We have made it to London’s Heathrow Airport—so far, so good. I have my iPhone plugged into a chain of adaptors (thank-you, Mark!), propped on a stack of books to keep the juice flowing through the loose connection.

Here is a portion of a heartbreaking email I received from Dr. Rohini Knight this morning when I opened by email here at the airport. I don’t know much about Dr. Knight—he is a contact from Jana Lackey.

One is about the mothers of this land: for years due to the mine labor the men have been going away from the families and the women were left alone to bring up the children alone and also carry the burden of the families.Over the years only some men brought the money home but comparatively nothing much has been done to the families. Some did not even come back to their families. The big seal carrying many children is like the mothers carrying the burden and now it has become so difficult. More and more men have families on the other side and pretend as if they come to Lesotho for their families.The gap and void left with in the families over the years have made these fragmented families and the there is very little family fabric left to hold the society together.Now the mothers are seeking jobs in South Africa to meet their financial needs, leaving children without proper care.
Second thing is the plight of the children in this country. Therefore these children are malformed in their social and emotional mind and also do not hold hope in their hearts much. They grow up like shown in the dream bleeding within their hearts looking for comfort elsewhere. This has made them vulnerable to sexual abuse by their relatives, physical abuse, emotional break down by caring for themselves and being left alone to look for food and clothing. 60-70% of the population of Lesotho are children under the age of 20 and there is a growing desperation among them. These children are wounded and broken, some seek to involve in prostitution , violence and theft in order to meet their needs.As more and more fathers are dying with AIDS and also the mothers are infected with HIV/Aids we are left with another serious situation where in many homes you find only children living alone in the villages. The oldest child becomes the bread winner and some times they have to face many problems in bringing up the younger ones.
I have already made arrangements to come to the airport and take you all around and show the need of this nation.

Going to try to take a little nap. Until next time….

Jennifer