My week off from my semester off

The best part about being a volunteer for the army, rather than an actual soldier, is the fact that technically, I can leave whenever I want. So when, after watching a movie about some lesser-known highlights of Israel during, I decided that I wanted to take a week off between bases and volunteer in the civilian world — once again proving that major life decisions don’t require much time, thought, or planning — I just… did.

If you’ve never heard of Save A Child’s Heart, you should know that I could never do them justice in a short blog post. But can you imagine an organization that flies children from third-world countries across oceans for direly-needed heart operations (and months of follow-up care), at absolutely no cost to the kids and the mothers or nurses who come with them? That’s exactly what SACH does, and they’ve saved thousands of lives — foreign lives, not that that matters — since it was founded in 1995, one child nearly everyday. Only in Israel.

Some patients live close enough to the hospital that they can go home immediately after surgery just by crossing the Gaza border; but for those who travel from Africa and Europe, who aren’t stable enough to fly back so quickly, and who need a place to recover between weeks-to-months of follow-up visits, there’s the SACH house. And this week, during a time of year where there happen to be no other full-time volunteers, there’s me.

I can’t say I ever pictured myself living in a house with 16 babies, toddlers, and preteens from Ethiopia and Tanzania. But really, nothing about this semester is going like anybody pictured. Luckily for me.

My days here are quite luxurious compared to what I’ve gotten used to on base: I wake up in time to be downstairs at the comfortable hour of 8:30 am. I’m free to go wherever I want from 12-3:30 (lunch until the end of nap-time) and am done with “work” once dinner starts at 6. But this isn’t work. Planning activities for, doing arts and crafts with, dancing the Macarena with, and playing card games and volleyball with these kids is more fun than anything else I could imagine doing in Israel.

Usually, this is where I would bring up the catch. For example, USC is great until midterm season rolls around; Sar-El is great until the work gets repetitive. But there is no catch with Save A Child’s Heart.

The fact that the moms and nurses are hilarious is an added bonus, but the kids are amazing: they’re all so normal — I would have no idea that they’re in recovery from life-saving heart surgery — and yet they’re still so much better than American kids. Why? I’m not exactly sure, but I’ll go on and on about what makes them so amazing in my next post — I have too much to say to fit it all here.

It’s funny that today, Thanksgiving, is the transition day between my favorite kids going home, all after at least two months in recovery, completely healthy… and a new group coming straight off the plane tomorrow, ready for surgery. I have no idea if any of them are familiar with this American holiday, but I can promise that the incredible kids I spent the last four days with — as well as every single person who has been affected by this organization in the last 19 years — will be forever thankful for their health and for everything Save A Child’s Heart has done for them.

As will I.

Happy Thanksgiving from Israel!