Trip to Gorobi, March 25th

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Gorobi is a relatively large community on a rise in a large mountain basin northwest of Jimeta. The town has two District churches located on either side of the rise. They report that they do not have a borehole in the town. They have the structure built for a water stand but no tanks. It was built back in the 1990’s or earlier. They have multiple hand dug wells which dry up or have low productivity in the dry season. They also have several low places where they dig down into or next to a dry stream bed to reach water.  We looked at 6 of the wells and two of the water holes. I had visited Gorobi in 2008 when I spent 10 weeks learning about Nigeria, the water needs and the people. Not much has changed. My 2008 visit was at the end of a long day of visiting villages and was fairly brief the visited the large waterhole near the community and a couple wells.

Yakubu Bulama, Ruben and I left a little later than we wanted to and drove to Mayo Belwa. There we dropped Ruben off to go and repair a pump in a nearby village. The town water committee chair met him and the road off on a motorbike. We continued on through Mayo Belwa, out of Adamawa State into Taraba State to the town of Zing. There we headed west on a dirt road for 25 minutes and back into Adamawa State to Gorobi. We met with most of the Water Committee that has been formed under a tree near the school. They had elected officers and members. The members include two women and two “youth”. In Nigeria, a Youth is anyone under 30. It is common that a community will only include male elders in their committees. The Water Program encourages the inclusion of women and youth.

They have taken as census to the number of families on each side of the town, about 200 on each side. Bulama has visited several times and the town has not made much progress. This was an improvement over previous visits. He went through the program with them again and emphasized that the next step is to have a geo-technical survey done by a geologist at a cost of 50,000 Naira. It is the community responsibility to pay for the survey. This will determine the next step in the project. With the census, community maps and the geotechnical survey date the Water Program can recommend various courses of action to help the community with water, sanitation and hygiene. It will be up to the community to determine what they want to do and how they want to pay for the work. Currently, the program requires that the community provide a minimum of 20 percent of the funding (not including the geotechnical survey).

After meeting under the trees near the school we all piled into the Water Truck and toured most of their water sources. Since we got a late start, I did not have a chance to wander about the town and look at the water sources they did not show us.

The first well was dug on the east side of the community near a seasonal stream. It was flooded and never cleaned out. It is now towards the end of the dry season. There normally not enough rainfall to effect the groundwater levels until June. Most of the wells had a little water at the bottom. They could all use cleanout and deepening.

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As we approached one well I saw these children resting in the shade of a mango tree. 

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As we got closer I noticed a pair of sandals in the branches.

A young man was enjoying the shade and breeze in the leaves.

The first water hole we looked at was south of Gogobi the same one I had seen in 2008. The hole is a little bigger now. I was there later in the dry season (May 9^th, 2008) and there were many more people at the water hole waiting their turn. The wells were almost all dry so this was their main water source. Today they are able to still fetch water from some of the wells. Since the water at the bottom of the wells are only a couple inches deep it takes a lot of skill and persistence to fill a container of water.

Water hole south of Gorobi

The last place we stopped was northwest of town about a kilometer. This was the former farm of the Gongola State Water Board Manager. It had a large water tank and the remains of several borehole. Gongola State has been split into Adamawa and Taraba States. I suspect that when the government approved the building of this large water supply it was for the people of Gorobi. It is approximately, 100 feet below the town in elevation and about 1 kilometer to the center of town. 

The chairman of the water committee said that he wanted to drill a new borehole and then pipe the water to the town. I tried to explain to him that it will take a big generator and big pumps to pump the water up the hill through a kilometer of pipes. There were some boys loading water jugs onto a push cart. I asked him how hard would it be for him or me to push the heavy cart to the top of the hill. We agreed that people our age could not do it. I told him it is the same for the pump. We need a powerful pump to push many carts of water up the hill every day. It would cost a lot of money for the pipes and a lot of money each month for the fuel.

 Today was a windy day here as the rainy season approaches the winds tend to pick up. I asked the chairman about the winds. He said they are strong today because of the storms building. I asked about other times. He said the winds are always blowing in this valley. Where they are located, the valley narrows and rises. The valley is a break through the mountains that the river flows through. This area could be a candidate for having a small scale solar – wind combination system.  Could be an interesting project.

We headed back to Mayo Belwa and stopped for a late lunch or early dinner at Twin Sisters’ Restaurant. This is a small place with 4 tables inside and 4 tables outside. This is the third or fourth time I have eaten here. Today they had pounded corn and a soup (sauce) made from pounded melon seeds with two small pieces of meat (Beef most likely, I do not ask.)

After lunch/dinner we got back to Jimeta about the same time Rubin was getting back. The pump he had repaired was only two months old and the seals were worn out. He said there was not signs of sediment and that he had tested the pump before they had installed it two months ago. I he says it was new. The sellers of pumps here are not trustworthy or not knowledgeable in their product. I suspect the former. There are a lot of pump cylinders here that have been cleaned and re-painted. The seals may work well when you test it in a bucket of water but when you inspect them closely the seals are old and worn. In this village they pump on the one borehole from before sunup to after midnight. Good seals will need to be replaced every year or sooner with this heavy of use.

Later in the week I check Google Earth and there are possibly three separate shallow water table around Gorobi. I suspect the highest on is to the south of town.   There is a seasonal stream that has a relatively large catchment area to the south. The stream flow to the west when it encounters the hill that Gorobi is on.  Southwest of Gorobi there appears to be a natural restriction between the hill to the southwest and the hill that Gorobi sits on. You can never be sure what is occurring underground but this restriction may caused a natural underground lake.

The Twin

The seasonal stream to the east of Gorobi appears to be 20 to 30 feet lower than the seasonal stream to the south. After this restriction the stream flows to the north and west and goes the water hole where the abandoned farm is. This area appears to be almost a hundred feet lower than the area south of town. Google Earth’s elevation data is not very accurate. It estimates that the water hole to the south is only 10 feet lower than the center of the town. I would guess it is closer to 30 or 40 feet.  If I am still here when they do the geotechnical survey and I am able to go along I will take my GPS with a barometer and take some elevations readings based on air pressure difference. If they are taken within a few minutes of each other the estimated elevation difference is fairly accurate. My new Nikon has both a GPS and a barometer in it. The GPS locations are recorded with the pictures but the barometric pressure is not.