Today was a happy day. Bahati went home to live with his Mum, ChaCha and both of them were very happy!
Bahati waved goodbye to all of his friends and the staff and went off looking adorable with a new bag and hat and new shoes (thanks Orla!)
He began to cry just as he was leaving - but Forever Angels has been his home for 7 months so he was bound to be a bit confused about leaving....but the tears soon stopped and he walked off hand in hand with his Mum.

They live only 5 minutes walk away and ChaCha continues to work for us - so I am sure we will see lots of him.
We love you Bahati and wish you lots of love and happiness.







My staff have been very busy lately - braiding the children's hair! Most orphanages shave the children's hair (girls and boys) but I think it is lovely for the girls to have nice hair styles....however when I saw Gracie and Tuliza today I did laugh! They are both very proud of their hair do's and don't seem to realise how crazy they look!





Dotto (Bahati's sister) has got a slightly more normal hair style! ChaCha will still see her every day and hopes to take her home in a few months.



I also got a letter from Social Welfare today to say that Pascal will be returning home to his Father in June. I have had Pascal at Forever Angels since he was 9 days old and will miss him terribly when he goes - but it is wonderful that he can return to his family soon. His Father came to visit him today and Pascal was happy playing with him.

The Pre school now has a roof! It has been built so quickly - it is very exciting!

Mary finally weighs 3kg! For a five month old baby this is still tiny (smaller than many newborns!) but for her, it is a miracle. This little girl has fought so hard for so long and I hope things are finally looking up for her. I am not supposed to have 'favourites' - but this little angel has a very very special place in my heart and seeing her smile is just wonderful!

We have moved many of the 'older babies' onto cows milk instead of formula milk now....mainly to save money, but also because they are all doing so well and no longer need the artificial nourishment. It is wonderful to see all the babies we got when they were so tiny now standing up and learning to walk! Sophia, Dotto, Maggie, Seba and omari are all either walking or just about to and it is so lovely to watch them!

Poor little Pili is not very well. She has had fever and vomiting for a few days now but her malaria tests have been negative so we are not quite sure what is wrong with her. She seems a little better today - but if she still has fever tomorrow we will take her to hospital.

We are getting a newborn baby boy in the next few days. His Mum died in childbirth at the hospital and no family have been located. I visited him in the neonatal unit and he is a very handsome little chap with lots of lovely hair.

Talking of hair - Jack has the softest, most beautiful curls you have ever seem. Everyone who is anywhere near him has a little stroke of his head as they pass! It is growing quite long and everyone (Chloe!) keeps telling me to shave it off....but I just can't bring myself to shave off such soft locks!
Anyhow - today, I went in to see the babies and (don't ask why!?) Jack was wearing Mary's little pink dungarees! Even I had to admit, that in pink, he could easily be mistaken for a girl!! But I am still not convinced about the hair cut!

ChaCha is going to take Bahati home next week. It was supposed to happen last week but then ChaCha got sick and was in hospital. She is fine again now and just waiting for the paperwork from Social Welfare. They only live round the corner so we hope we will still see lots of him and I also hope that he will attend our Baby Home preschool in a few weeks once it opens.

Emma and Tarransay (volunteers) have just made a lovely flower garden. With the help of Mwita and Joseph today, they planted many colourful flowers and shrubs along our new extension. It looks lovely and is going to be a Nature Area for the preschool.

I think that is all the news for now.....

A HUGE peice of news (but I am a little biased maybe!?) is that Mary can now smile!!! She is almost 5 months old but she has never smiled so I was starting to think she had some problems with her vision....but actually, because she was 3 months premature - she is only about 6 weeks old now (from her due date rather than her birth date) so she IS on track.....and made me very happy this weekend!




In March we are going to have 4 new girls from Bethany Orphanage come and live at the Baby Home and join our 'Child Care Training Scheme'. These 4 girls have failed primary school and there is no other option for their future. In a family - they would be put to work or married off - but for orphan children it is essential that they have a chance at fending for themselves in the future.

Our initial training with Neema and Mwanaidi worked so well that we are now going to take 4 girls. We are also going to set up a schooling programme for them (run by our volunteers) to teach them English and some basic maths.

The girls will live on site and will receive training in Child Care, First Aid, Cookery and Gardening. This time, they will live on the small 'staff house' we have on site - so this will need some refurbishing and furnishing before they move in. We believe the cost of this (for 4 bunk beds, mattresses, sheets, basic cooking and kitchen equipment etc) will come to about £500. If anyone would like to sponsor this amount we would be very greatful to hear from you.

Joseph had a 'try out' at the International school and really loved it. He will start going every morning in the next few weeks and is very excited about it!



My Dad, Cosmos and the other Askari's have been working hard building an outside kitchen for the Baby Home. Now we have so many staff and children to feed, the regular electric oven was just not big enough! Eleanorer and Kay are very happy with their new kitchen!!



The Preschool building is coming along really well.....and went up SO fast! We hope to use it for pre school classes for the toddlers, Schooling for the Bethany girls in the evenings and just as an extra room for the children to do art and craft activities.



Omari, Seba, Haji and Michael had a lovely birthday party last week - lots of cake and balloons and fun all round!

Michael


Haji


Seba and Omari


And finally - Brooke, our new volunteer has arrived. She will be with us for 2 months and we are all happy to have her with us.....welcome!

Just a quick one today....and I will post birthday party photos tomorrow.....

Our fences are slowly being eaten away by termites! My Dad and Cosmos built wooden fences around the Baby Home play area to keep the children in a safe, contained space whilst they play outside - but we have now learnt that this method is just not a long term solution. The fence posts (despite being treated) are being eaten away by termites. We keep replacing panels and posts - but it seems like we are throwing our money away?

My Dad would like to replace the whole lots with steel fencing at a cost of about £2,000! It sounds very expensive - but it will last forever rather than us replacing sections of it every few months.

If anyone would like to donate money or do a fundraiser to build this new play area fence - we would LOVE to hear from you!

Great fences......slowly being eaten away!

Life at the Baby Home is good.

The children are all healthy and doing so well.

Mary and Adamu started on ARV medication last week for HIV. It is very hard to force so much medication into such small babies - they cry and choke and there is no nice way of doing it. I just have to keep telling myself that it will keep them alive. Mary's CD4 count was the lowest I have ever known - only 88. I am not sure what kind of life she will have with such a weak immune system - but we have to at least try.
I am desperately in love with this little girl and it broke my heart to discover she was sick - but she is eating well, gaining weight and she is well loved. please keep her in your thoughts.

Dotto is now walking well and is becomming a 'toddler'! Omari and Sophie can now stand up (sort of!) and the other big babies are trying very hard to join them!

I am pleased to say that ChaCha now feels able to take Bahati home - so next week he will return to live with her and his brother and sister. We will keep Dotto at the Baby Home until she is older and no longer drinking milk. We will miss Bahati - he is SUCH a little character - but it is wonderful that he is going home to his Mum.

We have a sponsor who would like to pay for Joseph to attend the local International School. I sent in an application and he has been approved so he should be starting in the next week or so. This is such an amazing opportunity for Joseph - I have never known such an enigmatic, vibrant and charming little boy and he will do very well I am sure.
I also have a prospective adoptive family for him which will be wonderful if it works out.

Sophia also has a wonderful family interested in adopting her and I hope it all happens quickly and smoothly. They are a loving Tanzanian couple with three older boys and I will be thrilled to see her adopted into this family.

Today me, my Dad, Emma and Taransay went to visit the Bethany Orphanage in Magu. This is where our 2 teenage orphanage leavers (Neema and Mwanaidi) came from and also where Yunisi's young aunt (Sophia) and Adamu's Mum (Lucia) are currently living.
We had a lovely day there and even got a treat of the children singing to us. They were amazing!

Sophia has come top in her class at school and is doing so well. Lucia is looking so much better - she has gained weight and has started basic schooling.

All the children at Bethany are incredibly polite, caring and welcomming - it was wonderful to see. We gave each child a (belated) Christmas gift from the shoe boxes we had sent over and the children were thrilled with their gifts. Thank you again to everyone who collected these....over 350 children have received lovely gifts because of your generosity.

Bethany is run in Tanzania by a wonderful Tanzanian couple called Daniel and Elida. They clearly love the children and do an amazing job caring for over 130 children aged between 2 and 20 years! I am always impressed when I visit - but today more than usual.

I discussed with Daniel the possibility of taking some more of his teenage girls to live and train (in childcare) at Forever Angels. We take girls who have failed primary school and really, have no other options open to them. I will discuss this with Graham (the UK Director) when he comes to Tanzania next week - but I think this time we will be able to accept 4 girls. Neema and Mwanaidi (the first girls who came to us from Bethany) are now living in their own house and still working with us at Forever Angels. They are wonderful young ladies and a real credit to Bethany and to themselves!

We are having a joint birthday party tomorrow for Haji, Seba and Omari. It is wonderful that Haji has reached his second birthday as I never thought he would - but he is doing wonderfully and is a normal, mischevious little toddler.




I will post some birthday party photos in the next few days.

Please also have a look at each child's individual page as I have added recent photos of them all. It is wonderful to see how they have all changed and grown.

Baby Adella died this morning in Intensive Care. We are all so sad to see her go, but she was suffering lots and she is now at peace with her Mum.

We are going to a funeral this afternoon with her father and we are having a Memorial Service at the Baby Home on Monday afternoon.

I feel so sad for her Dad. He is a lovely man and was so proud of Adella.

Adella - An Angel So Small

Goodbye our tiny angel,
Rest now and soar up high,
Your life was a struggle from the start,
And now its time to say goodbye.

Though your life was so short,
It was filled with so much love,
And though you fought to stay with us,
You heard a calling from heaven above.

Rest now our little angel,
Fly up into the sky,
Go, be at peace with your Mother,
And look down on us from high.

We will always remember you,
Your soft hair and tiny face,
But we know now that you are at peace,
And have flown to a better place.

Goodbye my tiny angel,
Remember we will always love you.
Fly now up to your Mother,
Who is ready and waiting for you.

We got a new little girl yesterday. She is about 18 months old and called Aika. She was found in a bin bag on the road side. She is not very well right now (probably malaria) but she is settling in well and loves to be cuddled.

Adella is now in Intensive Care. She is not 'ill' as such - she is simply unable to absorb enough milk and so she is losing weight and is very dehydrated. I am not sure if she will survive - but if she does, she will be in hospital for many weeks I think.
In the bed next to Adella is a 700 gram baby boy. He was found in a peice of newspaper, abandoned on the road side....so if he makes it through the next few weeks, he will also become a Forever Angels Baby. And I used to think that Mary was small!

Up until tonight - Mary has been doing well. She is now 2.5 kg and is turning into a beautiful little girl. I am madly in love with her and trying very hard not to get too attached. We took her for her DPT and Polio injections today and tonight she has fever and vomiting. I am hoping it is just a reaction to the vaccination and not her getting sick again. We will observe her closely through the night.

Orla, our volunteer, left this afternoon. She has been a WONDERFUL volunteer - willing to put her hand to anything and loved by all the staff and kids. She is off to climb Kilimanjaro this week and then onto Zanzibar for a well deserved break before heading home to Ireland. Orla - thank you so much for everything, you will be truly missed. Welcome back anytime.....and Bahati sends a big kiss to you.

Unfortunately, two volunteers I was expecting to arrive this week have pulled out at the last minute....and others are unable to come as they were flying via Nairobi and in light of the recent troubles there, have had to cancel their flights.
We have come to rely on volunteers for many jobs and I rely a lot on them. Not having the ones we were expecting is a big blow to us. If there is anyone out there who has nothing to do for the next 2 or 3 months and would like to come to volunteer at Forever Angels - please send me an email: amy@foreverangels.org

We received the Christmas Shoe boxes (Thank you again SO MUCH to everyone to collected them) and we split them up and made over 300 'gift bags' which we have distributed to various other orphanages in Mwanza. We took them to Watoto Orphanage, Hands of Mercy and Tumaini. We still have over 150 left to take to Bethany Orphanage next week. I am hoping to post some photos of this tonight.
The children were delighted with their gifts and it was wonderful to watch them all smiling and so happy.

We have the weird 'fever' bug at the Baby Home again.....fever for 24 hours but no other symptoms. It is very strange and seems to pass through the Baby Home every few months!

We now have 5 children at Forever Angels who are HIV positive so we are making regular visits to the hospital for their clinics. This can be a frustrating process of queueing in various different rooms for hours on end, usually for the sole purpose of getting ARV medication at the end of it! I shouldn't complain really - the ARV drugs are given free of charge and they really are life saving! Every single day I glance at Haji and am still astounded at how healthy he now is. He is a little michief maker - always doing something he is not supposed to be doing - but it is so hard to tell him off when just 12 months ago, we pretty much brought him home from hospital to die?!

That's all for now. I am going to try to put some photos up here.....

Yunisi opening her Christmas Box

Mathias at Christmas

Children at Tumaini Orphanage Opening their Christmas Gifts

Seba and Omari's Family at the Baby Home Christmas Party

Yunisi with her Auntie - Sophia

Haji with his Dad

Joseph opening his Christmas Shoe Box

Tumaini children

Lucia with her baby - Adamu

Forever Angels Children Opening Christmas Gifts

ChaCha and her family

Tumaini children - Fun at Christmas!

All the Forever Angels Staff and Children at the Christmas Party