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For years the 12 families in Pangeti have relied on a colonial-era pipeline from a river beyond the next ridge. The heat is fearsome for much of the time here in the Honde Valley, a vast and densely populated bowl full of banana groves a few miles from the border with Mozambique. You will collapse if you do not drink a lot of water.

Rhoda Chimuka, 44, bespectacled single mother, farmer and chairperson of the village pump committee, turned on the decades-old tap. Brass squeaked drily and that was all. It runs two days a week, she said, just long enough to give each family 50 litres of murky water. Today, all eking out of every drop of suspect water was about to end, thanks to Pump Aid.

The charity, supported by The Times in this year’s appeal, is a familiar name in many parts of Zimbabwe. Pump Aid was born here ten years ago when its founder, Ian Thorpe, teaching in the country during his gap year, watched two students die from dysentery caught from contaminated water.

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He and two Zimbabwean colleagues created the low-cost Elephant Pump, which guarantees a supply of clean, fresh water. The yellow, squat pillbox pumps now dot many rural districts.

In June Ms Chimuka travelled the 50 miles to the Pump Aid office and asked for Pangeti’s name to be put down on the list of applicants. A few weeks later, a truck was in the village, its driver stepping tentatively around the slopes Pangeti lies on, holding a U-shaped piece of wire in front of him.

About 30 metres from the top of the slope, the wire prongs quivered. Pangeti met the first requirement: underground water. Ms Chimuka got her 19-year-old son and a couple of friends to dig the well. For two weeks they chopped into the hard red clay until, at 10 metres, they struck water.

She was organising the final requirement, a strong, brick-lined well, when the cholera epidemic that had already killed hundreds in Harare surfaced in the district for the first time in years. The people of Honde Valley are dirt-poor but they quickly found the cash for three bags of cement and a heap of building sand, costing up to US$100 in Zimbabwe’s crashing economy. The villagers baked their own bricks.

Mid-morning last week, a truck arrived with lengths of plastic piping, four large concrete arcs to house the pump, a collection of ironware, a length of nylon rope and a bag of washers. The structure rose quickly as Pump Aid’s three builders laboured on the concrete apron around the construction. By now most of the village’s people were gathered under the shade of a tree and making remarks. Like Ms Chimuka, all were in their church best.

The pump’s housing was hefted on. Florence Tendere, the wiry bass-voiced young woman appointed pump mechanic, was learning how to tie sheepshank knots to fix the washers to the rope that will lift water from the bottom of the well. After the concrete had set, the villagers drew closer as Ms Tendere vigorously turned the handle. There was a gurgle. Then a cheer went up and the women ululated as a strong stream of clear, cool water flowed from the outlet.

Ms Tendere was ecstatic. “Now I can wash my body two or three times a day, I can wash my dishes, my clothes, my house, I can have clean water for cooking,” she said happily. Then she added, soberly: “We must wash and wash and wash. We fear cholera.”

AquAid, the watercooler distributor, will donate £2 for every £1 donated by Times readers