Bucket Lists. If you don't have one, get one.

If you carry a conversation with me for longer than twenty minutes, you will probably very quickly learn two things about me. First, I’m a deeply passionate person. When I truly love something or care about something, I dive head first, 100% into it. When I say I have a passion for traveling and culture, I mean the perfect life to me is to be a nomad and never have a permanent home. When I say I love maps, I mean the past 3 years of my life you haven’t been able to see my bedroom walls because there were too many maps on them. And when I tell you I love to snowboard, I mean I actually cried when I sprained my ankle during the biggest snowstorm of the year and realized I wouldn’t be able to ride at all before leaving for Morocco. My mother has always told me I don’t do anything halfway. If I decide I want to do something, it’s all or nothing. This is what I mean when I say I’m a passionate person.

The second thing you will likely realize about me is that I’m about as stubborn as a mule. If I want to do something, nothing will stop me, and in return, if I don’t want to do something, you really better let it go, because I’m not going to do it. This hard-headedness also translates often into a complete lack of understanding when other people aren’t as stubborn as I am. When people tell me how much they’d love to do something, climb a mountain for example, and are at a loss for words when my response is “alright, let’s do it”, I am also just as much confused when I do not receive an affirmative response. In my eyes, if you truly want something, nothing, ever, can or will stop you. Yes, that does include money. The number of time’s I’ve told someone my dreams of travel and have been told how much Person X would love to travel also, but tell me they can’t afford it, or have too many responsibilities back home, or whatever the case may be, are beyond counting. There are ways to do it for nothing. I swear.

So why do people have these dreams, but always find excuses not to chase them? In the most basic response: Hell if I know. Honestly, I really don’t think I will ever understand how you can talk yourself out of doing what will make you happy in life, instead continuing doing the same thing unhappily and complaining about it the whole time. The most common reason for not doing things often comes down to money. While I do very much understand how money is a large factor in your ability to do something, I still stand by my statement that there is ALWAYS a way to accomplish what you want to do. But you need to be creative. I read an article awhile back about a woman who is hitchhiking rides at private airports, traveling the entire United States by air, without paying for any of it. While this may be an extreme situation for many, the purpose is to provide a simple example of just how far a little bit of creativity will take you. The point is to dream. Just a little bit. Or a lot. Whatever fits your style. Don’t be afraid to admit what makes you happy, and admit what you’re passionate about. And even more importantly, never let anything, ever, stop you from accomplishing those things.

But back to the question, how to do it? In my experience, you need something to keep you honest. Something to remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, or remind you why you need to stop doing what you’re doing. And better yet, you need to know what you actually want. Somewhere in the range of 7 years ago, I first decided to write a list of 100 things I wanted to do before I died, a bucket list you might call it. Since then, I have been continually adding to it, and have somewhere just over 140 things on it right now. These things range from the seemingly simple (solve a rubics cube), the obviously absurd (do a backflip off a pogo stick), the sometimes indefinable (make a difference), to the big life moments (lose at candyland to my kid). But the ultimate point is to keep me honest.

Often time’s people read my bucket list and ask me how I plan to accomplish everything on it. The answer is this: I don’t. But I also don’t have any intention of deciding which things will and won’t happen. The point of a bucket list is to know what you’re passionate about, and have it be an ever present reminder. Personally, my list has hung on the back of my bedroom door since I made it. I always make sure it is hanging somewhere that I will see every day: an ever present reminder of what I choose to live for. Anyone who’s ever gotten to know me can generally vouch for the fact that I highly encourage everyone to make their own lists. If you’re drawing a blank, a quick Google search can give you some fun ideas to help you brainstorm.

But a bucket list is also a commitment. It’s a promise to yourself. A promise that you will not forget what you are passionate about, and what will make you so stubborn that you will not let anything stop you from accomplishing those things. I have had many days where I have sat around bored, and decided it was a good time to check something off my list. Those days I simply choose something at random, and I go accomplish it. Before I left for the Peace Corps, a friend of mine said something to me. She said: “Monika, please promise me something. Promise me you will never stop making questionable decisions that turn into really great stories.” And I haven’t. I may seem a little bit crazy sometimes, but at the end of the day, I have some crazy stories. And I have those stories because I choose to live everyday to the fullest. So if I mess up and do something weird, I at least have a great experience from it. And that’s why I think it’s so important to have a bucket list. Could I live my whole life never accomplishing solving a Rubics Cube? Of course I could. What a silly question. But the fact is, I want to solve one, so why not do it? I think if you always just say to yourself “you know, someday, I want to do XXXX” then it all becomes too much to handle. You just can’t keep track of everything in your head, and you never end up accomplishing them then. If you write it all down, you hold yourself accountable to it, and hey, it’s fun to cross things off when you do them.

Here’s my bucket list (minus a few things that really just shouldn’t be on the internet) for you all to see, and maybe use as some inspiration. Even if your list is only 20 items, I highly, HIGHLY advocate for everyone to at least try sitting down sometime to write one.

1.       Come out to the world

2.       Witness a miracle

3.       Make a difference

4.       Teach someone acceptance

5.       Dance on another planet

6.       Put footprints on the moon

7.       Change someone's view on gays

8.       Have foster children

9.       Dance in the rain with a special someone

10.   Fall asleep in the arms of someone I love

11.   Kiss in the moonlight

12.   Go to college

13.   Get married

14.   Have a purple Mohawk

15.   Save a life

16.   Befriend an enemy

17.   Never judge

18.   Hug someone randomly

19.   Get a Ph.D.

20.   Lose at Candyland to my kid

21.   Show someone my beliefs

22.   Be proud of who I am

23.   Spend Seafair on the log boom with my dad

24.   Learn to play the guitar

25.   Own a sports car

26.   Take a snowboard trip to the Swiss Alps

27.   Take a snowboard trip to Chili

28.   Snowboard on every continent

29.   Buy dad flight school classes

30.   Take mom on a cruise

31.   Buy dad a boat

32.   Travel the world

33.   Get a piercing

34.   Get a tattoo

35.   Join the peace corps

36.   Learn to fly

37.   Drive a racecar

38.   Appear in a movie

39.   Learn to dance

40.   Fire a gun

41.   Go on an African safari

42.   Learn to SCUBA dive

43.   Own my own store

44.   Invent something

45.   Steal something

46.   Party like a rockstar

47.   Have a pet turtle named Fredrick

48.   Have a pet shark named Antonio

49.   See the southern cross

50.   See the aurora borealis

51.   Learn to play the drums

52.   Go backpacking

53.   Get a joint citizenship

54.   Learn to ski

55.   Lose Weight

56.   Ride in a submarine

57.   Ride in a hot air balloon

58.   Do something inappropriate

59.   Own over 200 movies

60.   Take up photography

61.   Watch an Olympic table tennis match

62.   Push every button in an elevator

63.   Get kicked out of somewhere

64.   See the dark side of the moon

65.   Walk down the street dressed like Superman

66.   Get arrested

67.   See over 30 concerts

68.   Tour a Nazi death camp

69.   Take a cross country road trip

70.   Overcome my fears

71.   Write a song

72.   Defy gravity

73.   Be fluent in another language

74.   Visit Vatican City

75.  Visit the CERN lab

76.  Ride a Snowmobile

77.  Punch someone

78.  Drive a sports car down the autobahn

79.  Wish on a star

80.  Build my own telescope

81.  Change the world.

82.  Pay it forward

83.   Go 4-Wheeling

84.   Live a life unrequiring of a car

85.  Unicycle everywhere for a week.

86.  Step foot on every continent, including Antarctica

87.  Climb Mt. Rainer

88.  Go parasailing.

89.  Tell someone exactly what I think of them.

90.  Watch a concert from the very front row.

91.  Create a makeshift bat-mobile and roll down a hill in it dressed like batman.

92.  T.P. a house.

93.  Fork a yard.

94.  Complete the 1 gallon challenge

95.  Have a one night stand

96.  Snowboard a halfpipe

97.  Learn to wakeboard

98.  Restore an old car

99.  Witness a solar eclipse

100.         Witness a lunar eclipse

101.         Climb the Eiffel Tower

102.         Golf a game under 100

103.         Ride a gondola in Venice

104.         Louge

105.         Visit all 50 states

106.         Ride a camel

107.         Solve a Rubics Cube

108.         Do Indoor Sky Diving

109.         Build a Pizza Oven

110.         Be Vegetarian

111.         Go jet skiing

112.         Go geocaching

113.         Watch a rocket launch live

114.         Break a Guinness World Record

115.         See the Grand Canyon

116.         Dive in the Galapagos

119.         Do a back flip off a pogo stick

120.         Brew my own beer

121.         Knit a hat

122.         See every Best Picture Winner

123.         Make up a new identity in Vegas

124.         Own an Aston Martin

125.         Stay at an ice hotel

126.         Watch turtles hatch and run to the ocean

127.         Study religion

128.         Play bigger or better on Craigslist

129.         Be a spectator at the Olympics

130.         Be in Times Square on New Year’s Eve

131.         Learn to meditate

132.         March in a protest

133.         Work for a non-profit organization

134.         Jump into a pool with all my clothes on

135.         Have a stranger tattoo my name onto them.

136.         Hop a train

137.         Crash a wedding

138.         Have sex in a church

139.         Fire a bow and arrow

140.         Climb Kilimanjaro

If you have a bucket list, I would love to see it! Post it in the comments or email it to anderson.monika87@gmail.com

Host Families and Their Influence On Experiencing A Country

Host families. Arguably the most important people in shaping our experience here during both training and into our final sites. Requiring a level of patience unheard of in most people, our host families are very much in the running for sainthood (except that I'm not sure there actually are saints in Islam...). I'll fully admit I'm not an easy person to put up with, let alone live with back in the states, I'm sure it really helps when I'm in a foreign culture with zero language abilities.

But yet, my host family took me in as one of them. They put up with my responses of “yes” to questions like “when are you going to be home?,” or, better than that even, my blank stare, followed by an overly enthusiastic smile, nod, and walk away after being told something, in the hopes that it wasn’t too important. They cheered me on when I was so proud of the fact that I said “I want water” before I filled up my water bottle. They give me a hard time when I still can’t remember a word they’ve told me at least 50 times, then tell it to me, just once more. They do my laundry for me. They got so excited when my final site city comes on the news that they called everyone into the living room to watch with me, even if I couldn’t understand what the reporter is saying about my city. They take care of me when I’m so sick that I refuse to leave my bedroom. They double check my Arabic script homework and politely tell me I wrote my name as “Honika” instead of “Monika” and this is what an “H” is supposed to look like, and this is what an “M” is supposed to look like. But more than anything else, they take care of me when I’m at my most vulnerable.

The first day I arrived at my host family for Community Based Training, I was exhausted. It had been a long day of traveling from Rabat to Fes. Then attempting to go from Fes to our CBT site, ending up somewhere in Seffrou instead, and finally arriving in Bouderhem after dark, in the rain, carrying everything we own on our backs. We got dropped off at the Dar Chebab, then, as a group, we all walked to our host families together, stopping as we went through town as we hit each house. Knocking on the door of my host family and having the door open, it was, more than anything else, a feeling of “Here’s the American you ordered! Feed her three meals a day, bathe her once a week, and please return her in good condition at the end of March. She does not come with a manual, all sales are final.” My feeble attempts at simply stuttering “My… name…is… Monika” in a language foreign to me was overshadowed by the immediate swarm of hugs and kisses and all of my bags being taken from me and up to my room, while I was led to a couch by the TV, given a blanket and 2 pillows, then stared at for the rest of the night to make sure everything was perfect. If I moved at all, everyone jumped up to ask if I was going to bed or the bathroom or what I needed (all communicated through hand gestures and pointing, since I had no idea what they were saying). I just wanted to pee…

But 2 months later, saying goodbye to them only further proved to me how incredible they really are, and how much they really did care about me and want the best for me. As I packed my bags Friday evening with my host sister helping, my host mom walked into the room and asked: “When are you coming to visit?” If I knew how to say “Dude I haven’t even left yet” in Darija, I would have. But sadly, my new site is 8 hours south, and it’s not exactly and easy day trip to pop in for lunch with them. I explained to her that my parents in America were coming to visit in December, and they defiantly want to meet the people who took such good care of me, and we would be there then. She counted it out on her fingers, and informed me that was 9 months away, all with a very dissatisfied look on her face, waiting for my new answer to the question of visiting. I honestly do wish I had a better answer.

When I head to my final site on Thursday, I will, once again, be moving in with a host family. It’s a really strange feeling to know that I’m going to suddenly be moving into another family after getting so close to the first family. In many ways, it feels like I’m cheating on my first host family. But when it comes down to it, there really is no way for the new family to have the same impact on my life here in Morocco as the first family did. This time, I’ll be going in with enough language to communicate, and with more confidence to survive day to day life here. This family isn’t going to see my change and improvement like the last family did, and won’t be the ones to take me in when all I wanted to do was cry a little bit while wondering what the hell I got myself into this time. The connection all of us trainee’s make with our CBT host families is completely unique, and cannot be duplicated.

But that’s why we have host families in the first place. If it wasn’t for them, our experiences here in Morocco would be crucially different, and our task of integrating into a community would be vastly more difficult. We can be taught lessons on cultural norms and faux pas all day long, but it’s a host family that truly teaches us the culture of this beautiful country. By living with a family, we are given the amazingly unique chance to experience a countries culture from the inside. From behind the doors that normally hide what we shouldn’t be seeing. We learn how to interact on the most intimate levels with the people of our new home.

If we had spent all of training in a hotel, then immediately moved into our own apartments in final site, we would have missed out on a huge aspect of this culture. And when our job is to integrate into a community and work with the children of that community, it’s vital that you understand how to do that. To understand that having tea at someone’s house is just as much, if not more, important than teaching an English class in the Dar Chebab. And host families teach us that. Along with the knowledge that you’ll ruin the meal for everyone if you eat with your left hand, and that shoes should always always always come off before you walk on the carpet, and that you should not under any circumstance eat the meat in the meal until the head of the house has divided it up and given it to you. Without a host family, how would we know these things? Even being told them doesn’t teach you how to do them. It’s my host family that taught me these things.

I’ve been told that for many volunteers, the last people they say goodbye to when they Close of Service after two years is their CBT host families, and I can definantly see that being a possibility. I will forever have 2 mothers, 2 fathers, and 2 sisters. 1 set American, and 1 set Moroccan.