Check that off my Life to do list

                By living overseas and joining the Peace Corps I have been able to do many things that I have always wanted to do.  You could say I’m crossing things off my bucket list, my life goals, however you want to put it, I have been checking things off left and right since arriving here.  Since I only have about 8 months left here and I haven’t written anything in a while, I figured I’d share a few of the wonderful things I’ve been able to do with you all.  This will also get my mother to stop giving me “subtle” and not so subtle hints to write on here… let’s just call this my Happy “you gave birth to me day” to you Mom, I mean it is a pretty important day for you as well as me.  So with that all said, here is some things that I have always dreamed of doing that this experience has allowed me to do.

1.       Join the Peace Corps- For a very long time, since I heard about Peace Corps I thought that it sounded cool.  Moving to a new place, meeting new people and experiencing new things… right up my alley.  Then in college we had a guest speaker in one of my classes who did the Peace Corps and I pretty sure I was sold then and there.  It was perfect for me, everything I’ve always wanted to do.  Travel… check, learn… check, meet new people… check, adventure… CHECK.  So just by joining the Peace Corps and starting this journey was my first step to crossing off things on my Life to do list.

2.       Traveling and living abroad- Ok this is a general goal, but I’ve always had the travel bug.  Be it the family vacations every summer that has allowed me to visit all 48 of the continental US, the Spanish trips to Costa Rica, or just my interest in traveling the world that has been in my head forever, that wanderlust has always been there. Obviously, I am now living and working in a different country on a different continent so that meets all of my wishes and dreams right there.  Also in my free time and school breaks here, I have been able to see much of this country as well as some of the surrounding ones.  My goal in the next year is to visit all the countries that boarder Mozambique, So far I have 2 out of 6 and plan on visiting 2 more in June or July.

3.       African Safari- Ok I think I can trace this back to a magazine I used to get as a kid.  I have this image of the magazine Zoobooks that we used to get as kids and the one that always

sticks out in my mind is the one with an elephant on the cover.  That is my first memory of loving elephants and wanting to visit places where they live in the wild.  Then at some time around then I discovered or comprehended what the continent of Africa was and something called a safari, where you drive around and see animals.  My family can attest to the fact that I’ve always loved animals and seeing different animals, judging by the amount of zoos and aquariums I begged and threw fits to go visit during our aforementioned trips.  So the thought of seeing animals in their natural habitat sounded better than anything I could imagine.  And finally at the age of 25 I got to experience this dream and in the Serengeti of all places.  Let’s just say it surpassed my expectations… the first animal that we saw upon entering our first park, the Tarangire Park in Tanzania, was a herd of ELEPHANTS!  I could have been done there and been happy, but luckily that wasn’t the case and I got to see all your typical animals that you think of when you think of a safari.  The only one that we didn’t see up close was a rhino, that one had to be looked at through binoculars, but other than that, the animals were all so close, if I had wanted to lose a hand or start a stampede, I could have reached out of the car and touched a few lions and elephants.  Instead of describing all of the animals, I will share a link to an album on google drive, where I have many of the photos I took.  It truly was a dream come true.  The parks we visited were Tarangire the first day and the Serengeti the second. We camped in the middle of the Serengeti and were told before leaving our tents at night for the bathroom, we should shine our flashlights around to make sure there were no animals around and then we were told stories about lions coming into the camp.   The third day was the Ngorongoro Crater, where we also camped and had an armed guard to protect us from animals, especially elephants that often come into the camp!
Holiday/Safari Pictures   

5. Teaching - So this hasn't always been my dream.  I went through the phase of wanting to be a garbage woman/ part time ballerina when I was 3 or 4, the long period of time where I either wanted to live on a farm or be a veterinarian or a dolphin trainer at sea world.  For several years of high school and my first year of college I was going to be a psychologist but then I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to teach.  Sure I could have worked in schools in America and made my mother's life a little easier, but when have I done that.  Being here and teaching, although working in a school system like the one in place is very difficult, I have realized how much I enjoy teaching.  I love working with my students and I stay here on the rough days because of them.  I now know that I have to teach, its what I want to do with my time and that I miss teaching children.  That's what this experience has done for me, allowed me to know what I want to do with my life.  I still don't know where or exactly how I'm going to continue this, hey I didn't say I had everything thing figured out.  Just the profession or that I need to be able to teach people something.

6. Learn a new Language- I've always thought it would be cool to be able to speak different languages, but after 4 years of high school Spanish and a year in college with the result of not even knowing how to have a simple conversation in Spanish, I realized that the classroom was not how I was going to learn new languages.  I'm the type of person that needs to do things to learn them and I'll admit, I'm often quite lazy, so if I'm not forced to do something, I may not do it.  So the situation I'm in, was the best chance for me to learn new languages.  I was thrown into a situation where in order to talk with my colleagues, to buy food, to make friends, to travel and to tell people to leave me alone and things like "no I won't marry you" or "no I'm not giving you my bread or money", I had to learn a new language.  I am in no way fluent and if I went to Portugal or Brazil I'd probably be laughed at and asked where I learned Portuguese, but I am no longer afraid to speak it and I can have a conversation with people and get what I need done.  I have also learned a few phrases in the local language here and even learned some phrases in Swahili.  Here's to 8 more months of learning.

7.       And finally the reason I wrote this blog, I solved a RUBIK’s Cube.  Ok this isn’t the reason but my mom used my facebook post about this feat to hint that I should right a blog, so I have to include it.  Let's start at the beginning, my roommates parents sent her a few Rubik’s Cubes to pass the time for us and we’ve both been working every once in a while to try to solve our respective cubes, and this last week I have been working on it at any free moment I had.  Finally on March 13, 2015 I finally did it! I went all mathematician, code breaker and even drew diagrams and possible patterns to figure it out.  I wasn’t about to ruin my progress by just turning sides haphazardly when I was one part away from solving it.  This has been a goal of mine because it always seemed impossible and I finally had the time to try and actually work toward it.  Now that’s done and I can move on to mastering the art of juggling.

This experience so far has definitely had its ups and downs.  I've had some very low points where I asked why I was here and at some points didn't want to work with people or even talk to people other, but I have never regretted this experience or wanted to finish early.  I have had so many wonderful experiences, ones I'd never dreamed of as well as one's I'd been dreaming of since I was a child and couldn't even imagine actually accomplishing them.  I have some plans to cross a few more things off my "Life to do list"  in the next year and I'm so excited for them (also a little terrified) but I won't give anything away, because then what will I write about.  Until the next big thing... tchao