Celebrations at St. Lucia

Our first day at St. Lucia was on June 2, our second day in Arusha. We arrived at 8:30 AM and after only a few hours with the children, Jeremy was completely exhausted. I spent the day rolling out dough for enough chapatti to feed 20 people, which was also hard work. Honestly, we were not sure if we had made the right decision to volunteer, and we couldn’t imagine how we would possibly keep ourselves busy throughout the entire month of June.

However, we quickly settled into a routine and became busy with many different projects. Soon, juggling time with the children, time in the community, grant research, proposal writing, and other administrative tasks took up the majority of our day. We now only have two days left here in Arusha with the St. Lucia team, and we cannot believe how quickly the time has passed!

On Friday, while we reviewed all of our completed projects with her, she became so overwhelmed that she began to cry a little. Winnie even got down on her knees to thank us and in her words, “beg” us to continue volunteering. This begging was of course entirely unnecessary! Jeremy and I have truly become engaged and dedicated to the success of the projects we have initiated, and we are eager to continue to work with Winnie to support St. Lucia’s patients in any way that we can. We certainly are not ready to say good-bye to our new friends, and we are thrilled even to have the support of the St. Lucia Board of Directors to continue our projects.

Pending approval of funding, they mentioned that they would like to pay us for our work, as well. Who knows if that will happen, but in a matter of four weeks, we have been promoted from Summer Volunteers to Program Directors! (That will certainly make a nice line item on our updated resumes  once we return to the USA…) However, in all seriousness, this month in Arusha has truly been a wonderful learning and growing opportunity. And although the children sang and danced to thank US today, we feel that we have them to thank for so much more than our words can describe.

And so we say, “Asante sana!” to Winnie and all of the children at St. Lucia, as well as to all of the patients in the Arusha community who have welcomed us into their homes. We look forward to continuing to serve you from afar, but we will always keep you close in our hearts.