Most people look forward to their retirement as a time of rest and relaxation -- but Bermudian Eugene Carmichael has discovered a far more productive way to spend his golden years. Mr. Carmichael has been helping to build a school in the remote village of Gouria in the north section of Cameroon, West Africa.

And Mr. Carmichael said he's even been able to bring some old-fashioned Bermudian ingenuity to the village by introducing the concept of the Bermudian water tank. He first learned of Gouria when he retired and moved to Spain with his family. While in Spain, Mr. Carmichael met his son's grade-school teacher, Judith Burnett -- an English woman who used to teach in Cameroon. Ms Burnett learned that the village of Gouria didn't have a school or a health-care facility, and wanted to help. "She's a working teacher, but she dipped into her personal savings, bought the land, and provided the funding for the first classroom,'' said Mr. Carmichael. Ms Burnett couldn't take the time off work to check on the progress of the school -- so Mr. Carmichael volunteered five weeks of his time and energy to help with the construction. "It was a very personal experience for me,'' said Mr. Carmichael. "As a black Bermudian, I can be assured that my ancestors came from somewhere off the coast of West Africa -- so why not Cameroon? I had the feeling it was my village,'' he said.

Mr. Carmichael said that, despite the overwhelming beauty of the country, he was disappointed to find a high rate of unemployment, and the country's median income is only about $700 annually. The village of Gouria is located at the top of the Kapsiki mountains in the extreme north of Cameroon, near the border of Nigeria. When Mr. Carmichael arrived, he saw that the building had been completed up to the wallplate, but the roof, windows and doors still had to be finished and the walls needed to be plastered. In order for them to complete the classroom, a road had to be built from the main road to the worksite -- and the people of the village wanted the school badly enough to make the quarter-mile long road by hand. "The road was made by three guys using very basic tools -- they had to dig out tree stumps and they brought in rocks one by one where the road had to be levelled,'' said Mr. Carmichael. After much hard work, the building was completed during Mr. Carmichael's five-week visit and children were attending the school. He said they plan to build another five classrooms and a health-care facility in the future. "We had a traditional Bermuda roof-wetting ceremony attended by local dignitaries, and I used wine from Valencia instead of Bermuda black rum,'' he said. "It was probably one of the proudest moments of my life.'' There was an added bonus resulting from Mr. Carmichael's visit -- the introduction of the Bermudian water tank to the village. "In the extreme north of Cameroon, the wet season lasts only three consecutive months -- and during the remaining nine months, there's not even an occasional shower,'' he noted. "For centuries they've wrestled with the problem of how to capture enough rain and preserve it.

They've tried digging large water holes, but the summer sun evaporates it.

"Enter the Bermuda solution -- since we were building concrete buildings with tin roofs, I suggested we put a tank underneath, seal it, and use a hand-pump to access the water,'' he added. "There's the potential to develop sufficient collection and storage to meet the needs of Gouria's 5,000 residents and sustain them all year round.'' Mr. Carmichael explained that having a sufficient water supply could have a snowball effect for the residents -- in addition to improving the water supply, it could improve their overall diet by helping to maintain crops during the dry season. Mr. Carmichael's experiences made him want to solicit the help of other Bermudians, and he plans to establish an "Adopt-A-Village'' society on Island. "It's not necessarily about donating money -- sometimes time and skill are even more important,'' he noted. "But there's a lot of work to be done, even with that one village and the personal rewards are just inestimable,'' he added. "Africa needs you, Cameroon needs you, Gouria needs you.'' For those interested in becoming involved with the "Adopt-a-Village'' support group, contact Mr. Carmichael at carmichael yworldonline.es. PHOTO Work, rest and play: Eugene Carmichael, above, gets down to some serious hard labour under the heat of the African sun, right.