Today Hannah and I went to collect Cha-cha (Bahati and Dotto's Mum) and her two oldest children (ages 5 and 7) to take them to a new house. As I requested, they were ready and waiting outside their house with a few small bags of belongings and one bucket to store water.

The children had never been in a car before and talked non-stop all the way home about how fast or slow or bumpy the journey was! Their faces were a picture!

We got to their new room and helped them settle by buying some food for the evening, some candles and matches and a bulb. Cha-cha, nor her children, had used a light switch before and they all cheered when the light came on!
Their new house is very simple - just one small concrete room with a window and a door - but it is a million times better than where they were living before.

I paid 6 months rent for her in this new house - for £3 a month! Cha-cha was very happy and I really think she will be able to start a new life here. Tomorrow we will show her where the Baby Home is in relation to her house (about 15 minutes walk), where local schools are for her children and she will start work for us next week.

I have lived here in Mwanza for 5 years now - but it still amazes me how 'cheap' it is to really help someone? For less than £30 - we have given this family a new home for 6 months, new clothes, mattresses to sleep on, food for a week and a chance at a future. I bet many of you reading this spend that much money in one day without thinking twice about it?

With so many children now, the Baby Home is starting to feel full and my staff are very busy! I decided that I need to employ a couple of extra staff to cover the busy shifts. I decided to first ask my current staff if any of them would like to work an extra shift each week (so working 6 shifts a week instead of 5). Almost every single one of them wanted to do this - so the problem is solved and I do not have to worry about hiring new people which is a relief!

We are having some new cupboards made for clothes and may even need to get some more beds and cots at this rate?
The children are all well. Even Salum seems to have a bit more energy today and was playing a little.

Oh - and Haji is walking so fast now that today when we left the playroom gate open for about 20 seconds and he disappeared out of the room, down the corridor and into the garden to wave to his Dad (who we employ as a Gardener) before anyone could catch him! He was very proud of himself!

Well - it really has been a busy week! Amid all the dashing around and organising of our new children, I once I found myself questioning why I gave up teaching (easy and finishes at 2.30pm!) to give myself a demanding, 24 hour a day, 365 days a year job.....but the answer came to me within seconds - because these children deserve a chance at a future and I can help them to get that chance.

Really - Forever Angels isn't my job - it is my life - and I do love my life. They are all such wonderful children - they make each day worth living.

We collected Bahati and Dotto and took them for their medicals yesterday - apart from simple urine infections and low malaria counts - they are quite healthy. Both are exceptionally small for their age - but with good nutrition, they should both soon grow well.
They have settled in really well and are just georgus! Bahati never stops laughing and has a funny sort of 'cackle' that he does every time you look at him! Dotto has learnt to drink from a bottle and is getting used to formula feed (as opposed to cows milk).

Salum is a sick little boy. He has a HB of 5 and is just so weak. This is another starving child. Thankfully, he does not have HIV to contend with - so we hope that some good food and love and care and he will pull through. He sleeps most of the day and even opening his mouth tires him out. He has a 'prolonged blink' which he does - where he keeps closing his eyes for a few seconds - it seems even sitting up and staying awake is hard for him.
I have every faith that we will help this little boy in the same way that Mwita and Haji have also pulled through....

Aaron has settled in at Tumaini ( http://mchungaji.typepad.com/tumaini )and was happy to have friends his own age. We wi8ll go to visit him in a few weeks.

I have spent this morning trying to find a house for Dotto and Bahati's Mum and (thanks to Rosemary one of the Baby Home carers) I was sucessful. I will help her to move tomorrow with her oldest 2 children and then she will start work with us. It is nice to be able to help a whole family and with her living so close to the Baby Home, we will be able to check up on her regularly.

We have updated quite a lot of our website so please feel free to look. Please excuse any minor errors in spelling / birthdays etc - I usually 'check' Ben's work before it goes on line (it's the teacher in me!) but we still have no internet at home as so I wasn't able to....minor errors will be changed very soon!

I think that is all for now? The other children are all well. Hannah has written plans to start a preschool so the 'big kids' will start that in a few weeks. They are all picking up bits of English and it's really funny to hear them shout 'Good morning Mamma' when I come in the morning!

Prepare for a long one!...

Well it has been a busy few days and unfortunately I have been unable to let you know about any of it as we still have no internet at home and the connection in town is just so slow - that by the time I read my e-mails - an hour has passed and I haven't got round to replying to any yet - let alone think about the website!?

Where to start...

Aaron. Aaron came to Forever Angels on Monday. He was found on the street by an elderly couple, with a small carrier bag of clothes. I was told that he was 2, but once we met him, we soon realised that he was 4 or 5 years old. He was suffering from malaria, worms and anemia. He told us that he had lived with his Grandmother - but we were not able to get any more information out of him.

Aaron is a lovely boy with an amazing smile - but he was easily bored with just toddlers and babies as playmates and we quickly realised that he would be better off with children his own age and at an institution where he could attend school. We do not believe that any family will come looking for him due to the fact that he had a bag of clothes with him - so he will be in long term care and I believe it is better for the child to be moved now rather than later when attachments have been made.

We arranged with Tumaini Children's Home to take him and they came to collect him today. He was very happy to be going in the car and happy to know that he could go to school and play with other children his own age. We are regularly in touch with Tumaini and will let you know how he gets on.

This morning (Thursday) we got a call from Social Welfare to come to collect a new child - maybe 3 or 4 years old.

The boy had been found on the street 2 months ago by a bus driver. The bus driver took him to the police station where police told him to care for the child in case family members return for him....and since none have - he took him to Social Welfare today....though I still don't really understand why he waited 2 months?

Nobody seemed to know his name (even the bus driver who has been caring for him for 2 months?!) so we named him after the Bus Driver and called him Salum. He is painfully thin and has slept all day today. I did a malaria test which was negative - but we will repeat this tomorrow and take him to hospital for a full medical examination.

We have estimated that he is 3 and a half years old but he seems to be a very neglected little boy, full of scars, every bone sticking out through his skin and very timid.

Again, he is probably too old for Forever Angels - but like Mwita, I think we can feed him up and bring him to a good standard of health before he is transferred to an older child's orphanage.

Dotto and Bahati

Now here is a story and a half....!

Last week Mrs Misana (the Regional Social Worker) told me about a lady who has 4 children and is mentally ill who needs assistance.

Hannah (my volunteer) and I went out to visit this family in their home last Friday.

The family live in total squalor. They have a mud hut with 2 tiny rooms and no belongings at all. The children and her all sleep on rags on the mud floor. They have no mosquito netting, no clothes and most importantly - no food.

The mother is not mentally ill - she actually has epilepsy! Here though, epilepsy is very misunderstood and it is thought that sufferers are possessed by the devil. She is outcast in her community and unable to get work. She lives bybegging - through which she makes about 20p a day.

Her children are 6 months, 2 years, 5 years and 7 years and they look after themselves all day while she is out trying to get food for them. In fact - when we went to her house to visit them - the 6 month old and the 2 year old were alone at the house and had been all day.

This woman is desperate.

She is unable to breast feed the baby as she suffered an epileptic fit whilst cooking on a charcoal fire and suffered severe burns on her arms, legs, chest and tummy. Her breasts have been totally burnt off and she has no milk to feed her baby. The baby is actually a twin and the other twin recently died.....I have mixed stories about how her other twin died - but burns were mentioned as was hunger?

Initially we were asked to take the 2 smallest children to Forever Angels which we agreed to - but the Social Welfare office has been busy all week and they had not managed to arrange this. Knowing the family were starving, Hannah and I have visited the family and taken clothes, toys, shoes, food and milk powder to them until we could find a more long term solution, and Social Welfare could deal with their case.

Today I met with the Mother and Social Welfare and we devised a plan to try to help the whole family.

For now, the youngest two children are starving and need food which she can not provide. She needs to work in order to provide for her family - but with 4 young children and an illness which means she is an outcast - this is very difficult....after a lot of discussion - a plan was born....

Tomorrow, the two youngest children - Dotto (a 6 month old girl) and Bahati (a 2 year old boy) will come to live at Forever Angels.

At the weekend I will help the mother to find a house to rent close to the Baby Home (possible for about 4 pounds a month) and we will employ her as a cleaner in the Volunteer House at Forever Angels. In this way - she can earn a good salary and visit her 2 children every day. We will keep some of her salary each month and save it for her and in 3 to 6 months we will re-assess the situation. With her 'savings' we will then help her to buy clothes, mattress and blankets for her children. Her babies will return to live with her once she has this stable job and an income. In the meantime - we will keep an eye on her older two children and the mother's health. She has bad epilepsy which is not controlled properly by medicine - so we will also ensure she attends clinic correctly to improve this.

It would be very easy for me to help her now - to buy her clothes and food and furniture and to give her money each month so she can live a good life and stay with her children. But the same applies to many thousands of families I see each day here. Sometimes it is hard to know who to help and who not to - and as much as I want to - you can not help everyone.

In order to really help - we need to help people to help themselves. By caring for her children temporarily - we are giving her the opportunity to have proper, paid employment (for the first time), gain some self esteem and confidence, manage her medical condition and try to build a better future for her whole family.

Lets hope it works....

So - by tomorrow, we will have 18 children at the Baby Home. We initially said our capacity is 20 - but Social Welfare have always tried to convince me to increase to 50 children. I think we will have to reach a compromise somewhere near the 30 mark! I can not reject a desperate child - and the need is still huge - we admit an average of one child every fortnight to Forever Angels....

This week we have had to order more clothes cupboards and high chairs to be made and I think beds will be ordered very soon too. Every day I see a case more desperate than the last.... I am not sure how the suffering we witness here every day will ever end?

Thank you though to all our supporters - we are only helping a tiny number of children - but I guess you have to start somewhere - and Forever Angels is a truly wonderful place, thanks to the support of people like you.

These new angels will be added to our website very shortly....but we are still internet-less at home and such jobs take a while longer now!

We have a new boy at Forever Angels. His name is Aaron and he is about 3 or 4 years old. He was found on the streets alone, with a small carrier bag of clothes.

We still have no internet at home - so it may take a few days to put some photos of him on our website.

So far - he hasn't spoken - but he devoured food very quickly so was obviously hungry. He is thin and has a huge pot belly. We will take him for a medical tomorrow.

The other children are all doing well.

We have been having some unusually large thunder storms this week.....usually I am all for the rain - but lightning hit our internet satellite and frazzled it! Hence Forever Angels is back to being not on line for a few weeks.
I will be replying to e-mails but will have to use an internet cafe in town - so please be patient getting my replies.

All is well at the Baby Home. The children ALL have conjunctivitis, as does Chloe and it proved impossible to stop spreading! It is very easy to treat however, painless and no one (except Chloe who had it really badly) seems to even know they have it!

I have had a few families approach me about adoption in the last few weeks which is excellent news. None of them have even begun the process yet - so it will be a few months before they are ready - but it is great to know that there are families out there who want our children.

Just a quick one today as spending the day in this smelly internet cafe booth isn't too appealing!

Well - Womba (the dog) finally gave birth to 9 puppies who are all doing well! She's gone back to live with her former owners until the puppies are grown and then she will come back to us.

We had a training course today for the Baby Home staff on 'Dental Hygiene'. A Dentist and her nurse came to the Baby Home and provided training to all of our staff on Healthy Eating, Tooth Decay and How to Brush Teeth.
The dentist then checked the toddlers teeth (none of whom were willing or helpful in any way!)

The staff really enjoyed the session and learnt a lot. Thank you to 'Hope Dental Practice' in Mwanza for arranging this.

We received some great items via DHL today from Mothercare. One of our future volunteers managed to get us £500 worth of Mothercare vouchers which we spent 'on line'. The goods all arrived today and are fabulous! Thank you to DHL for the shipping, Mothercare for their generosity, Jim and Jan Grant for shopping and packing it all and Rowena Harvey for arranging this.

The children are all well. Joseph is just adorable - polite and well behaved and very cute! He is settled already and you would never know he was 'the new kid'.

Joseph has settled in amazingly already. He is a lovely little boy, happy and loving. I thought he would be 'big' compared to the others but actually he fits in perfectly.

Womba (the dog!) is currently giving birth to her puppies - she's had 6 so far but I think more are on the way! We were planning to give her to a friend while she has the puppies and until they are ready to go to new homes (puppies and babies don't mix too well?!) but she surprised us this morning! I think our friend will be taking Womba and her babies tonight.

I'll post some photos of the puppies and of Joseph this evening.

Well it is 10.30pm and Chloe and I have been driving since 10am this morning to collect our newest arrival at the Baby Home - Joseph.

Joseph is a 3 year old little boy who was abandoned and taken to Kahama Government Hospital (about 400 km from Mwanza near to Shinyanga) when he was one month old. He has lived in the hospital ever since - for 3 years!

I received a phone call this morning from one of the Social Workers in Dar es Salaam. She was on a conference in Shinyanga about Vunerable Children and heard about Joseph so called me to see if I would take him into Forever Angels. Apparently there are no orphanages in that area who will take small children.

We agreed and set off on our mammoth journey!

Joseph has been well cared for and loved by the staff at the hospital and a 'carer' who they paid to look after him. He seems well fed and in good health.
He was initially upset to be leaving what he obviously thinks of as home - but he soon calmed down and slept for most of the journey.

We have just put him into pyjamas and left him in the great hands of our night staff. He has barely spoken to us - but I am guessing that tomorrow he will show us all his true colours.
It must have been a traumatic day for this little chap - but we hope that now he is in the Social Welfare system we can find an adoptive family for him quickly.

....it's been a long day. Goodnight.

Today we have just celebrated Danny's 2nd Birthday. Everyone had a great time and many of our off-duty staff joined us for the party!

Danny wasn't too keen on blowing out his candles - but he loved the party food, balloons and his new tractor!

Mwita ate a huge plate of food and then another, and another......this boy certainly has a good appetite!

Yunisi loved the jelly and had 3 helpings and all the children are now playing with balloons!

We took 5 of the children for immunisations yesterday - but they all seem absolutely fine and do not seem to have had any reactions.

We are having a quiet few weeks with no new children because all the Social Workers are away on conferences or annual leave. The Baby Home is working really well though and the staff and children are all happy and settled into a great routine.