Church and Baking cookies.

Every Sunday the children attend church, I was so keen to learn more about their culture and this would be the perfect way to get a better insight. Church started at 10am we met the children at the church they were all dressed smartly and already sat down, now their church could easily of been mistaken for a emptying building, the churches in England are mostly quite grand building which you would be able to notice was a church straight away, this was not the same in Tanzania but still they made it look lovely with colourful material behind the alter. It was a lovely atmosphere, we were welcomed but the church and we were asked to introduce ourselves and say where we were from. There was plenty of singing and dancing and it was such a blessing to see them so happy. After a couple of hours the children have a short Sunday school lesson, I sat in with the younger ones and they sand some more songs and recited some passages from the Bible. We then went back to the house for lunch which was Pilau (rice and meat) this was one of my favourite meals. At around 3 in the afternoon we did some baking at the house,then once we finished the baking all the children would come down and we would watch a film. It was lovely, hearing their laughter and smiles watching the film, this was a treat for them and it mainly only happens when there are volunteers to do it with them. It was Mother's day back home, and we were currently watching Despicable Me 2 in Africa surrounded by

beautiful children, there was a moment in the film where a little girl sings a mother's day song but she doesn't have a mum, at that very moment I looked around at all the children around me and started to tear up, I thought about how all of these children have either been mistreated, rejected, abandoned, or left on their on due to death, yet they have smiles on their perfect faces and are some of the happiest children I have had the pleasure of coming across. 

Lazy Saturday and Goodbyes.

When Saturday came around we were shattered, getting used to the heat and the early starts had taken it's toll on us, so we had a relaxing morning, tidying are room so we were a bit more organised and reading in the sun which was a lovely way to start the day. A bit later on the children came and joined us at the house as one of the volunteers Marie who is a regular at Living Water and donates a lot towards the developments was leaving so the family had organised for a cook to come in a put together a wonderful spread before she went. The food was simply amazing it was the best we had so far it was a lovely treat for us all. Watching the children eat such good food was a lovely thing to witness, don't get me wrong they have good food at the center and they have big portions! But it was nice to see them get some meat which they don't really tend to get. They sang and danced a goodbye song for Marie which was lovely to see. One of the family members had a 3 or 4 month old baby and the children just loved holding baby Nathan, they were so gentle and careful with him, and of course I had to have a hold of him! After the celebration we headed up to the center and took wool up so the children could make bracelets. The amount of times a child would start a bracelet then have to go do some chores and then would come back a while after to continue the bracelet saddened me. It would be lovely to take away all the chores that the children have to do but that's their routine and they just get on with it, which I admire about them so much, on a daily basis they clean their clothes, fold their clothes, clean the center which includes sweeping the floors, mopping the floors, picking up twigs and leaves, cleaning the toilets and showers, cleaning the classrooms and their bedrooms as well as get their homework done and have a bit of time to play. Children in England do not know how lucky they have it, they would not last one day if they switched lives with one of the children I was with.