Maroua, Cameroon Africa. January 2011. (Cameroon News) – Cameroon clean water project came into life yesterday.

A local couple has come all the way to Africa to mark their presence at the occasion to commemorate the inauguration of a well that would supply clean and uncontaminated water to the village community. The well has been constructed by the large hearted St Andreans.

Hamish and Anne Tait have come back to Cameroon for the official inauguration of the Water Forage which has been organized by St Andrews Kilrymont Rotary Club, as part of the local church congregations.

Anne, a very active member of the club, dispatched a report that was supposed to be announced at their Tuesday evening meeting which brought out into the open she and Hamish who was a member of St Andrews Rotary Club had been to the site of the well at Mandoula School twice before while the construction of the well was ongoing and had even supervised a part of the work.

She told the members: ‘‘The school community and the villagers around it are delighted with it, and we have drunk from it ourselves and found the water clear, fresh and sweet.”

A management committee has been set up to ensure that working parts are greased every three months and that the area around it is kept clean.

MAINTENANCE

‘‘The water from the well is only to be used for drinking, while clothes and bodies will still be washed in the river.

‘‘Parents of pupils are paying about 12 pence a month and village families about 25 pence a month for use of the well. The money collected will be saved for maintenance.’’

The couple had been in Cameroon for close to three years when they were with Voluntary Service Overseas, and a meeting with the Maroua Rotarians at Mandoula led to the well’s inaugural ceremony on Monday.

Anne added:

‘‘They are thrilled and proud to have been involved.

‘‘My young former colleague, God-dam, and I bought books and school equipment with most of your £1000.

‘‘We got a 12 per cent reduction and some free books thrown in and the shop owner has now gone into early retirement on the profit he made! He was astonished to find that these documents are all going to bush schools and not to the expensive private ones in Maroua.’’

On Tuesday, the Taits also went shopping for the school and got them lots of handballs as well as footballs before they returned to Zidim to donate the handballs and footballs to the four schools that were located there as well.

A spokesman for the Kilrymont club told the Citizen; ‘‘We are very grateful to people and Church of Scotland congregations in the town, and to our Rotary District, for their considerable support for the Rotary projects in Cameroon.’’