After a beautiful sunrise in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho our party, led by DATA co-founders Bono and Bobby Shriver, left Maseru for the small town of Butha Buthe. After a short hour’s drive we came upon Butha Buthe Hospital where we were greeted by Nurse Kholumo who discussed with us the Know Your Status campaign which aims to eradicate AIDS in the region by breaking down stigma and encouraging residents to be tested regularly for HIV. In the ART clinic we met with AIDS patients whose lives were being transformed by the life-saving drugs provided by the Global Fund. Bono and Global Fund Director, Dr. Richard Feachem, sat briefly with a local man named Daniel who relayed his testimony of living with AIDS and how the ARV drugs had saved his life and preserved his family.

Afterwards we took a short walk up the road, leaving behind the singing voices of the nurses and staff of the hospital whose work cannot be heralded enough. We turned the corner and came upon a small garment factory that was producing ONE t-shirts for EDUN! Bono and Ali had huge smiles on their faces as they saw their dream of EDUN and fair trade manufacturing come to life.

As the rain clouds developed outside, we left the factory and jumped into our cars for a short drive up the road to visit Qalo High School. We pulled into the school grounds as the children flooded out of the building and erupted in song and dance to welcome us. It was a moving experience as hundreds of kids wearing ONE t shirts carried signs saying “Welcome Bono!” sang and danced for us. The rain clouds prevailed however and we dashed into the school for a delicious hot lunch and to dry off from the Winter storms that were passing through. We learned about the challenges the community was facing and heard about how a new well dug only hundred of yards away from the school was providing fresh clean water for the students. After saying our goodbyes to the children we headed back to Maseru and the airport for our flight to Rwanda with fond memories of Lesotho and the beautiful people here who graciously welcomed us to their home.

Tomorrow we will tour a Rwandan Global Fund clinic in the morning and then visit the Nyamata genocide memorial. It should be quite an experience.