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“When you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” - Paulo Coelho Six years ago, when I was breastfeeding my first son, i wrote a bucket list to myself which has this item: “take one to three months sabbatical leaves to participate in a volunteer project in Africa that requires either physical work or knowledge but not money”. As the years went by, life got busier with the arrival of my second son. I realized that i should not wait until I have free time to do what i want (which will never happen before i retire) but instead I should make time for doing it. Apparently, the universe knew my wish so this year, it sent me to a volunteer project in Morocco with my husband without us having to take any sabbatical leaves. Awesome!!! After 15hrs on the plane, we arrived at our homestay in a traditional Moroccan house in Marrakech. Our hosts were two nice ladies who could only speak Arabic and French like majority of people living here. That perfectly put the little French we just picked up before the trip into good use. On our orientation day, we were surpised to meet volunteers from all walks of life: students, working adults and even doctors, individuals to entire families with children. They came from all over the world (Russia, United States, China, England, Spain, Hongkong) and brought with them many interesting stories about their countries. It made me feel like i was in a cultural exchange program. We found ourselves unique as we could share cultural stories about not only one but two countries: Vietnam and Singapore. The volunteers were placed into different projects in Marrakech to teach English to adults to help them find better jobs, provide assistance at childcare centers for poor families or build houses in the mountain area. For my husband and me, the assignment was to give free English classes to young adults having training in hairstyle and cooking so that they could serve tourists from English speakingcountries. On our first day of the project, we were told that we would be teaching in the morning and could opt for participating in either cooking or hairdressing classes with the students in the afternoon. It was a bonus to me as i came here with an initial objective to only share knowledge to others but could now gain additional skills for myself as well. With that in mind, we were excitedly arriving at the training center and eager to make the most of our time here. But life is a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get. We waited for one hour long to find no students turning up... It was the beginning of our interesting days in Morocco that were full of surprises and new discoveries...