Ilula Orphan Program - Emily and Laura Kvasnicka

My sister Laura and I tagged along with the group but since I won't start medical school until August and Laura is interested in law, we decided to spend our time at the Ilula Orphan Program as volunteers. We've been home for a couple days now, but we weren't able to complete our blog post while we were there due to a lack of internet.  We wanted to share some thoughts with you about our experience.

The Ilula Orphan Program was started by Berit Skaare, a Norweigan who lived in the United States for many years. It's a huge operation that includes caring for the 36 girls who live at the center but also coordinating sponsorships for 1500 kids in the surrounding area to attend school, assisting foster families with education and material support, a high school for girls from the orphanage as well as other children from around Tanzania and several other projects (more info here: http://www.ilulaorphanprogram.org/) . Laura and I stayed at the center and spent our time helping with a variety of these projects plus varnishing, cleaning and of course playing with the little girls at the center!

We were blown away by the kindness, generosity and joy of all the people we met there. Every Tanzanian staff member was committed to their job, but also to making sure everyone else was comfortable and happy and we were always greeted by cheerful "jambo's" and "habari za azubuhi's" and laughter when we mixed up the proper replies. Even more fun were the girls. We spent most of our time with the little ones who were 10 and under since the older girls were in school and had a lot of chores.  Even though they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Swahili, we still were able to have a lot of fun with them. We discovered their fantastic personalities and enjoyed teaching them games from the United States and having them teach us their games.  It was so sad to leave them!

More than what we were able to contribute, we feel like we learned so much from all the people we met.  We'd to leave you with a list we made of things that we learned and want to remember every day.

-Be generous
-We are extremely lucky to live the life we do
-Don't worry about what you don't have, focus on celebrating what you do have
-You don't have to be the best at something to do it and enjoy it (For example, I'm not sure a Tanzania would know what you meant if you said that you can't sing, a common statement in America. In Ilula, everyone sings and there's no question of ability!)
-Focus on the moment and don't worry about timing
-Put down your phone!
-Be joyful
-Trust in the future

We're so grateful to IOP for hosting us and the medical trip for letting us tag along!  It was a wonderful experience! Asante sana!