2012-09-24
I wander the town like a stranger and mostly I am but I feel like spitting fire, like I always have, I feel like making myself open, like I always have, like saying anything that people could understand, anything would do, really, but my tongue is made of cement, just like every single house here. Every single one, I...
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2012-09-24
After almost three weeks of brushing up on Spanish, expanding my Spanglish vocabulary, seeing my fellow Fellows daily, learning about the culture of Ecuador through presentations and speakers, and receiving three authentic Ecuadorian meals a day from my host father, Ivan Bonilla, I have arrived in the rainforest. On Saturday, September 15, 2012, we all split up into our respective...
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2012-09-21
The first two weeks in Quito, Ecuador have consisted of excitement, learning, and a slight case of paranoia. During the first week in Quito, I pondered the fact that I´m only one of the two million plus people who currently populates this massive, sausage-shaped city. I’m not exactly a big city type of person, so I found it disheartening that...
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2012-09-21
I need to stop looking forward. Since that anxiety filled December day when I stood in the Cub Foods parking lot, listening to a voice on the other end of the phone telling me I was accepted into Global Citizen Year, all I have been doing is “looking forward.” Looking forward to finding my country placement, looking forward to...
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2012-09-21
After a week in the bustling yet somehow insanely sandy (seriously, where does it all come from?!) city of Dakar, I transferred homestays. I left a large, loud Wolof family where I was surrounded by constant, indecipherable movement to be transferred into a quiet, Christian, and very Western home. It felt refreshing to be in a place so calm...
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2012-09-20
Let’s talk about bees. What I like most of all about bees is that they’re feminists. The quee bee-a abelha rainha– rules the hive. She gives orders to all of her female worker bees, which pollinate flowers, build the hive, guard against any sort of intruder, and create honey. (Fun fact: honey = bee vomit.) Besides honey, bees also...
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2012-09-20
“Voce ta virando noveleira, Kim!” (You’re becoming a noveleira, Kim!) The first utterance of these words-said by my host father-was the result of my extreme and nearly obsessive dedication to Lado a Lado, Brazil’s newest novela. Then, the words were uttered again. This time, our team leader, Sol, called a meeting which would start at the same time as Lado...
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