This is the fourth time we have travelled to Songea to try and blog. Each time the network has been down or working so slowly it was impossible to write anything. We are now reaching the end of our time here and have been working very hard to deal with a variety if issues and also spending time with the sponsored children at school. Today Alice is at Magima and Louise is in Songea and will later travel to Namanditi to teach the children for a while this afternoon. The children are very enthusiastic in class and all seem very happy to be there. The classrooms are bright and airy and the children look very smart in their new school uniforms. We have taken new photographs of the sponsored kids proudly wearing their white shirts and school badges. The children already know many songs in English and recognise many English words for each letter of the alphabet.

We have also visited the hostel which is being used as a dormitory and the children showed us where they were sleeping in the beds sent over in the container. There is also a TV at the hostel and the children are enjoying watching cartoons. We met the two women, the matron and the sister whose job it is to sleep with the children and also to feed them and take them the ten minute walk to school each morning. Both seem very nice and are clearly fond of the children, All th children are taller and much healthier than when we last saw them. They are being fed four times a day and are clearly benefiting from the good and regular food. So much so that they are reluctant to go home for school holidays. There was no sign of the rashes that many of them arrived with and they are more animated and energetic than before again probably a result of the improved diet.