Mokhotlong

I feel like I've traveled to a different world and time. The drive to Mokhotlong took us into the mountains-- and up, and down, and up, and down. I don't believe that we drove straight for more than twenty feet for the entire last three hours of the drive. And I'm sure the trek we drove (which is way worse during the winter months when the mountains get dumped on by snow), are a big part of the reason the town I'm in this week is dubbed by some, "The Loneliest Place in Africa."

From this town, we start out every morning going to the hospital-- which currently houses the only doctors for a 100,000 person district. The number of doctors also recently just dropped from 7 to 1, and as of today they are back up to three. We pick up any new lab results, see any difficult patients there, and then head out to one of the satellite clinics for "ART day". This is the one day a month that a Baylor doctor will be there to initiate patients on Anti-Retroviral Thearpy, or refill their meds, discuss HIV related problems, etc. Some patients travel up to a day to get to their clinic (even though the whole point is to set these up to make things more convenient, these patients just live in remote places in the mountains without cars).

Nurses staff these clinics on a daily basis, so we aren't there for general complaints. We are strictly there for HIV care, and to train the nurses so that the clinic can end up as a functioning ART center without any doctors coming on a regular basis.

It should be an interesting week. I already have plenty of stories to post.