Fellow Stories

The Watermelon Complex

Kyra Halpenny

2014-12-09

Ndande, Senegal – October 20, 2014 A note to all those who love watermelon: Fruit here is a luxury, so when it is available it is cheap in the beginning, but as the season comes to an end, the prices increase, as I saw happen with the mangoes our first month in Dakar. Here in...

Define

Grace Mannix

2014-12-09

Hey, Mom and Dad? There’s this playground I’ve always wanted to go to. It’s a bit farther away than the one we’re used to and I’m not really sure how to get there or if it has the swings, and I don’t know if the other kids there will be nice, or if I should...

The Impossible

Brittany Caceres

2014-12-09

Due to difficulty accessing internet in my placement some blog posts may take weeks to put up. 10.10.14 “Seamos realistas soñamos lo imposible” Let’s be realists… Let’s hope for the impossible. This is a quote by Che Guevara, an important hero and role model for the farmers in the community where I live, a settlement for workers...

Au Sénégal, Sans Langue: Memoirs of a Bridge Year

Maylin Enamorado

2014-12-05

I. I’m seeing it this way now: Tough Times and Tough People are two drunk old men in a back alley somewhere in the Bronx. The two stand shoulder to shoulder, comparing height and build; they’re almost exactly the same in both. Annoyed, they pull two crates from behind a nearby recycling bin. Spectators begin...

The Price We Pay To Feel

Hannah Phalen

2014-12-03

“And you find some way to survive… and you find out you don’t have to be happy at all to be happy you’re alive. Day after day, give me clouds and rain and gray. Give me pain if that’s what’s real- it’s the price we pay to feel.”* A focus of what we have learned...

For the Sake of the Story

2014-12-02

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” – Patrick Rothfuss Eight-years-old and I’m lying on top of my bedsheets because that is the only thing that will keep me awake. And I...

The Way Things Change

Alisa Nelson

2014-12-02

I was in Lome, Togo trying to catch a taxi. My family and I were there for the weekend during spring break and we had gotten lost looking for our hotel. My dad was attempting to use his non-existent Haitian Creole to talk to people, and I was nervously trying to make myself understood in...

Joal

Elizabeth Schmidt

2014-12-02

I have now been in country for two months and I have made the switch to my final host stay. Although I am going to miss my family in Dakar, I definitely feel like I left off in the best possible way. My two older brother had become some of my best friends, my uncles...

Baby Steps

Briana Merrigan

2014-11-24

“Dios le pague,” I say as I’m handed a steaming plate of rice and pig skin. This roughly translates to “God pays you,” and is a less cold-hearted version of “gracias.” Had I known this sooner, I would never have said “gracias” so often. Whoops. But I’m learning. I started here as an infant, barely...