, putting on beautiful clothes and pounds of make up only to have to take it off minutes later, or spontaneously becoming a member of the...
Read MoreConnect Four
Sienna Walker
2012-03-30
In the past month, I spent a handfull of days in and out of the hospital, having CAT scans and blood tests, with an undecided but looming pre-diagnosis of tuberulosis. Much to my appreciation, my Quito host family took me in during those dramatic days. And one night during my stay, my sister invited me...
Read More
Rosa Victoria: World Traveler
Welcome Frye
2012-03-30
While on the way to Misahuallí to start Training Seminar 3 with the other Napo Fellows, I took my seat next to an elderly Ecuadorian woman sound asleep with her head resting against the bus window. A few minutes later, a particularly bumpy section of road jolted her awake and, upon hearing my English conversation...
Read More
Words From Ecuador
Lily Ellenberg
2012-03-30
I am from eight thirty bedtimes and rising with the sun. From devious little cousins and younger siblings. From fresh fruit juice, ecua-shoes, and a new system of time. From seemingly shy women and overtly forward men. From fried yucca, comidas tipicas and yogoso sabor a naranja. I am from open-air classrooms, school uniforms and...
Read More
El Futuro, Sea lo que Sea
Trevor Porter
2012-03-30
Over the past couple of years of trying to decide what I want to ‘be’ when I’m older, I have simply not been able to. I have however; found one of my goals in life- exploring my passions for culture and languages by travelling, learning, and studying. My first venture in following my passions led...
Read More
Cuando se van a pinchar
Trevor Porter
2012-03-30
‘Another dreary morning,’ I thought as I looked out my bedroom window to a gray sky heaving down rain that brought with it the promise of a very muddy walk to the caverns. But I was soon made aware I wasn’t the only person not quite impressed with this particular morning. A few minutes later,...
Read More
Long Way Home
Stephanie Dunning
2012-03-28
March 20, 2012 There´s a law in Ecuador that buses are only allowed to transport passengers who are sitting down. I don’t know how long it´s actually been a law, but they have really been keeping track of it since Carnival when a bus got into an accident on the way to Espejo and over...
Read More
A New Friend
Galen Burns-Fulkerson
2012-03-28
At 10:30 on Thursday morning, with my head hung in defeat and the fresh bag of bread still in my hands, I turned around to head home. After spending thirty minutes knocking on every door in the neighborhood and talking to as many neighbors as possible, I decided to save my mission for another day....
Read More