Oh - and great news for Forever Angels...and for me!....Chloe has decided to stay for a few more months! Thank you Chloe - I am so pleased that you will stay!

Chloe has worked at Forever Angels for almost 2 years - since March 2006. She was with us before we even opened and whilst we were twiddling our thumbs and waiting for our first child to arrive. She is my 'Assistant Manager' but in actual fact she spends MUCH more time at the Baby Home than I do and I would be unable to run Forever Angels without her. She works every day, all day and has to have her arm twisted to take time off! The kids adore her and Forever Angels wouldnt be Forever Angels without Chloe.

She was due to leave in March this year....but then extended to September....and has now extended until 2009! Thank you Chloe (and I am sorry Chloe's Mum and Dad!)

Today was my son Barnabas's 7th birthday party. Chloe and I always joke that as soon as I am busy with 'family stuff', something at the Baby Home comes up - and today was no different! The party had been going on for about 20 minutes when I got a call from Social Welfare to ask if I would go to their office to collect a new child! Thankfully (thank you guys!), Chloe, Emma and Tarransay were able to go and collect her.

Mariam is a 17 month old little girl....and she is tiny! She weighs only 6 kg and is not able to stand, crawl or walk yet. She is quite malnourished so I hope she is delayed just because she is weak. Her Dad and Mum (who is just 17) is very sick with HIV and they are not able to care for her anymore. She seems to have settled in well already and has given a few smiles. She is very cute and will be a good friend for Dotto I think.

I forgot to post photos of the triple birthday party we had last weekend. Mwita was 4, and Maggie and Sophia were both 1. Everyone had a lovely day!







Oh - and I love this photo of these three girls together! Maggie, Dotto and Sophia are all adorable little things and with their hair styled like this - they look like triplets!!

I have just realised it has been a whole week and I haven't updated my diary. It has been a quiet week really and there is not much to report.

The diaoreah seems to have mostly passed now which is good - but flu seems to be circulating the Baby Home and in Mwanza in general there are so many bugs going around so my staff and their children all seem to be unwell and having time off.

My Mum held a meeting in the UK yesterday for past and future volunteers. It seemed to have gone very well and gave everyone the opportunity to ask questions and to talk about Forever Angels. Thanks Mum and to everyone who attended.....and we hope to see you all in the future out here.

Talking of Volunteers - Cassie and Rick and their Mum's left this evening. They were a great help to us, playing with the children, painting fences, putting T bars on cots to hang mosquito nets and giving lots of love. Thank you guys - come back any time!

The fence is almost finished now - it just needs painting. It doesn't look quite as 'pretty' as the last fence - but it is FAR more sturdy and will last a long time!

My Dad has been here for almost 3 months now and has completed SO many jobs - not to mention the paddling pool, the outside kitchen, refurbishing the staff house for the Bethany girls, fixing all the cots and adding T bars for mosquito nets, putting up shelves, extending the patio and sorting out our water storage project. He is due to go home on Thursday - but has decided to try to stay longer to ensure all his projects are finished. We sure will miss him when he goes as Ben and I just do not have time to get all this work done.

I have just been chatting to my friend Davona (who runs Cradle of Love Baby Home in Arusha and who we 'modelled' Forever Angels on) .... it is nice to share ideas about running a Baby Home and occasionally have a nag about the things which do not go exactly as you want them to!

Anyhow - no real news.....

Well - the days seem to be flying by! I used to have a very structured life being a teacher - but nowadays I often have no idea what day it is! The weekends and weekdays all roll into one and time passes so fast.

We have had a lot of rain these last few days - but thankfully it is no longer a problem to dry the nappies as we have LOTS of drying room in our roof space!

We are halfway through replacing the fence around the Baby Home garden with steel. It has caused some chaos to the children's routine - but they have spent most afternoons playing in my garden much to the delight of my own 3 children!

The diaoreah bug seems to be passing slowly - but there is now a flu / cold virus circulating which unfortunately Mary and Lauren both have. It seems never ending at the moment!

I have a quiet week ahead according to the Baby Home diary - with nothing written in for this week at all which is a first! I wont hold my breath though - it seems that as soon as I say things are quiet - we get new babies and sick children a-plenty!

Oh - and there is something in the water at the Baby Home I think. It seems that every day for the past week, one of my staff have come to me to tell me that they are pregnant. Of course I am thrilled for them all.....but it WILL mean doing my Rotas again to cover all their maternity leave! Sigh!!

This afternoon, just as I was in the Supermarket doing the Baby Home shop - I got a call from Social Welfare to come to pick up another baby!



Chloe, Emma and Taransay went to collect our new bundle. His name is Deuci (pronounced 'dew - see') and he is 2 weeks old. His Mum died just after giving birth and left her husband to care for 7 other children. He seems to be quite well, weighing 2.67 kg. That brings our total number of children back up to 32.....9 of whom are under 6 months of age. It certainly does take some thought to work out all the feeding regimes and bottle making now!


Sammy is almost crawling! He thinks it is the best thing ever and it is so lovely to see him finally gaining this independance. At the moment, he generally goes backwards - but he will be racing round with the others in a few days I am sure.





The diaorreah seems to be getting better thank goodness, and still it is only Adamu who seems to be ill at all. He still has fever but I think it is flu and the Doctor said to just keep an eye on him.

We started work today on replacing all the wooden fence with steel. It meant that the toddlers could not play in the garden - so they all trundled off to my house to play for the afternoon. At one point - there were 20 children on the trampoline!

Oh - and Mary was being very cute again this evening, giggling away as Taransay sang to her.....I SO love this little girl's smile after all she has been through.

Well - it seems my prediction was correct and we now have about 29 babies with diarrhoea! It isn't pretty! On the plus side - none of the children except Adamu seems to know they are ill!

But it can be quite messy and very smelly and Mwanza has run out of wetwipes! Well -that is not strictly true - but they are only now sold for £5 a pack which I just can not bring myself to pay - especially when they are such poor quality!!

Anyhow - our new volunteers - Cassie and Rick (who are actually returning volunteers!) and their Mum's arrived today and brought about 60kg of wetwipes with them! BRILLIANT timing! Thank you so much guys - and thank you to my Mum for loading them up, and thank you to NatureBotts for donating them!...it couldn't have come at a better time!

It seems to be a quickly passing virus so we are just holding fire.

Apparently there are 5 more children awaiting admission to Forever Angels - 3 toddlers in Musoma and 2 babies at Bugando Hospital. We do nto always end up with all the babies I hear about - but I guess we may get a few new arrivals soon. I will keep you posted.

My Dad has almost finished refurbishing the Staff House so hopefully the Bethany Girls will feel at home there when they come in March. I have to say - it is looking LOVELY.

Oh - and I am still looking for a Long Term Volunteer from September. If anyone wants to come and can commit to at least 6 months I would LOVE to hear from you. And if I get no takers - I will have to persuade Chloe to stay for another year - although I am sure I would not be popular with her parents!

I just thought I would put up a photo of the preschool as it is currently looking. The workmen are painting it this week and then we can move in next week!



...oh, and I love this photo of Mary and Lauren! Such sweet little girls....

This morning I got a phone call from Social Welfare to bring baby Aiofe to their office in town. I presumed this meant she was going to go home - so we packed up a bag of clothes for her and some milk and toiletries, let all the staff say goodbye and then took her to Social Welfare.

When we arrived at the Office, there were 4 people sitting there. Aiofe's mother, Aunt, Grandfather and Neighbour. Her Mother did not seem very aware of what was happening and I think she must have some psychiatric problems. The other relatives however, were overjoyed to see Aiofe and thanked me a thousand times for caring for her! She is now legally in the care of these extended family members and from the brief meeting we had - I think she will be well loved and cared for by them.

Goodbye Aiofe - we will all miss you.

Well, we received two more Baby Angels yesterday. Kevin is one month old and his Mum is mentally ill and sick with HIV so unable to care for him. He seems to be quite a 'fussy' baby and only likes to be held in certain positions - but hopefully he'll become more content soon!



Mabeja is 10 days old and a very cute and content little thing. His Mum died after suffering from Placenta Previa and having an emergency Cesaraean Section. He weighs just 2kg and so again, makes Mary look very big! His Dad wants to take him home when he is older.



With more tiny babies I have now separated my 'big babies' and my 'little babies' - so with the toddlers - we now have three groups to manage each day! The 'big babies' (Dotto, Seba, Omari, Maggie, Esther etc) are all walking and crawling now and don't seem to be aware of what (or often who!) they are sitting on or crawling over - so we thought it was about time to separate them!
Here are some of my little babies....


This is Kevin, Mabeja, Mary and Lauren

The Hospital HIV clinic has run out of the ARV medication - something I have been dreading happening! However - it actually appears to be a good thing - as they now have the latest ARV drugs available and they are SO much more child friendly! With the old ARV's - the children were having to swallow up to 40mls of medicine two times a day! It felt so cruel forcing them to drink it all.
The new drug is just one disolvable pill combining all three drugs - it is SO much better!
I just hope they don't now run out of this too!

It seems a new bug is going around. My own children have been sick with it, as have Ben and I, my volunteers and many staff and their children. It seems to have escaped the Baby Home kids so far.....but tonight Tuliza was vomiting so maybe it is about to 'do the rounds' of our angels too?!

This morning Salum left to go home to his Dad. They walked hand in hand together out of the gate with no tears at all. It was lovely.

There was unfortunately also no smiles from Salum as he fell over this morning and cut his lip badly! The poor thing now has a very swollen lip and wasn't able to smile - but he was definately very happy to be going home!

Well, after Bahati returned home to his Mum - we were left with 30 wonderful infants in our care....but not for long!

I had planned a morning off on Friday to catch up with some old friends who are in Mwanza for a few days.....I was just telling them that I had nothing to do and I could spend the morning with them when I get a text message from Social Welfare saying - "Come to my office to collect the small baby"!!

Laurancia is 3 weeks old and weighs 2kg. Her Mum sadly died last week and her Father is left caring for 5 other children. Laurancia (now known as Lauren) is tiny (and makes Mary look huge!!) but is very alert and drinking well. Her father is lovely and wants to care for her when she is a bit older.



Adamu had a lovely day on Thursday as his Mum (Lucia) came to vist from Bethany Orphanage and stayed for the night. Lucia was thrilled to see Adamu looking so well and smiling so much and it is obvious that, despite her being so young - she truly loves her little boy.

Mary is now laughing and giggling! It is so lovely to see.

My old friend Andrew Vallely has been in Mwanza for 5 days. Him and his wife, Lisa, were our closest friends whilst Forever Angels was in its 'developmental stages' and they remain true friends despite having now emigrated to Australia. It was wonderful to see him again. He and Lisa helped us so much with their medical expertise in the first year of Forever Angels and were paramount in helping us with children like Haji and Mwita. It was wonderful for Andrew to now see them looking so well and happy! We love you guys and miss you every day.

I would like to say a little 'Thank you' to a man called Stefan Roberts who runs RED (Roberts Express Delivery) for his support of Forever Angels. He has been a huge part of getting goods shipped out to the Baby Home and is still supporting us with his new Delivery Business - RED. www.red-courier.com
Thank you Stefan.



Maggie, Sophia and Omari are now able to stand and are just taking their first steps! Very cute!

Salum is going home to live with his Dad on Monday and we are all thrilled about it. Salum's father now works for Forever Angels as a night Watchman - so we will continue to be part of Salum's life and we will help his Father to care for Salum when he gets ill. Salum has sickle cell anemia but we are supporting his Father with the necessary medication to help Salum live a normal life.

Although it is sad to say goodbye to these wonderful children - Forever Angels is now doing what we set out to do. We are helping desperately needy families to eventually care for their own children and we are preventing them from becomming orphans. Salum was dreadfully sick when he came to Forever Angels last year....



but now he is a happy little boy who is very excited to be going home with his Dad.