So…while we work on figuring out where we’re going to live, I’ll update you on the job situation.  Or rather, the volunteer position situation.

I will be working at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean in Panama (ROPAN) in their Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention Group on the Criminal Justice and Prison Reform team.  I hope that explains why it takes me a minute to decide how to explain it when you ask me where I’ll be working down there.  I have no idea which of those phrases are the most useful.  I think UN and prison reform are the most descriptive.

I began to bother this poor woman on the Criminal Justice and Prison Reform team via email in January of this year.  I was pretty surprised to find that she was so easy to get in touch with.  I haven’t tried, but I can’t imagine that it’s that easy to access folks in the UN office in NYC.  She was amazingly responsive and kind, but told me over and over again throughout the year that there were no positions available.

I finally told her in September that I was willing to volunteer my time.  Surprisingly, those were the magic words!  I skyped with her the following week – in embarrassingly horrible Spanish.  I mean, uncharacteristically horrible.  I’m no expert in the language – hence this whole trip – but this was really awful.  She actually asked me to switch to English.  I expected her to switch too, since the academic papers of hers that I had read had been in English.  Turns out her English is as bad, if not worse than, my Spanish, but I was just so off my game that she was desperate to help me out.  We compromised by each speaking out native language.

There’s just something about talking on the phone in another language that is so terrifying!  Had I been able to see her face – it was not a video chat as I had expected – I think it would have been easier somehow.  There’s some bit of comfort that is lost when you aren’t able to see someone’s face.  Silences are more painful too…maybe because the other person is unable to see your struggle with words, so you imagine that they have no idea what you are doing?  I think that’s what happens to me.  I assume they think that I have disappeared or just decided I was finished talking mid-sentence.  Oh, it’s just so horribly awkward.  I don’t do awkward.  Eric can handle awkward.  I can’t stand it.  It may be a really long year for me.

Anyway, I still need to review all the resources that UNODC ROPAN has on their fantastic website, but through the efforts of the team with which I’ll be working, the prison population has decreased in Panama, staff is (at least marginally) better trained, and human rights violations are beginning to be addressed.  The implementation of the program began in 2010, so it’s exciting for me to be able to see all of the progress that has already been made before I get my hands in it.

On another note, Eric and I spent some time out with the Young Adults group from my church – yes, I finally officially joined, so I can call it my church – last night, and it was ridiculously encouraging to talk to them about our plans for next year.  Not only did they ask questions about where we would be, why we are going, and what we would be doing, but several folks even encouraged me to keep up with the blog and said they were interested in keeping up with us next year.  After years of floating around – sure, spending six years at one church, three at another, but never joining one – it’s refreshing to be reminded of why it is so important to do more than just sneak in right at 11 on Sundays and rush out right after the benediction.  I’m very comfortable with that routine.  It’s easy.  It’s risk-free.  It doesn’t take much time.  It still lets me get in my time with God each week.  But gosh, there’s just plain more to it than that.