No hay vida sin agua
The view of the Andean mountains warms up my heart. If there is one thing I fell in love with here, it is the nature and the indigenous environmental movements. The more hikes and lectures I attend, the more fascinated I am by their ideology. One concept I learned about is sumak kawsay, the idea…
25 March, 2017
Disrespectful Foreigners
During our Global Citizen Year training we were encouraged to change our mindset towards mistake. Instead of seeing them as something negative, we were supposed to see them as learning opportunities. Although I agreed with this approach, I wanted to minimize the amount and the impact of my mistakes/learning opportunities, which hurt others. With that…
15 March, 2017
Mean Girls and Privilege
You know your bridge year is the year of learning, when even watching Mean Girls with your friends as a break of Ecuadorian life starts relating to the things that have occupied your mind in the last days. So here are the things we can learn from Mean Girls about privilege, especially within the international…
28 February, 2017
A shortcut to creativity
I have never really seen myself as an artistic, creative person. Most of my friends tried to counter that point by bringing up my background as a dancer, but that never really worked for me. I see my dance as a sport, rather than an art or a way to express myself, because my strength…
06 February, 2017
On Gringos and Not Gringos
“Yo no soy de los Estados Unidos, soy de Europa” – the proud tone I used to say this sentence surprised me, considering I don’t normally identify myself based on the arbitrary geographical borders. The association with Europe was not enough for me, for it only painted the picture of developed Western Europe, and I found myself very…
24 January, 2017
The teacher’s least favorite sentence
„ Ya acabé“ tells me my student Samantha at least 5 times each class. Translated to „I finished“, this sentence could seem as a rather nice indicator that a student of mine has finished with whatever task that the class is working on, and help me have an overview of the class. So, why is…
05 November, 2016
My first culture shock
My first culture shock probably has nothing to do with culture. I’d say it has more to do with what we call the economic class or perhaps the distance from a city. Either way, I will refer to it as a culture shock, as this is a cultural immersion program, and the concept of…
22 September, 2016
Dear future co-teacher Ana
Dear future co-teacher Ana, tomorrow you are moving to Cumbe, a small town south of Cuenca (the 3rd largest city in Ecuador). You will co-teach English and help out with the extracurricular activities in a primary school. I am glad you managed to replace the initial disappointment regarding your apprenticeship with true motivation and excitement…
17 September, 2016
The Big Questions
There was one idea that really stood out to me as I was listening to the opening speech by Abby Falik, the CEO and Founder of Global Citizen Year, during our Pre-Departure training in the Redwoods Alliance, California. She told us about her interpretation of the New Year’s resolutions. Every year she finds a question,…
03 September, 2016
Why Global Citizen Year and What I Already Learned From It
When I was 8 years old, I told my mom I want to be a nun because I wanted to help people. At the age of 9, I was thinking that if I ever win a monetary prize, I could get 10 000 energy bars for 10 000 BAM (approx. 6000 USD). I wanted to…
25 August, 2016
