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
Home Sweet Home
Heather Kurtz
2011-12-13
I am amazed by how much I feel at home here in Atacapi. The week I spent in Quito was fun but I missed my family so much. I was wondering how they were doing and wanted to know how the baby was because my parents said that the other children had spent months in...
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Twisting Traditions
Holli Sullivan
2011-12-13
As likely EVERY ONE of you other Fellows has been experiencing this month, the holiday season is not a very easy time to be this far away from home. I have missed home the whole time I have been gone, but this time of year brings just about as much “saudade”(a...
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The Eighth Daughter
Kirin Gupta
2011-12-12
She lies flat as a board and is too skinny Her eyes The nurse has no words for them Buen expresivos, she settles on. Wide and bright They look as though They seek to be separate from her too-small face, Where her cheeks have sunken in, Already at age 7. And her lips are purple,...
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Caught, Killed, Plucked, Cooked, Eaten
Aubrey Haddard
2011-12-12
Before Senegal I didn’t know I could get an appetite from looking at a live animal. Then after I witnessed the sacrifice and preparation of a sheep my first time I realized this wasn’t so impossible. After all, it’s nice to know where exactly your food is coming from and prepare it from field to...
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“It Breaks Real Easy”
Lucy Blumberg
2011-12-12
Let me rant just a little. The Senegalese school system often seems broken. Alright, I’m done. What brought this rant about? It all started with a little involvement on my part in the studies of my 12 year old cousin. He told me his homework was hard that night. “Mettina, Fanta! Mettina torop!” which literally...
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Bambi Grows Up
Lucy Blumberg
2011-12-12
I had forgotten how far I had progressed in Wolof. I was stressing over the little things, the fact that I could understand about 20% of the words in a sentence but couldn’t string them together to make any kind of sense. All conversations that I observed during work at the Poste de Sante or...
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We Heart Reproductive Rights!
Emily Hanna
2011-12-11
How does one talk about family planning and reproductive rights in a country where it’s taboo to acknowledge that a woman is pregnant? Loudly and enthusiastically, as it turns out, with lots of important people for an audience and plenty of media coverage to help spread the word. This uncharacteristic openness was but one of...
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BIG PROBLEMS
Tessalyn Morrison
2011-12-10
(The fact that this is from Halloween is a testament to my adaptation into Ecuadorian culture) Witches, tarantulas, haunted houses. Yes, all perfectly scary, but this Halloween nothing is scarier than “BIG PROBLEMS”. A month ago, another fellow and I had a conversation about how Global Citizen Year’s motto should be this phrase because each...
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Gracias
Heather Kurtz
2011-12-10
Happy Thanksgiving. I am so thankful to be here in Ecuador. I am thankful for the life lessons I am learning. One of which is to be grateful for all that you have. I spent the weekend in Quito celebrating Thanksgiving with all the Ecuador fellows. It was great. In this time I learned that I have many things...
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