Water Project Hosere Wandu, April 5th.

Click to enlarge. Fried Yams.

(Updated April 16th and 18th. Clicking or double clicking on the picture will make them larger)

We got a pretty early start on Saturday Morning April 5th. It was before breakfast so we stopped along the road to get a bag of water sachets,some fried yams and fried corn cakes. They are cooked in peanut oil and then tossed with local spices. Not exactly sure of what is in the spices. Last year I purchase some at a shop and used it in most of my dishes. This year I have been using curry. We are traveling early so Yakubu Bulama can get back to Yola for a wedding. He is the Chairman of the reception. Like a MC.

Corn Cakes fried in oil.

Hosere Wandu is out the old back road to Mayo Belwa from Yola. It is in the Yola Diocese. They have an existing borehole with an electric pump in it. It was another that was installed with the help of a politician seeking re-election. According to the community theirs was the only one that had water. It was used only a short time before it broke. We never get the complete story the first time we ask. You have to continue asking different people, in different ways and getting different stories. Eventually, you get a pretty good idea. The current story is that the pump has always had water but only works for a few minutes and then no water. From the looks of the pump we removed, it appears that it was either a used pump or it had quite a bit of use.

The road is under construction and according to Bulama it used to be a rutted single lane road. If a truck or car approaches you one of you had to turn off the road. Usually, the smaller of the two vehicles. Now it is a wide gravel road up to the village before a wide river crossing. It appears to be in the process of being made into an asphalt road. I say this because they are putting down material that normally goes under asphalt. I have seen roads like this stay gravel for years and degrade into washed out rutted roads before the asphalt is laid down. Mayo Belwa is the home town of the Governor.

Mayo Ine is the town before the river. It has a functional Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Water Project. One of the largest, best designed and functional we have seen. The vast majority of MDG water boreholes in Adamawa State are not functional. Turns out it is the home town of the mother of the  Adamawa State MDG Director.

View Up River

Just after Mayo Ine we crossed a wide dry river. In a few months only boats will be crossing. The route we cross is about a half kilometer long. The bridging of this river will be difficult.The road on the other side of the river was yet to be improved. The construction company PW Construction (We think PW stand for Poor Works.) is setting up a construction camp just uphill from the river.

When we returned on April 15th they were starting the new crossing down river of the existing crossing.

Bulama greeting the local elders.

We arrived before 9 AM and after the greetings we proceeded from the main part of the village to the existing bore hole and removed the pump. The wires for the pump were found
inside the casing. The borehole has a 4 inch diameter casing and a 3 11/16 inch diameter pump. Water was only 7.4 meters under ground and the bottom of the borehole was at 37 meters. The 1 horse power pump was installed at the bottom of the borehole. They told us that the pump had run but water would stop after seven buckets. Seven buckets is the local phrase meaning little water. We have heard seven buckets at several other boreholes.

We removed the pump and went back to the main part of the community. There we discussed the next steps in the program. We told them we would take the pump back to Yola to take it apart and inspect it. The other thing is that we believe it is too powerful of a pump for the borehole and it was installed to deep. It was at the bottom of the borehole where any sand and silt that comes into the borehole will settle and go through the pump. After the pump repair team and I had finished talking about the pump went to Mr Bulama and said we were ready to go back. He told us the

women have been cooking and out lunch is not ready yet. If we leave now the women will not be happy. The men agreed and that if the women are not happy the community is not happy.

Click to Enlarge

While waiting for lunch to be ready I walked over to the church and saw some chicks and a hen scrounging for insects in the roots of a tree. Before I got my camera ready they saw me and ran out of the roots. I think they know that when a Bature (white man) comes to town one of their kind becomes lunch.

Our lunch was chicken in a red sauce (mostly palm oil with spices, ground peppers and ground tomatoes). It was served family style with rice (no silverware, you grab the hot sticky rice and form an edible spoon). They brought and extra bowl for the Bature. Otherwise Bulama and I would be sharing a bowl of rice and a bowl of sauce and chicken. The ladies were also fixing food for the men but they were having a local vegetable based sauce. I was told it is real spice.

We took the pump back to Yola and on Tuesday the pump repair team dismantled it. The motor looks good but the pump section is shot. We could not get the impeller section open but from the parts that fell out I am guessing it was run dry too long. Most pumps have automation cut-off if the pump runs dry. Some the the less expensive do not.

Flushing and pump test set up.

Today (Monday the 14th.) the repairmen went to the market and bought a 1/2 horsepower pump and tiger pipes (a thick plastic pipe) to install it. Tomorrow we will return and use our 1 HP pump to flush out the borehole and try to get the screens cleaned out some. We will then install the new 1/2 HP pump in the borehole. I will update this blog with the results of tomorrows work.

Update. On Tuesday April 15th, we went back and used a 1-HP pump to try to flush the borehole. We pumped at over 60 liters per minute. At that rate the water was emptied from the borehole quickly. We waited 10 minutes and pumped again. We repeated

Pump Testing.

the process all morning and into the afternoon. We informed the women to bring their buckets to get the water we flushed out of the borehole.  We got a little dirt out but I do not think we achieved much. We installed the smaller 1/2 HP pump. It operates at just under 30 liters per minute and empties the bore hole of water in about 4 minutes. After resting for 10 minutes you can get another 4 minutes of pumping. This is a slow way to get water but it still works. In the future the Water Program will have a contractor drill a new borehole on the other end of the community. While they have their compressor there they will use it to clean the screens and then test this bore hole again. If it still runs dry when pumped we will either abandon it or install a hand pump. Installing a hand pump is the most likely. Until the final solution is reached they will manually operate the pump to prevent it from running dry and destroying it. Also, another chicken gave their life for our lunch.

Women lined up their buckets, pails, tubs, and
jerry cans when they heard we were pumping.

Local Church.

Round Hut at the entrance to the Pastor's
compound. This is where he hold meetings
and where we had lunch.

Graineries.The rocks stop the termites.