Responding to the Universal Question

Well, maybe it's not the universal question, but it's the one that comes up most frequently with my haven't-seen-in-two-years-or-more-mates. This is in response to the "would you go to Moldova again?" question asked in a comment from the previous entry:

Hi Laquia -

Since I can't link to your profile, I'll respond here. Let me start by thanking you for asking my opinion! I was glad I ended up in Eastern Europe, but if you read my earliest blogs, I DID ask to go someplace else but then "left it up to fate/God/life/everyone that knew better." Some have somehow gotten the impression from my blog that I would have come home, which confuses me because I like to word my blogs carefully. But if that were the case then I actually WOULD have come home. No, it was sad and I was lonely sometimes, but I knew I was getting myself into this for two years and not at one point did I actually even seriously consider leaving early. And, truthfully, that was partly out of curiosity for what would come at the end -- an intuitive blessing, seeing as the most "productive" events did come at the end...but don't they always?

But it was my choice to "go where I was needed," and I have no doubt now that Moldova was the right place for me to be. But that's also my whole outlook on life, God, decisions, and events...but yes, I did FEEL as if it was the right place when I landed and I can REASON now exactly how it worked out in my benefit. "If I hadn't gone to Moldova, I never would have..." and so on. I now have a new understanding (and awareness!) of a whole region I had never really thought of before.

I, too, was in shock when they told me I had been sifted to Eastern Europe, but this was my process and it doesn't work for everyone. I understand intimately that this experience is not for everyone, and, even within the same village, volunteers have entirely different experiences.

So there are a million different ways I can elaborate upon this response, but to keep it short and straight to the "would I do it again?" question: I'm sure glad I did it once.