{"id":230436,"date":"2026-04-15T15:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesotho-the-boatmen-of-lesotho-a-lifeline-for-villagers\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:05:15","slug":"lesotho-the-boatmen-of-lesotho-a-lifeline-for-villagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesotho-the-boatmen-of-lesotho-a-lifeline-for-villagers\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho: The Boatmen of Lesotho &#8211; a Lifeline for Villagers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"19\"><em> These boats are an essential mode of transport, ferrying people across the Senqu River in Qacha&#8217;s Nek <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"19\">Every day at about 6am, Motlalepula Lethala pushes his small aluminium boat onto the Senqu River in Qacha&#8217;s Nek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"45\">Lethala has ferried people across one of Lesotho&#8217;s largest rivers for years, starting when he was still in primary school. Though the money he makes is no longer enough to support his family, Lethala always avails himself when a villager needs to cross the river.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"42\">As a young boy, he&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202604150114.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Lesotho\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/\">Lesotho<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These boats are an essential mode of transport, ferrying people across the Senqu River in Qacha&#8217;s Nek Every day at about 6am, Motlalepula Lethala pushes his small aluminium boat onto the Senqu River in Qacha&#8217;s Nek. Lethala has ferried people across one of Lesotho&#8217;s largest rivers for years, starting when he was still in primary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":230437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00681182:d91871bf86ae647e4487a261e0c49563:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1406],"tags":[258,256,54166,4717,1407,14266,257,254,8542],"class_list":["post-230436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lesotho","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-boatmen","tag-lesotho","tag-lesotho-news","tag-lifeline","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-villagers"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00681182:d91871bf86ae647e4487a261e0c49563:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}