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
If We’re Being Honest
Jackson Harris
2016-02-27
The thing about Pulaar culture, is that it tends to be honest. Often brutally honest. This honesty reveals itself when you least expect it. For instance: you’re midway through a peaceful morning. You’re in the garden minding your own business, tending to the compost pile, when suddenly, honesty strikes the women gathering around the well...
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Better Now
Maria Morava
2016-02-20
Abdou Ghey’s big voice called out to me, almost home from a too-long vacation, tired and aching. “You’re Senegalese now!” He shouted, as I settled from the initial boom of his voice. “Your hips are -” and he gestured with his hands widely from the sides of his body. The crowd of people outside the...
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This is what comfort feels like
Armi Katariina Kauppila
2016-02-14
I lean on my finger placed at the bottom corner of the front seat window. So I stand, looking around myself at the busy car station in MBour. Looking around, but not with surprise. With affection mixed with a little bit of boredom. I have gotten used to this. I see all the vendors, but...
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Now Forgive Me
Tatiana Calonje
2016-02-13
The curse of normalcy. I take a rickshaw to the same school, the same classroom every week. The bell rings at the same time. I walk out the gates by 2pm and I fall asleep in the same bed, to the same distant sound of trains passing. My phone has an address book filled of...
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Nene Penda
Jackson Harris
2016-02-12
If you’ve ever climbed a mountain in foam flip flops, a dress, with a baby on your back, and a sack of corn balanced on your head, you probably haven’t made it look as easy as my host mom made it look. I was trailing behind in my fancy hiking sandals just trying to keep...
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Poco a Poco
Miyo McGinn
2016-02-11
Hello, friends. I am still in Ecuador, still alive, still doing well. Still living with the family I wrote about in my most recent blog, four months ago. Many of the component pieces of what I described in that blog are still in my life, but not in the way I expected them to be when I wrote...
Read MoreA DAY AT THE FARM IN CONFUSION AND SOUNDS
eirikowl
2016-02-09
During my time in Senegal I have had my fair share of confusing moments. In the early stages I often felt as observer without understanding. I still feel that way at the farm I work at. For a few days a week I spend my time at a farm where they speak Serer, not Wolof. I often find myself...
Read MoreFEELS #3 – LESSONS
Austin Nguyen
2016-02-09
Almost every day with Global Citizen Year is a lesson.Some days are Spanish classes, or I have informal Kichwa classes with my mother – those are lessons in a more traditional sense, I guess. Other days, the lessons are much more abstract. Sometimes I’m expanding on what I feel the meaning of being “happy”...
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FEELS 2 – AUSTIN AND AUSTIN’S INFINITE PLAYLIST
Austin Nguyen
2016-02-01
Firstly, the title is a play on the name of that one movie with Michael Cera in it: Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, I think. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard its good, so maybe I should. Secondly, I’ve realized lately that my coming here with Global Citizen Year has likely – no, definitely...
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