Fellow Stories

True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!

Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!

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Untaken Photographs

2015-08-18

åÊ åÊ Ask me about my experience in Ecuador and I’ll say, “it’s easier to explain with pictures”. Having over 17,000 photographs it’s not hard to find members of my community, my host family, my students, other fellows, or some cool traditions.åÊ How you retell stories is how you will remember them. Sometimes my mind...

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One Last Time

2015-07-17

Look up And you’ll see many things Clouds Birds Mountains And maybe even A Hot Air Balloon Drifting through the sky On a summer afternoon So close that You can see the colors and the zig zag stripes Maybe even a little person In the little basket Way up there In the sky But if...

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Dumb Luck

2015-07-17

It’s dumb luck, growing up in a first world country, with educated parents, the opportunity to go to school, let alone college. Yes, itåÊtakes determination, talent, and good ol’ hard work to achieve success. But there’s no doubt thatåÊat the end of the day, many of us take for granted that the largeståÊproblem we are...

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Sunrise or Sunset

2015-07-16

With some good old soul sung by Mary J Blidge in the background, my calico cat by my side with a late spring thunderstorm that is thinking of developing outside, life back in small town USA is treating me well. With work in landscaping/agriculture/a new invention which I cannot tell much more to the public...

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Patience

2015-07-16

Flash back to December 2014 I sat in my old living room feeling quite out of place on the red plastic covered couch that soaked me in sweat while simply lounging around. I batted away incessant flies not even slightly deterred as I swatted one of their friends away for the 100th time that evening....

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A Good Conversation

2015-07-16

I came to Ecuador with the impression that there was immediately going to be room since I was going to be doing service work. How can I not automatically be included and super intergrated in my community if it was my given location, they would automatically take me in since I was ready to learn...

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Changes

2015-07-16

This post is a sort of accompaniment to my previous post titled “I’m Confident.” I wrote near the beginning of March ‰Ò I was told I would change. That‰Ûªs what everyone said about Global Citizen Year – they changed, you would find change in yourself. I didn‰Ûªt entirely believe this. My U.S. family visited me...

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15 Things to Give Up Now to Make Yourself More Happy

2015-07-16

Back in November, I came across an article online that was titled 15 Things to Give Up Now to Make Yourself More Happy on the most socially-popular media site, Facebook. Despite the millions of useless articles and status updates that is thrown onto my newsfeed daily, this particular article caught my eye because I only...

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A Look Inside a Photo

2015-07-09

During the course of the year, there was rarely a moment when I didn’t have a camera by my side. Now that I have been home for several months my pictures have become windows to an experience that seems far away. I find myself struggling to remember everything that has happened during my seemingly short...

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Apparently, I’m on TV…

2015-07-09

I awoke to see three missed calls on my phone and could hear ‰ÛÏBuenas noches,‰Û being repeated from my front door from a familiar voice. Admittedly it was only about 9:00pm, but it‰Ûªs surprising how late that feels when it gets pitch black by 7:00pm and the rooster insists on waking you up at 5:30am...

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Feliz Navidad

2015-07-09

That week alone, I had read 3 novels. I don’t think I’ve ever read and completed 3 whole novels in even a year. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but, honestly, not by much. Point being, I’m far from an avid reader. But I felt like I had no other option. It‰Ûªs amazing how...

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Dear Jesica

2015-07-09

Dear Jesi, We were talking during one of our lectures about what we did when things got hard during our year, how we reflected and calm down after faced with a challenge. Everyone said things like they went for a run alone, they climbed a mountain or a tree alone, they meditated alone – preferring...

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