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
Something From Nothing
Sadie Price-Elliott
2019-10-08
Ecuador made world news last week. Subsidies on gasoline were eliminated nationwide in efforts to liberalize the fuel market and strike a deal with the International Monetary Fund. Gas prices abruptly increased. Transportation strikes broke out across the country, impacting communities and interrupting systems across the board. As a result, I have been in a...
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Street art in Gualaceo
Aniska Bitomsky
2019-10-06
This blog post is going to feature more pictures as I realized that the last two posts were quite wordy…. I was walking around Gualaceo today taking short video clips for my work (I am volunteering in the tourism office of the municipality for all who don’t know). One thing that surprised me about Ecuador...
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“How is Africa?”
Drew Erickson
2019-10-06
“How is Africa?” Over the last month/5 weeks/36 days… this question has flooded my texts, phone calls, and DMs. At first, I somehow found the words to answer, but they never felt like they fully expressed an answer to that question. I answered, but it didn’t feel like the honest or true answer. Sitting in...
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a day of fateful protests
Eva Kretsinger-Walters
2019-10-06
It seemed as if the sun awoke from a slumber today, and alarmed by its neglect these past few days, determined to overcompensate. Which is to say, today was brutally, stiflingly hot, a heat unique to the sierras, the result of literally being closer to the sun. And this heat coincided with a series of...
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Three Vignettes
Erin Pugh
2019-10-06
This past weekend marked my first full month with my host family (only seven left!). It always surprises me how quickly the initial adjustment period can pass. Just days into my stay at Stanford (for Global Launch) and at the Tostan Training Center (for in-country orientation) I remarked, “It feels like we’ve been here forever.”...
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Mountains beyond mountains
Annika Kapp
2019-10-05
Picture (c) Charlie …is the title of a book by Tracy Kidder and one of the most inspiring reads I’ve had in the past year. It describes the life of Doctor Paul Farmer and, among other things, his quest to eliminate tuberculosis and serve the poor in Haiti. I can really recommend reading...
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Feliz Cumpleanos (x5)
Ogugua Nwaezeigwe
2019-10-04
“Once you go Ecua- there is no going back.” This is a common joke between the fellows in the Ecuador Northern Cohort. Now, you are probably wondering, “What the heck is an Ecua-?” Well, Ecua- is just a prefix of sorts we, the Northern Cohort and all of Ecuador, put in front of everything. We’re...
Read MorePâro
Blessing Ajayi
2019-10-04
Pâro. A word created by John Koenigin in his, “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” to describe the subtle, yet persistent feeling that everything you do is somehow wrong. A sensation that I have become very familiar with over the last couple of weeks. When I reach out for a handshake instead of lean in for a...
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At last, My Own Room
Baseer Khan
2019-10-01
Growing up with 4 siblings usually comes with the annoying part of having to share a room. Especially, when you’re the youngest of them all. Residential school makes it worse when you have to share a smaller room with more people. After 6 weeks of living out of a suticase, I have finally been gifted...
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