THE KINGDOM OF LESOTHO is a small country, entirely surrounded by South Africa.

It is often called The Mountain Kingdom or The Kingdom in the Sky, because it is so mountainous. The whole country is higher than Britain's highest mountain, with the result that wherever you go you see the most amazing views.

The population of under two million is steadily decreasing. This is partly because, with so few employment opportunities, men often have to go to South Africa to find work in the mines.

But mostly it is the impact of HIV/AIDS. At a conservative estimate, over 30% of the population are HIV positive, making Lesotho one of the countries in the world most heavily hit by AIDS. The biggest impact is on people who are of an age to have children at school. It is not unusual for students to be orphans, perhaps living with a grandparent or even on their own and caring for younger siblings.

HA FUSI is a village to the west of Teyateyaneng, to the north-east of the capital, Maseru. Like most villages in Lesotho, it is named after a former village chief, in this case Fusi - which is pronounced Foo-sea with equal emphasis on the two syllables.

The village has no mains electricity or piped water: there are bore holes, where people wind a handle to get their water. There is one small shop, which sells a few essentials.

In general villagers are poor and not very well educated - if they were they would have left the village to work elsewhere. Few of the adults speak more than a few words of English and you do not see any fat children in the village at all.

Driving to the school, you turn off the main road at the Palace Hotel and follow the pot-holed unsurfaced road for several kilometres. However, the teachers do not have their own transport and there is only the occasional vehicle that goes to the village. So they take a taxi to a spot along the road where it is 'just' a thirty minute walk to get to the school each day - whatever the weather - rather than make the fifty minute trek from the Palace Hotel.

Why not explore the area with the interactive satellite image? The school is marked with a cross at the centre. (Satellite images can be quite dated and may not show recent buildings.)

The village is to the north of the school. It lies beside the Caledon River - and on the other side of the river is South Africa. Even from the satellite image, you can see how the land is more prosperous on the South African side.

Some of the people from Ha Fusi work in the fields on the South African side. It is seasonal work for less than £4 a day. To get there they ford the river, which is the home to poisonous snakes. When the rains come the river can become too deep to ford, trapping people on the South African side.

One day at school, one of the boys looked listless and was finding it hard to concentrate. The teachers discovered that his grandmother, with whom he lived, had been unable to cross back from South Africa for the past three days because of the rains. There was no food in the house and no money to buy any. Since then the school has introduced (compulsory) school lunches.