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
Answering the questions I get the most!
Zion Barnett-Bishop
2020-02-02
Zion Barnett-Bishop (Senegal) Blog: Where have you been? I’ve just been living to be honest! I’m in Senegal, Taiba Ndiaye to be exact. How much longer are you going to be out there? Well, as I am writing this it is February 2nd, so around 2 more months. How is it? That’s a loaded question....
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Time
Hadley Duquette
2020-02-02
2 months left in Senegal. 60 days to say my goodbyes. 1,440 hours to love my family as hard as I can. 86,400 minutes to come to the realization that I won’t be spending my days anymore in my favorite place in the world with the best people. 5 months spent in Senegal. 153...
Read MoreBooks of my Gap Year
Sinead Nardi-White
2020-01-31
I quite literally do not think I could have survived these past five months without reading. Full stop. It is my English escape from how hard learning Wolof sometimes is, how I entertain myself when everyday life is moving slowly (aka Senegalese time), and a way to connect with the other GCY fellows since we’ve...
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A Simple Rendering of Fatou Bintou vs. Sophie
Sophie Librett
2020-01-23
FATOU BINTOU likes mayo eats meat puts up mosquito net is aware of hem lines tells time by calls to prayer follows a routine hand washes laundry lives on roof filters water showers outside spends cfa takes time for herself spends lots of time with kids BOTH drinks coffee eats fish journals goes with the...
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Already attached
Justus Rivers
2020-01-17
I always wanted to have a little brother and I think my wish came true. I remember coming to my host family the first time and he was so frightened of me and I really didn’t know what to do because I never really had a little brother. But as days and months go on...
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Yaay and mom
Justus Rivers
2020-01-17
Successful mothers are not the ones that never struggled. they’re the ones that never give up, despite the struggles. – Sharon Jaynes
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Thoughts of ‘the Adventurer’
Joshua Gervais
2020-01-15
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the concept of “adventuring”. If I’m being honest, this has been something I’ve borderline obsessed over since before I even arrived here in Senegal. So much so, in fact, that for a Global Citizen Year talent show, I wrote AND performed a poem I entitled “To Be An Adventurer”. The...
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The Chickens
Katie Mastriano
2020-01-11
The Chickens The walls in the house are yellow more similar to the color of sand on the beach of Ocean City rather than the sand along the roads in Tivaouane. Noise was normal for a weekday night: the fighting and laughing of my siblings, the television blasting telenovelas, the buzzing of mosquitoes, the singing...
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A visit to Gorée Island and flashbacks from Palestine.
Abdallah Salha
2020-01-11
“We all have a lot of identities that we carry around with us. One of these identities is the victim identity, which takes up a lot more thought. When it takes up a lot of space, we forget about the other identities that we have and the other ways that we can connect with other...
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Fashion in Senegal
Kali Regenvanu
2020-01-09
Hello hello hello dear friends! It has been four months since I arrived here in Thies, Senegal and I have to say one of the things I have loved and admired the most since being here (apart from my amazing host family and friends here) is the fashion. Creativity is abundant here in Thies, and...
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Sounds of Senegal
Sophie Librett
2020-01-08
pictured in photo: Ndeye Marda and Mame Diarra https://open.spotify.com/user/mooselibrett/playlist/6qwe5eAKqQ1QbVlibQy7Se?si=Reu8Pc1oSl6-SYJMgcmHQg 1. Whole Wide World(unpeeled) by Cage The Elephant This song sounds like the mid morning market. 2. Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine This song sounds like the way the sun rises in the morning. 3....
Read MoreOn Being A Toubab
Sam Metzger
2020-01-04
Every day, and some days more than others, I am called a Toubab. “Toubab” is the Wolof word for “foreigner”, and due to my white skin, I am by default a toubab. One of the first things I learned how to say in Wolof was that I am not a toubab, and my name is...
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