David Agnew: Just across the Quthing River from the Center was Ha Makoae, a village with a store. The store usually had a few loaves of unwrapped bread, tobacco, matches, sugar, and no customers. We rarely went there. We generally drove across the river, although it was sometimes impassable if there had been rain. Because the river emptied a vast watershed, even a small rain could make a flash flood. We were building the footbridge because the schoolchildren went from smaller nearby villages to Ha Makoae, and some had drowned on their way to school. When asked what they wanted, villagers said, “A bridge.”
Plenty Bulletin, Fall 1980: In June, construction was begun on a 48-metre span footbridge across the Quthing River close to the Village Technology Training Center where an estimated 80 to 100 people cross each day. In the summer the river is in flood and in winter the water is icy and the rocks slippery. To attend school, children from four villages have to cross this river, an often dangerous and unhealthy undertaking. Fifty Basotho villagers are working daily with our technicians on this project.