Thanks to Rita Thapa for her Nepali Pan column, 'Letter from Doti' (#276). Since I come from Doti I can identify with the situation she so accurately portrays. While I was working there as a reporter I was trying to write about the problems of HIV/AIDS. Around 70 percent of young and adult male population go to India for employment and many of them have unsafe sex there. Eventually, when they come home, they spread the infection to their wives and partners. Most of them are ignorant about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. There are many AIDS orphans being taken care of by their grandmothers. If nothing is done, we are headed the same way as Botswana.

Raj Kumar Khadka,
San Francisco