A Day of Service - by Andrew Stephens

     Today was the day we worked on our service project. Professor Buske incorporates this into every trip she puts together by having students raise money and then spend one of the days on the trip putting labor towards something that will have a lasting impact on the community we are visiting. This year, we raised enough money to upgrade a classroom’s dirt floor to concrete and to build 10 desks for Ilkurot Primary School outside of Arusha. It’s the same school that students from the 2023 Tanzania trip worked on as well. Ilkurot is part of a program called The Lunch Project, which is aimed at providing free food to students that might not otherwise have a meal while at school and has a huge impact on keeping kids in class instead of dropping out.

    Before arriving at Ilkurot, we made a quick stop to another public primary school made up of primarily Maasai children, that is also part of The Lunch Project, to check out how this program operates. We didn’t fully know what to expect from this visit other than Professor Buske telling us it might be a unique opportunity to see what it feels like to be a member of the Beatles during Beatlemania. She wasn’t lying.

    We made our way up a winding, bumpy dirt road off the main highway that was a 30-minute drive outside of Arusha. After turning a corner, we were greeted by hundreds of Maasai school children that swarmed our van singing and dancing as we rolled up to the school. It’s hard to describe how amazing it was. I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced anything like that. While I will never know what it felt like to be Paul McCartney back in the day, it was an amazing experience for me and my classmates. The students also seemed happy to have an excuse to pause the school day and greet us.

    After about 20 minutes of singing and jumping with the students, we got to walk around the school’s property and talk to the headmaster, teachers, and the mamas that cook the food and make the program happen. We then went to check out the food being prepared. Curious students kept coming up to the cooking area to catch a glimpse of us and say hello and give us either a fist bump or a high five. It was interesting to learn more about what the program does and how big of an impact it has on the students. Something as simple as providing lunch every day can be the difference between going to school or dropping out.

    We then hopped back in the van and headed to Ilkurot. Students greeted us when we arrived with songs, but it wasn’t nearly as intense as it was at the first school. The headmaster told us that not all of the materials had been delivered to build the desks, so we would just be working on the concrete floor. The cement had already been poured when we got there, so our job was to smooth it out and put a sealant on it.

    While it felt good to help, it was disappointing to not be able to do as much work as we were planning to do. On the other hand, we got to spend more time with the children and some of us played math games with the older students and we made the most of the visit. I’m grateful that Professor Buske makes this a part of her trips because it’s always a humbling reminder of how lucky we are as law students from America.

    It’s hard to tell how big of an impact our group’s project will have on the school and its students.  For me it felt underwhelming after looking at everything else and seeing how much help this school needed. Our project was just a drop in the bucket. I wish we had raised more money and aimed for a bigger project. But I know it’s also important to remember that change can happen in smaller increments and nothing we could do on this trip would have transformed the school overnight. I will always be grateful for the experience and memories from today and use it as a motivator to keep trying to make the world a better place.