Murphy’s Law, Yin and Yang, Whatever you wanna call it

So remember how I keep blogging about how everything is pretty much going perfectly in Panama? Friday totally made up for all of that, so we’re on even ground, now.

This is where you get out a map of Panamá.

I’ll wait.

Ok, now remember how I said I wanted to be around Veraguas, Herrera or Los Santos? Find that on the map. Now just disregard that area altogether and look East over there by the Colombian border. That’s where I’m at. Célula 5, baby, me and the FARC are gonna be kickin’ it right smack dab in the middle of Darién.

I exaggerate. I won’t actually be kidnapped by terrorists or drug lords (calm down, people!). At the same time, it was a huge shock for me when I got that site, since it was exactly the last thing I was expecting. There are 23 TE volunteers in my group, each being assigned to one of 25ish sites. What were the odds I would get the ONE site in the Darien? It was the farthest thing from my mind.

Sin embargo, my fellow Group 72 TE trainees are super supportive. Given everything I had said about site placement up until yesterday, they could all guess how shaken up I was about being sent to the Darién, so I had about 20 people throughout the afternoon trying to talk me down from the mild hysteria I suffered upon learning that I’d be in a site that was a completely different size and location from that which I had discussed in my site placement interview. They keep trying to convince me I’m being sent out there because I’m super awesome. I don’t know if I buy that (spoiler alert: I don’t), but sea lo que sea, I’m heading out there next week, and I got no choice but to make the most of it. I’m jumping in head first. Wish me luck, I’ll keep you all updated on how this goes!