cvbrog

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So far cvbrog has created 3 entries.

Puck’s Poem

The following post was written by Global Gap Year Fellow Caroline Brogden.

A few weeks ago, I looked up from my book and started to weep. A memory of a boy I knew in Samos surfaced, unprompted, and sucker punched me on an unsuspecting January morning. I was taken aback by my own body’s reaction.

This kid is a real life Puck. Mischievous. Mirthful. Pure, unadulterated boy. In the photo, I’m going through ABC flashcards to transition from singing to coloring. (Talk about high energy. Most of the kids could sing the English alphabet already, which then, naturally, became a game of who could shout the letters the loudest.) Imagine it, 30 plus elementary age children and a handful of adults, howling nonsense songs as fires crackled and men scrounged for cardboard in the middle of a refugee camp in Greece. And Puck leaned back on the olive tree at the […]

By |February 15th, 2019|Gappers in the Field|
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A Meditation on “No” in Samos, Greece

The following post was written by Global Gap Year Fellow Caroline Brogden.

Today I spent two hours transferring grocery bags filled with feces into larger garbage bags. Human feces. They hung from brambles, dripped from the sodden seams, and sat, fetid, merely feet from tents.

Never have I so willingly nor so easily “checked out.” In the span of two hours, I thought one thought and one thought only: I am picking up shit. I am picking up shit. I am picking up shit. I am –

It’s winter here in Samos, Greece, but my hair clung to sweat at the nape of my neck. My hands beneath two layers of gloves pruned and suctioned the latex to the tips of my frozen fingers. I was in the camp almost every day this week for kids’ activities, and familiar faces smiled cheekily at me, gesturing for gloves. A duo of some of […]

By |December 19th, 2018|Gappers in the Field|
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Pre-Departure: This One’s For the Butterflies

The following post was written by Global Gap Year Fellow Caroline Brogden.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know very few things to be absolutely true, that being truth number one. Almost nothing is certain, so it seems.

I know everything is connected, I know love is the greatest force of all, and I know sweet potatoes are God’s eighth day masterpiece.

I also know that in order to let go of my feelings – the ones I no longer need to feel – I’ve got to sit with them. Name them. Stare them squarely in the face until they blush. But for the past two or so months, I’ve done a lousy job interrogating the details of my story that I dislike, or at minimum, taking them out on an investigative first date.

Yes, a first date. That’s maybe the best way I know to describe this gap year planning process, […]

By |October 8th, 2018|Pre-departure|
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