Well it is raining again in Mwanza. It seems this year's rainy season has lasted most of the year! I can't really complain - it is still warm and not exactly worth complaining about compared to the inches of snow the West is having - but it IS a little tiresome with 51 children....and if it carries on, our roads will soon be no more!

Not a lot has happened the last few weeks....and I have had no internet connection so updates have been lacking!

We have had a few children sick - Samwel, Georgie, Lilly, Anna, Yazidi, Amani, Ashley, Anthony .... all with ridiculously high fevers but no other symptoms!? They seem to get sick for 2 or 3 days and are then fine again. Another medical mystery!

The new children are settling in nicely. Noah and Moses are now walking round the place though it is still a little tough to crack a smile from them! Emmanuel is the happiest little boy alive - he never stops smiling and is just so georgus! Happy was doing great, but has just caught the 'random fever' bug that is going round.

We have just lost / fired four of our staff this week and have replaced them with four new ones. I wont go into details here but it is constantly reinforced to me how different my life and culture and therefore expectations are, compared to the 50 women I have working with me at the Baby Home. Generally we can get over this cultural difference - this week, I couldn't.

Think of a simple thing like protecting children from information / scenes they 'should not' witness. As a parent, I protect my own children from violence on TV, bad news stories, arguments, scary images etc.

This is not the case in Tanzania.

Children are not protected from such things. Most Tanzanian's live in a one roomed mud hut....if parents are talking about 'adult things' - the children hear it all. Children are not protected here - sex and violence and 'adult themes' are part of their every day - they see it, they hear it, they are a part of it all.

I struggle with that. I want to protect my Baby Home children from everything that is not 'child friendly'.....but with 50 Mamma's who live and breathe a totally different life and culture and way of doing things to me - this does not always prove possible?

I don't want my Baby Home children to know about zombies and ghosts and evil spirits and sex....and yet when these topics are the 'every day life' for my staff, they do not even see it as an issue to talk about such things in front of the children!

I think my staff often think I am the crazy one....that we cushion and molly-coddle our children too much. Maybe this IS true. Or maybe, somewhere between the two contrasting cultures, there is a perfect middleground? I hope to find it one day.....

On a different note - some 'gossip' about the children:

* Jennifer is doing so well - she is walking round the Baby Home with someone holding her hand and really starting to use her hands a lot more now.

* Margaret is starting to talk! I still remember her as a tiny thing living in my house - but now she is a Little Toddler and chatting away none stop and copying everything!

* Elizabeth is doing so well right now. She loves to sit up in a bouncy chair and is supporting her head a little bit at times. She is eating solid food now and loving it and is more often smiling than crying now a days. I pray she keeps this good health up - every day for her is like a time bomb, just waiting for her shunt to stop working, but right now - she is lovely!

* Adamu is having a 'naughty week'! He has become an escape artist and is on a mission to escape from any door which happens to be open...and all those which are shut! I must have chased him back inside gates about 20 times in the last couple of days! Of course he thinks the entire thing is hysterical and one big game!

Well - that's all for now. Thanks for reading....

Yesterday we welcomed two new angels to the Baby Home - meet Happy and Emmanuel.



Happy is a one month old baby girl and Emmanuel is a 6 month old boy. Both babies were abandoned in Mwanza and have been at Bugando Hospital for a few weeks. They are both healthy babies and Emmanuel is also ridiculously happy! He hasn't stoppped smiling since we first met him in the hospital!

We hope that some of their familiy members will come to find their children, but if this does not happen, then these babies will be available for adoption.

This brings our total to 51 children at Forever Angels - but Hollo, Tumaini, Liwida and Mabeja should all be going home to their families in the next month.