There are several very important pieces of news to share with you in this Newsletter.  I am sure you all know that the gravest problem for the people in Gouria is tha lack of water in the dry season and the lack of clean water throughout the year. Although there are wells that collect surface water, these dry up in the dry season and even where a trickle remains it is very dirty and takes a long time to collect.  A partial solution  (ideally we would want everyone to have water on tap in their houses as we do!) is to sink a pipe into the underground sources of water which are clean and do not dry up. This is a borehole.  It has been one of our projects for some time to finance such a borehole that could provide a significant amount of clean, safe water for the residents of Gouria. This has not been easy since Gouria is, as you know, in the mountains and there is only one company in Cameroon who have the equipment necessary to drill through the rock.  Last Tuesday the China Engineering Company arrived in Gouria. After drilling 60 metres and coming up with a dry hole, their second attempt gushed water.  This is a major breakthrough which we hope will not only improve the health of  the people in Gouria but also as save them much time and energy up to now spent in collecting water.

The impact of this is hard for us to imagine here, but to all of you who have collected 1c, 2c, 5c, and so on in water bottles over two summer now and all who have contributed in so many other ways, THANK YOU.
 

Our other main piece of news is that of the arrival of Daivd in Gouria with the car. After only 12 days of desert crossing Daivd and his two driver companions arrived in Gouria with the vehilcle. The were given an incredible welcome by the chliren of Malima and the villagers in general and spoent a few very busy days in the village teachingmotor maintenance among other things to the people who need to know. Anyone interested in reading more about Davids incredible journey will be able to read about it when he publishes his experiences later on in the year.     

Exams are approaching for our year 6 children. We hope that as in the past two years 100% of the children will achieve good enough results to go the secondary school. At the same time we are a little sad that two of our older girls will not be taking their exams as their families decided that they should be married just after Christmas. Early marriage is becoming less common but is still one of the chief factors in preventing young women from achieving as complete an education as they could.

Judith