Ben has spent the evening updating the 'Staff' page of our website with photographs of all of our current staff - please take a look if you have time. The people on this page are all truly wonderful and make Forever Angels a fabulous place for our babies to live. Thank you all.

Sarah fell over and bit through her lip today. It bled quite a lot, but she didn't seem too bothered by it at all at the time. Since the fall though, she has been using it as a reason to not do as she is told and is amusing us all! 'Sarah, come and wash your hands' says Chloe. 'My lip hurts too much' wines Sarah! She is such a wonderful little girl - full of personality!

Chloe just reminded me that she is off to England for 6 weeks at the beginning of July. I really do not know what I am going to do without her. She has been at Forever Angels since before we even opened and has been truly amazing throughout. She is just going home for a holiday and will be returning in August - but it has reminded me that she is due to finish at Forever Angels in April next year and I need to start looking for a replacement.....or convince her to stay!?

If anyone out there would like to volunteer at Forever Angels long term - I'd love to hear from you. We have plenty of short term volunteers - but life at the Baby Home can be hectic and having someone there like Chloe is a HUGE help to me.

Hannah, our new volunteer, is settling in well, though has unfortunately had a nasty virus the past few days and not felt well at all. She is recovering now and bored of being house bound I think!

I am trying to arrange for a group of our volunteers (in June or July) to go to the Government Hospital and 're-vamp' the Children's Ward. At the moment, it is white (well, a dirty brown actually) and not at all child friendly - and we thought it would be wonderful to paint some murials on the walls like we have at the Baby Home. We are hoping to get the 'go ahead' from the Hospital Manager soon......

The rains seem to have stopped for the time being and Regina and Neema and Mwanaidi have made excellent progress with the Baby Home vegetable garden - they have doubled it's size and re-planted lots of vegetables.

That's all for now.....

What more can I say - our little miracle took his first steps today and is just SO proud of himself. And we are so proud of him too.
After seeing this little boy suffer so much a few months ago - everyone at Forever Angels are just so thrilled with his progress.
There were times when I truly thought it would be kinder to let this little boy die - and yet now, he is an absolute joy and is even getting into mischief. It is wonderful!

See, I knew getting dogs would be a mistake! Yesterday we called in the vet to have Womba and Caeser (our Baby Home dogs) sterilised......but apparently about 6 weeks too late - as Womba is already pregnant!

We can't have puppies at the Baby Home - so the vet kindly agreed to take Womba and care for her and the puppies until they are old enough to be sold - and then bring her back.

Oh - and the vet laughed when I asked him to sterilise Ceaser as apparently he has already been done and there was nothing to cut!? I have to say, I have never studied him that closely!

We have a new volunteer from the UK called Hannah who is already making excellent work of finishing Kelsey's murials in the Baby Home. The children are all going to have their hand print 'glossed' onto one of the murials - so I can see a lot of mess in the near future....all in the name of art!

We have just completed our UK and Tanzanian accounts to send to the auditors and then onto Companies House and the Charity Commission. We have come to realise that our monthly expenditure is much higher than we initially planned for. Mainly this is because of salaries which have recently had to increase in line with minimum wage requirements - one third of our monthy spending goes on the local staff's salaries.....but without them, Forever Angels wouldn't be the wonderful place it is.
It does mean that we are looking for some more regular (monthly) donations to cover our running costs.

If you know anyone who would like to sponsor a child, or contribute towards our 'Medical costs' - please pass on our details to them.

The children are all doing well - but many have got a new cough/cold virus that is going round. Sometimes it seems like they all recover from one cold, only to pick up a new one. But we are greatful that they are all generally very healthy apart from that.

Pascal learned to crawl yesterday and is now getting itno all kinds of mischief! Haji is still not walking - but he is so close!
Our newest addition Mathias is doing brilliantly. He is a beautiful little boy and is looking very healthy.

Mwita has moved beds and now sleeps 'with the big boys' in the toddler bedroom. When he first came to us, he was so malnourished that he was awake every couple of hours in the night eating - now though, he is sleeping through the night and was very proud to move into his new room yesterday.

That's all for now....

Today I went to Bugando Hospital to bring one of my Carers (Grace) and her newborn identical twin girls home.
She did not know she was having twins, but is thrilled about it. They are a healthy 2.1 kg and 2.3kg. Grace had a C-Section (on Thursday) and today she was climbing over boulders, through ditches and over rocks to get to her house.....as well as carrying her babies and bags! African women always amaze me!

It is custom for the Father to name the babies, but just as I was leaving them all to settle into their home with their new additions - the father asked me to name the twins!
I needed much more time to decide such a thing - but since the whole family expected an imminent response from me - they are now called Katy and Rosy!
It was lovely to see them altogether and Grace is now on extended Maternity Leave until August.

Then, when I arrived home, there were a whole bunch of visitors at the Baby Home. They are all Missionaries here in Mwanza and they came to enquire about adoption. I would be thrilled if they were able to complete the adoption process and give 'Forever Familes' to some of our children....nothing would make me happier.

We are currently seeking sponsorship for our new baby - Mathias.

He is 5 weeks old and weighs just 2kg.....if you know of anyone who may be willing to sponsor this little angel - please direct them to the Forever Angels website.

Thank you

Today we went with Mrs Misana, the Regional Social Welfare Officer for Mwanza, to visit Yohana in his home.

He smiled as soon as he saw us and sat with Chloe and I during our visit. He seemed ok, though did have a nasty gash on the side of his head.
Whilst in the company of his Grandfather, Yohana's Grandmother told us that everything was fine and she was happy to have Yohana home.

But on the way out of the house, the Grandmother told Mrs Misana that she was being badly abused by her husband and regulalry chased her and the children out of their house in the middle of the night. It seems he drinks way too much and abuses his family.
The Grandmother is trying to find a house where she can take the children to live away from him and now, I hope, Social Welfare will try to help her.

It is very sad for Yohana - but it is clear that his Grandmother does love him and wants a better life for him which I hope she will be able to achieve.
We left Yohana with a few bags of new toys and clothes and books which he seemed happy with....and Chloe's pen and notepad which he was eagerly 'writing' on as we left.

On the way home Mrs Misana came to Forever Angels to see the Baby Home. I was so pleased as I have been trying to get her to visit for months. She was very impressed and complimentary about the work we are doing and went home very happy.

Apart from that there is no news. The children are all great if a little snotty with a few coughs and colds which are going round.

Oh, and the new dog, Caesar, is now blue. She rubbed herself up against Kelsey's newly painted blue fence!

I seem to have been too busy to write my diary for a few days......so I had better get you all up to date.

The babies are all doing well. Seba has a bad cough at the moment and a few of the others have colds - but generally the children are all in excellent health.
Mathias did not have pneumonia - and although we have had to treat him for malaria - he is drinking well and has gained a great deal of weight already.
The other babies and toddlers are doing well and keeping us all entertained!

We have a new dog at the Baby Home to keep Womba company. He is a huge Alsatian/Great Dane cross and looks very scary - but has has grown up in a family with small children and I have never known a more friendly and placid animal! (Yes, this is me - Amy, who really dislikes animals saying this!) He is perfect as security here - everyone is scared of him as he looks so huge - but he is soft and safe around the children. Womba took a bit of time to get used to Caeser but they seem fine now! My daughter Tia is not so sure of either Caeser or Womba but my children and the Baby Home children are all behind fences so they wont actually have any contact with the dogs except to chant 'umbwa' (dog) every time they see them!

We have a new volunteer here with us for 3 months from England called Hannah. She is lovely and has fitted in easily with the staff and children. She is quite artistic so will be helping Kelsey with some of the murials she is currently painting. Kelsey unfortunately will be leaving at the end of the week - her 3 months here has gone so quickly and we will all miss her.

Christina (our other volunteer) went to visit another orphanage last week - so today she showed me, Chloe, Hannah and Kelsey how to get there. We actually ended up visiting 3 different orphanages - all very close to each other - Hisani, Hands of Mercy and Watota Wa Africa. They all cater for older children - from about 3 to 18 years old and are all run by Tanzanians.
It was great to see them and to talk to their volunteers.

Cosmos (our Groundsman) is keeping busy with a number of projects - mainly maintainence work, and we are also in the process of getting a quote to build a pitched roof on the Baby Home. Currently there is a flat roof and it is in need of repair - so we hope to build a corrugated iron roof which is pitched so that we can collect and store rain water to use in the Baby Home. If anyone would like to sponsor this project - the work will cost about £10,000!

We have had a great response from the Christmas Card ordering so we will definately be going ahead and making them. If you would like some there is still plenty of time - just send me an e-mail.

That's all the news for now I think.......

Today we received a new baby boy at Forever Angels. Mathias is exactly one month old today and weighs 1.95kg. His Mum died shortly after giving birth to him and his father has some learning difficulties and is living in very poverty stricken conditions so can not care for him.

Mathias is very malnourished but he is alert and able to suck well so we hope he is going to be just fine.

I will get Ben to update the website with some pictures of him this evening.

The other children are all well - though they thought they were 'prisoners' in the Baby Home today and didn't seem to appreciate it. Last night my house had a HUGE invasion of 'siafu' - safari ants! There were literally billions of them. Whilst trying to get rid of them - I also had a snake slither past my foot. I sometimes wonder why I choose to live in Africa - I hate creepy crawlies! Anyhow - these ants bite (I know - I was bitten from head to toe trying to get them away from our house!) and are quite hard to get rid of. So - we have had to put down some strong ant poison to try to control them - so for 24 hours, the children were kept indoors!

Apart from that - all is well!

Please remember to send me a quick e-mail if you would like some Forever Angels Christmas cards this year so we can decide whether to go ahead and make them or not. (amy@foreverangels.org)

Hi there,

I know it is only May - but this year I am planning ahead! We are hoping to sell Christmas cards for Forever Angels this year and we realise that we have to 'get in early' as it were! Last year we tried to do this - but we were too late getting our act together and most people were too organised and had already purchased their cards....this year - I am on the ball!

I just want an idea really of whether people want to purchase Forever Angels Christmas cards so we can work out how many we should produce? It is quite a lot of work (sorry Mum and Dad and Karen!) so we only want to go ahead if we think it is worth it.

The cards will picture our Forever Angels babies in Christmassy outfits - they are very, very cute! We will sell them in packs of 10 cards for £5 (including postage to the UK) and £6 for overseas, including postage.

If you are interested in buying Forever Angels Christmas cards this year - please send me a quick e-mail stating how many you would like to buy (xmas@foreverangels.org). Please tell others about this too so that the word is spread and it will make it worth our while to produce them.

Thats all really.....

The kids and staff are all happy and healthy - have a good weekend. X

Well, my family and I have had a wonderful, relaxing holiday with my parents in Zanzibar and we just arrived home this evening.

Chloe has done a wonderful job managing the Baby Home whilst I was away and it seems to have been a pretty quiet week.

The babies have all gained weight again, Pascal has two teeth now and a top one is about to come through and Haji is able to stand up by himself! That seems to be the main news that I missed.

Kelsey has done a great job of painting the Baby Home corridor with the help of Christina and is about to start on the family room.

That's all really. I am going to go and douse myself in anti-hystemine cream - the only negative aspect of our holiday was bed bugs and I can't stop scratching!!