And now, from your letters:

Cousin Gretchen wrote: “I certainly have some questions:”
I’ll do my best, Gretch.
1. How many doctors there are from BU?
None. There are two doctors hired by the BU LeBoHA (Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance – a BU family medicine and public health program) to oversee the residency program here, the program which aims to train Basotho doctors who have finished medical school, mostly in South Africa, and are planning on becoming district doctors at hospitals like Motebang. There are two residents who are in their second year of training and four who are in their first. They will do four years of training in family medicine and public health and they have already done one year prior to starting this program.
2. What time do you start and finish each day?
I usually get up at 6:30. I get to the hospital around 7:30 after a shower and Weetabix, yougurt, and coffee. I use the internet for half an hour then go to see my patients. We tend to be done by 5 or 6. That’s good because the Pelican Steakhouse and Bar runs out of food by about 6:30 and the Leribe Hotel is twice as expensive, an unseemly $4.50! The nerve.
3. Is this hospital supposed to be just for HIV and TB patients? The hospital is for everyone. We American students just work in the male and female inpatient medical units, meaning NOT surgical, maternity, TB, or paediatrics (sic) wards. A patient from the medical wards can be admitted to the TB isolation ward only if they cough up a high quality chunk of mucousy sputum with acid-fast bacilli (a staining technique for Mycobacterium tuberculosis). If they “just” have a killer cough, weight loss, soaking night sweats, and known exposure to someone with an unremitting TB-like cough, they need to stay in the medical ward and cough on their HIV+ immuno-compromised bed-neighbors and mask-wearing visiting medical students.
4. What is the population of the city that you are in?
I don’t know. It seems to sprawl so I can’t judge by the size of the market. Maybe 10,000 including outskirts? Patients come from far, far away, though. By that I mean it can take them 6 hours. Many have to pay to borrow a car or hire someone who drives so they can get from their tiny villages. I presume some of them are coming in by combi, the 15-seater vans which act as shared taxis all over the country.
5. Do the patients have any kind of insurance?
Patients all pay out of pocket here. I’ve heard that a few people have insurance in the capitol. Maloti are about 10:1 with the dollar and ALL labs for a given stay at the hospital cost 10 Maloti (1 dollar), and I think same with medications and xrays. Ethel, correct me here. There’s a daily charge for being an inpatient. Patients can’t leave the hospital until they pay which means that sometimes they try to leave when they’re well but hang around sick people for a few extra days while they gather money and then get sick again. Crazy, eh? We just had a girl come in with a urinary tract infection, try to leave, then get meningitis. Very bad.
6. With this incredible death rate, what do they do with so many bodies? Are there large cemeteries? Funeral homes tend to be the biggest and nicest buildings in town, but I don't know whether everyone gets buried or if there is some cremation. I know that the morgue at the hospital is frequently full to capacity and that there have been times when there weren't any gurneys available for the living patients because they were all occupied by dead bodies.
7. What is the education system like there? Lesotho has one of the best literacy rates in Africa. I think it’s around 80%. Girls tend to be a bit higher educated than boys. I know that the herd boys don’t get a chance to go to school, but I don’t know what else contributes to the gender discrepancy. Kids go to school 6 days a week with Sundays off. They wear British school uniforms (the country has been independent since 1966) and are super cute. The kids are the most likely to speak English to me on the way to work. They yell, “Will you be my friend?”, and then giggle hysterically with their friends.
8. Do you get week-ends off? YES, ALWAYS. Whoopee!!!!!
9. Have you seen any elephants, yet? No, but I have impersonated an elephant, with the brass instrument skill I learned from my father. It may be a bigger hit with the kids than the stickers; the award is up for grabs.
10. Do you live in a house on the 'hospital compound?' We live a 7-minute walk uphill from Motebang Hospital. Our house is part of a compund comprised o fmany buildings: the convent, the church, boarding housing for 40 school girl from the countryside, a little house for Dr. Phil and his wife Sandy, and three apartments which adjoin each other for random boarders, and our guest house which has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen/dining room, a laundry room, and a crazy-big shower room. We walk downhill along the main road, past the fancyish Leribe hotel, the Pelican Steakhouse and Bar, and then duck onto a little smooth-mud path occupied by chickens, cows, donkeys, and friendly locals, and pop out onto a street with stalls selling bananas, home-made cheetos, and fresh-grilled chicken feet and heads, which leads to the hospital guard station.

Now, some questions from Mommy:
Is there a prominent religion? There is a lot of Christianity. There is also some local spiritual group whose few members wear turbans and capes. There’s a guy named Tekko who works in the outpatient department who wears a yellow cap and mini-cape. He told one of my friends that these gave him super-powers but he told me it was for a small traditional religion “in the hills”. There is a natural healer who has a stall in the local market selling lots of medicinal plants. I’ll have to stop by for a grand tour one of these days. I’ve also seen a man with a few short series of parallel and precise scratches on his abdomen that were the result of a natural healing method. He had belly pain and the marks were on his belly. I wish I knew more.
What do people eat mostly? Apparently they eat fried chicken, chicken or beef curry (only slightly spicy), mashed potatoes, rice with a salsa-like sauce (the best part of the meal), and over-salted mushy vegetables. It was ok for the first week…
Is there adequate agricultural space in this high country? Soil erosion is a big problem. The big dam projects, including Katse, provide electricity and income which helps build roads, but causes flooding of the arable lands. Crops here seem to include corn, sunflowers for oil, and some kind of wheat-looking grain. There is a lot of terracing of fields. Oh, and there are cosmos –pink, white, and purple—all over the place. Kids stop and pick them on the way home from school.