We also have two places for Volunteers for the whole month of June if anyone out there is interested?

Please email amy@foreverangels.org for more information.

Today I have some 'bits and bobs' to share with you.....

It has been another relatively quiet week, so no major news to share.

First I would just like to share with you all that our 2012 Business Plan has now been completed - and is available on our website (Publications page) or if you follow this link.

http://www.foreverangels.org/publications/BusinessPlan.pdf

Thank you SO much to our Trustees - Diane and Peter Mitchell for all their incredible hard work in producing this very detailed and professional document.

If anyone is interested in Volunteering - we are pretty full from June through to December now - but we do have 2 places available from July 3rd to July 24th if anyone is interested? 
We do have some GREAT news about Alex.  Alex came to Forever Angels at the end of March as he was found alone on the streets in Mwanza.  We believed him to be an abandoned child - but he seemed well taken care of so I was never sure of this.

Oh - and just before I leave you....a quick thought about Electricity and why having 'none' is actually better than having 'some' a lot of the time!

Kulenga's Mum had to go to visit a sick relative in another town - so she left Kulegna with her grandma.  Kulenga was missing her Mum and 'went to find her' and got lost in town!

As soon as her Mum found out, she went straight to the Police and they were back in each other's arms by 10am this morning.

Kulenga was a really bright, talkative little girl - obviously well cared for.  We are very pleased she is now back home where she belongs.

This is not a Baby Home post today as much as a 'Day in the life of Amy' post.....if you are looking for 'baby news', you will have to wait another day or so!!

Some days I crave Asda. I don't miss the actual shop - or even the goods inside the shop - I just sometimes crave the simplicity of parking my car, going into ONE building and being able to buy a number of non related items without it taking an entire day.

On Thursday I had a few items to buy for the Baby Home: black marker pens, a torch, some milk, a single bed sheet, some A4 paper, some string and an umbrella. I know that in my 'old life' in England, I could have nipped into Asda and got all of those items and be in and out within about 10 minutes.

We do not have that luxury in Mwanza!

The shops here are all small and sell very specific items - the black marker pen shop for example, sells marker pens, and maybe even a biro....but it would never sell paper as well! So - shopping lists like mine above, take a number of different shops and a lot of patience (especially since every shop will also have no change, no power to work the till, a broken calculator so the buttons 3,5,0 and = don't work and an owner who is currently off to pray, so just closing his shop as you get to the door!)

My Thursday morning began with a very frustrating shopping dash around town (it was also pouring with rain and in order not to get your car clamped which happens to me on a weekly basis - you have to park your car in one of the 'safe spots' and walk)

So I was wet and mad and tired and wishing, just a little bit, for Asda.

My trip ended with the Post Office - I needed to try to collect a few parcels for the Baby Home. I say 'try' because it isn't as easy as it sounds - in fact - it is not easy at all! I have lived here for 9 and a half years and I still do not understand the Post Office system here.

In fact - I HATE the Post Office......sometimes collecting a parcel can take up to 3 hours - there is no rhyme nor reason as to which counter you should stand at, whether you are charged for collection or not, whether the man from Immigration has to come to open your parcel to check the contents, or even if they can actually find your parcel once you have spent half the day waiting!

That's how it USED to be - before the refurbishment started. Now, I miss the chaos and un-organisation of before - what I witnessed on Thursday, made that look like a perfectly sensible and well oiled system!

On Thursday when I went in, I found the Post Office closed (due to the ceiling falling in after the huge rains we have been having) I was directed around the back to the 'sorting office'. It is quite an apt name actually - it could (at a push) be called an 'office' and it most definitely needed sorting! There were letters and parcels and sacks strewn all over the floors, amongst rubbish and empty boxes and, if you looked hard enough - you'd see employees...sitting on chairs filing their nails, reading, drinking tea....anything but working.

I hurdled over boxes and sacks to approach the friendliest looking Post Office Worker to give my parcel slips to, only to be snarled at and told to wait. So I did. And waited. And waited. Eventually, sighing and huffing and puffing at me, she got up and handed my differently coloured postal slips to various workers (who all threw evil looks at me for actually having the audacity to ask them to do some work!) and then they all sat back down. And told me to wait some more.

So - the waiting went on for a long time - I'd say about 2 hours in total. And while I waited (getting more and more frustrated!) I watched the totally chaotic and unsystematic way they chose to look for my parcels. The coloured slips represent something (but I still have no idea what?!) and in the old system - yellow slipped parcels were kept on the floor, blue in a wardrobe, white on top of the wardrobe and pink under the counter - see, a system!

In the interim refurbishing period - it seems that this 'organisation' has gone out of the window, and the Postal drivers now arrive with a sack of letters, and literally tip them onto the floor. Everyone else stands over them to get to their 'designated' chair....where they sit all day, and nothing ever gets posted or sorted at all!

Eventually, one by one, the staff got up and 'looked' for the parcel they were seemingly responsible for finding for me. Some kicked a few envelopes on the floor, tutted, shook their heads and muttered something incomprehensible to me which I could only guess was that they couldn't find it. Others (to be fair) used their hands and moved and lifted and read the names on 4 or 5 letters and parcels (our of probably 3,000 strewn across the floor) and muttered their apologies about not being able to find mine. And others just didn't bother to even stand up and try!

I was starting to get a little irate by now....and started huffing and puffing myself, cursing Tanzania and its lack of systems and logic and wondering why we chose to live here instead of a 'normal' country where letters get posted through your front door!

Suddenly, just as I was about to leave in temper, a song came on the radio and one of the staff (a rather large lady I may add) squealed in delight, jumped up, turned up the volume to full blast and started dancing right there in front of me (on top of and in between all the letters and parcels!) As soon as the other workers saw her, they all hurried to join and I was given a brilliant, synchronised dance routine!

They were fabulous! They were laughing and whistling and dancing so energetically, wiggling their bottoms and parading around the floor - I could barely remember the reluctant workers I'd sat willing to work for the past 2 hours! For whatever reason, they all knew this particular song and the dance routine which went with it and all danced in time, singing along - it was like a professional music video (I use the term professional in a slightly loose term - if you have ever seen a Tanzanian music video you will understand what I mean!)

(For a taster of something similar to what I witnessed in the Post Office - see here:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI_TdEmHeaA&feature=related

Anyhow, after all that, I left without my parcels on Thursday - but with a very big smile on my face! This is the reason I live in Tanzania - we may have a dreadful postal service; and qualities such as order and structure and logic even common sense may be seldom found here - but I live among passionate, people who love life and who really couldn't give two hoots about some white woman's parcels!

I will remember that trip to the post office for the rest of my life - it reminded me (and I DO need reminding sometimes!) why I LOVE Africa and its people.

The drive home was interesting - after all the rain from the morning - we had virtually no roads left! The gushing 'rivers' of water which had poured down the roads all morning had left behind huge amounts of rubble, rubbish and not a lot of road!

Of course - the REAL reason I live here is in this very short video I took this morning of our little Miracle Man - Baraka. Here he is two months ago:

And this tiny video is the Baraka we know and love today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8rSN8LlUaw&feature=youtu.be

Now THAT (along with Post Office dancing!) is why I love living here!!

Ok, so I should never say that we are having a time of quiet and calm at the Baby Home, as that just calls out for disaster to happen.....but we really are!

In April we had no new children joining us, and no children leaving the Baby Home.  The officially makes it the quietest month since October 2009!!

Quiet is good though - we like it!  It means we can refine schedules and make positive changes and we have time to evaluate where we are headed.

Our SEN programme is going well and it is clear to see how hard Nasibu and Anna (our SEN Mammas) are working when you see the progress the children with Special Needs are making.

Here are Katy and Ashley who have Cerebral Palsy - both now able to sit up alone for quite a few minutes which is wonderful.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but I am actually on holiday in Zanzibar with my family and a bunch of wonderful friends for a week.

The Baby Home is left in the wonderful hands of Lilian and Josephine and we have some wonderful Volunteers helping out to make sure everything is fine while I am away.

I am in regular touch and can report a few things to you.....

1) Davey has been selected for adoption!  It will take a couple of months for the final paperwork to be completed - but we are all thrilled that he will finally have his Forever Family.

2) Baraka's wound is healing SO well that it no longer needs dressed and we are considering moving him to the Main Baby Home this weekend!

3) We have just heard that Yazidi's Dad has returned (he 'ran away' after Yazidi was born and we have never heard from him in over 3 years and Yazidi has since gone home to live with his very loving Aunt)  His Dad apparently now wants to care for Yazidi, but his distraught Aunt is going to fight this and we hope Social Welfare grants her permenant custody.

4) The rest of the children are all doing so well - happy and healthy and loving the attention of having great volunteers to play with.

Although I miss the Baby Home terribly and all of my beautiful children - it has been quite a stressful and emotional few months and a week away is like a breath of fresh air.  It has made me appreciate the wonderfully supportive network of friends we have here in Mwanza, and how great my Managers are.

I will be home on Sunday and back to it with more energy, feeling refuelled and refreshed.