My first time to Lesotho – a country many people have probably never heard of. It’s tiny – 1.8 million people – and completely surrounded by the country of South Africa, where I got to tonight after three days in Lesotho. As with many of the stops I’ll be making on this trip, it was HIV related programming. But this trip to Lesotho was probably unlike any I’ll take in teh weeks ahead. Went up to a tiny collection of villages in the mountain call Bobete. It’s far from anywhere, in the center of the country. But though it’s remote, HIV has had a major impact there. 30% of the population is HIV positive, and the orphans that are now being left behind are stretching the traditional safety nets thin. We flew up in a tiny little Cessna, over Lesotho’s peaks and mountain ranges, to get there. Reminded me a trip I took to central Congo years ago – that remote and isolated. But not remote enought o save Bobete from the scourge of the AIDS pandemic.
Won’t write more now – just taking advantage of e-mail while I have it from a hotel room in South Africa before I’m off for Tanzania tomorrow.
August 18th, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
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