Getting Ready to Return to Nigeria

On Tuesday morning August 19th, I will depart on the first leg of my longer than usual journey to Nigeria. Previously, I have flown Delta, KLM, Air France and Lufthansa to and from Nigeria. The flights have always arrived in the early evening and only once have I been able to catch a flight Abuja down to Yola the same day as I arrived in Abuja. This trip I am flying United to Washington D.C., Dulles Airport. Staying overnight and flying Ethiopian Airlines Wednesday to arrive Thurday morning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After a short layover I fly on to Abuja. The plan was to catch the late afternoon flight to Yola. However, it turns out that the late flight is scheduled to leave at 2:20 pm. I have less than 2 hours to go through immigration and customs and get my luggage over to the Domestic part of the terminal. Normally, this would be adequate. I have read that immigration is doing health checks on incoming passengers to check for Ebola symptoms. Customs may be curious about the over-sized box I am bringing with me.  It contains a DrawTite trailer hitch (It is called a tow bar in many parts of the world).

Global Health Ministries provided a trailer mounted air compressor to be y\used for cleaning a re-developing boreholes (drilled water wells). However, the Toyota Hilux truck they bought for the Pump Repair Team does not have a hitch. During my last trip we spent many hours trying to find a tow bar in Yola. Unlike Minnesota nobody have a boat that they trailer. There are no camping trailers and no trailer parks. There is no market for tow bars. We found that Toyota South Africa lists a tow bar as an accessory on its internet site but there is no information about the size or capacity.

We emailed and called the Abuja Toyota dealers and the Abuja Toyota parts distribution center and got no responses. A staff member of the Health Services Board visiting Abuja went to the dealer and they told him that they did not carry tow bars but it is "probably" available in Lagos. If it is available they can have it shipped to Abuja and we would have to drive to Abuja and they would install it. After over 4 months of looking, phoning, and emailing we gave up and I bought one over the internet from Etrailer. The first one that arrived was bent. The second only had a couple minor paint chips but it was poorly packaged. It was just in an over-sized box and have ripped through the box in several places. Adequate packaging for shipping on a truck but not for a plane trip. I wrapped it in bubble wrap and cardboard and packed it into the box with three layers of cardboard, foam panels and 7 small toy soccer balls as cushioning.

It will cost me an extra $200 to get it on the plane. United Airlines has told me that they will not check it through to Abuja because my layover in DC is more than 10 hours. I will have to get it at the United baggage in DC and see it Ethiopian Airlines will take it Tuesday evening for my Wednesday morning flight. If they take my luggage I will catch the Metro over to my son's house. If they do not take it, I get to spend a night in Dulles Airport with a trailer hitch.

I have brought along a torque wrench and the required sockets to install the tow bar on the Hilux. After it is installed I will be giving trailer driving and backing lessons and we will be testing the compressor on a couple of poorly functioning boreholes. It will not be hard to find a poorly functioning borehole. The majority of them were not properly installed, developed and need to be cleaned out.

My primary reason for this trip is to represent Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry during the final design of the Demsa Health Centre Upgrade and Renovations. In the picture below the building on the right is the outpatient building. It will get a new higher roof, upgraded electrical system, new plumbing, and ceiling fans. The building on the right have an addition added to it and will have wards for males and female patients, a maternity suite with two birthing rooms, and a surgical suite. The costs of the renovations and upgrades are going to be over a quarter million dollars. The funding is coming from the Minneapolis Area Synod Nigeria Health Care Campaign. They have a goal of $450,000 to of which Mount Calvary Lutheran of Excelsior has matched the first $200,000 that the synod has raised. This fund will go to several Health Care projects. These projects include the Demsa renovations, renovations and expansion of medical dispensaries, the Malaria prevention and treatment rpogram, expanding the Community Based Public Health Program, and funding the Water and Sanitation/Hygiene (WASH) Program. Most of my time on my last nine trips has been with developing the capability of the LCCN to operate its WASH Program. The compressor and trailer hitch are parts of that program.

 The other major project I will be working on while in Nigeria will be the construction of the LCCN's first church for the Deaf. Construction started just before my last trip. The foundation, floors and walls are complete. I will be making a wire transfer of $9,360 to the Deaf Church Construction account before I leave.  Along with what they have in their bank account, they should be enough to construct the roof. So far over $20,000 has been raised for this project from the United States and Denmark. I have coordinated grants totally $7,000 from the Mill Neck Foundation, the Mount Calvary Foundation, and the Evangelical Lutheran Deaf Association. Bread of Life Deaf Church has made two contributions and First Lutheran Church of Crystal had made two contributions. One member of Mount Calvary has donated $2,000 and a family donated $500. A Dioconal Minister who has traveled to Nigeria many times has raised $1,000 through her sales of products purchased from Women of Hope of Jos, Nigeria.  I have even had one ELCA Pastor donate. Most most of my brothers, sister, cousins in-laws, friend of relatives and a few Facebook friends have donated.

I will be updating this blog with pictures and other stories over the next month.

Marriage and Blessing of Their Children of Mr. & Mrs. Godopwa Hakiyina, Guyuk, Nigeria

Click to Enlarge

On Palm Sunday I drove up to Guyuk with Pastor Ruth and nine of the Deaf that normally attend her services at the LCCN Deaf Centre. We would have had several more but when I showed up with the truck, a few had decided to go for some food. We were late so we did not wait for them. We added a bench to the bed of the truck and headed north at a little faster speed than I normally drive.

When we arrived at LCCN 4, Guyuk, they had already started the Sunday Service and were at the Annoucements. The announcements at churches can last a long time during the wedding season (April-May) and Holy week. All the local and regional weddings, prayer services, inter-faith services and much more are announced. The printing of bulletins is not affordable.


The church is relatively small but is located on a large compound. On the right side is a shade structure for the overflow crowd. I am sure they are in the process of saving to build a larger building. They have piles of concrete block along the front wall and areas where sand is being stored to make more blocks. The normal way new churches are built is to save some money until you have enough to make a batch of blocks. You then buy cement, collect sand and make the blocks. They may make and store the blocks for several years. When they have enough blocks and enough money to buy the cement for the foundation and walls they will build. Then when they get enough for the roof they will build the roof. The next stage would be to buy windows and doors. Finally, they will add the electrical, plumbing, plaster, paint and furnishings. The entire process can require years. But rather and putting the money in the bank and letting inflation and fees eat it up they make concrete blocks.

Pastor Ruth changed into here robe and stole and joined the local pastor at the Altar. She will not be officiating at this marriage but will assist the local pastor.  Being Palm Sunday the Women's Fellowship, the Gospel Singers and the Youth Band had prepared special songs.

The marriage and blessings was worked in to the service. This is the second marriage as a part of the Sunday Service that I have seen here. It saves the couple a lot of money. This is a rather new procedure. I was told at the first one I attended in March, at the Cathedral that is was the first anyone had seen. The Yola Diocese Bishop happened to be scheduled to officiate at that Sunday's Service so he performed the marriage.

The local pastor performed the rites of marriage and blessing of the children with the help of an interpreter. Part of the ceremony was mixed with various parts of the service. The couple and wedding party had to get up and move to the front several times. At one point the wedding party performed a song in sign. This is an adult version of 'Jesus Loves Me". I edited it down to the last verse. The interpreter was a little behind until he figured out the song.

Toward the end of the service they had the offering. The offering box had two holes one for the men and one for the women. It is a bit of a competition as to which group gives more. They walk and some dance up to the box while the youth band sings. When the men have finished, their offering side is covered and the women come forward. Next week they will announce the totals during announcements. After the regular offerings they had a special offering for the couple. The couple stood by the donation baskets on top of the offering box and shook hands with everyone as they came by and put money in the baskets.

During the second offering I went outside to get some water. The truck was parked in the sunlight. The one sachet of water that was in the truck was will over 100 degrees F. I moved the truck to some shade and used some of the water to cool of the dark bench that was in the back.

 Instead of going back into the church I joined a group of young ladies at one of the windows. All the windows and doors had people standing at them. The view from this window as not bad, but you could not read the sign from the interpreter or see much of the pastor when he was kneeling before the Altar. 

After the service the best man organized everyone for pictures. I did not know the couple. I was just the driver for the people from Jimeta and tried to stay out of the pictures. It is hard to do when you stand out in the crowd the way I do you. I always seem to end up in the picture. 

After the first picture a successfully avoided the rest of the pictures. I will have to go and buy a flash drive to put all their pictures on give it to Pastor Ruth to get to them.

After the pictures at the church we drove over to the mother of the bride's compound for a snack, soft drink, and reception. The best part was the half frozen sachet of water that I was given. We excused ourselves after about a half an hour and thanked the family. 

We drove over to Retired Archbishop David Windibizri's house. He was in Jimeta at a meeting. We greeted his wife and spent a few minutes then headed back to Jimeta. This time at a more reasonable speed.

On the way back, we stopped in Numan at the LCCN Headquarter's Compound to pick up a package for Archbishop Babba's son Paul who lives in Mississippi. I got a chance to see the compressor that Global Health Ministries had purchased for Water Program. I had been working on finding a trailer hitch for the compressor but did not know that it had a very specific hitch and ball requirement. I had been told it was a two inch ball. But the trailer connection specified that it must be a 25/16 inch Class IV ball. The chances of finding that ball and hitch here is slim to none. Now we have to create a plan B. 

Waiting in Numan for the package.

Click on picture to do the the donation site.

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Garaha Lahr Pump Pad and Stand Installation and Pump Repair

Garaha Larh  (10°24'30.55"N,12°50'49.23"E)

Map Jimeta to Garaha Larh  Click to Enlarge

Garaha is a relatively large village about 30 minutes into the bush from Hong.  Hong is a little under a 2 hour drive from Jimeta depending on how many military or police check points you hit. A Larh in the Kilba language is the place in the bush where they store their grain before thrashing it and bring back to the village. A village has grown up at Garaha’s Lahr and they have named it Garaha Larh.

Click to enlarge

We visited Garaha Larh last year when we surveyed the town and talked with the village elders about the LCCN WASH Program (Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria Water and Sanitation / Hygiene Program). They had two drilled boreholes. One never worked but had a good sign congratulating all agencies and contractors involved in drilling it. I wonder what the Honorable Haskee Hananiya would think if he knew it did not work.The other borehole worked but only during the wet season and some of the dry. They had several hand dug wells most are also seasonal. There is a dry stream less than 1/2 kilometer from the village where they dig holes in the sand in the low areas and scoop out the muddy water that collects. These are what I classify as traditional sources. 

Since our initial visit last year Bulama has made several more visits. Garaha Larh has formed a water committee and had collected enough money to use matching funds from Global Health Ministries (GHM) to drill a borehole and install a pump. The drill hired by the LCCN WASH Program had a break in his schedule and drilled the borehole over the weekend. They drilled through a foot of topsoil into hardpan. After hitting water they drilled an additional 10 meters and ended about 1 ½ meters into the granite bedrock.

 Locations of new and repaired boreholes.

While they were drilling the villagers told them about the borehole that never worked. The previous “so called” driller used the mud rotary drilling method. A bentonite clay (main ingredient in kitty litter) and water drilling fluid is pumped into the borehole during the drilling. The thick fluid carries the drill cutting to the surface. This form of drilling is good in soft formations like clay or sandstone but very slow in granite.  Most mud rotary driller will stop drilling at bedrock. I doubt that many have a carbide bit to slowly drill in granite. The driller hit over 10 meters of water and continued drilling until bedrock. But he said he had a machinery problem and could not wash the drill mud out of the hole. He installed the pump into the mud and told the people he would come back as soon as his equipment was fixed. That was 3 years ago. It is the same story we heard in Mayo Belwa. 

After our driller finished drilling the new borehole they took their compressor to the non-functional borehole. They pulled up the pipes and pump and found them to be caked with drilling mud. Then they took their compressor and cleaned out the borehole.

On Monday, we knew that we had a newly drilled borehole and a cleaned out borehole that had the blue pipe plastic pipe with a mud packed cylinder and pipes. Adams had been at the drilling site but did not remember if the cylinder was a Mark III of Mark II. On Tuesday, the framing wood for the platform was being brought from WAKKA where a pump was recently installed back to Jimeta. Adams and I went through the remaining tools to see what needed to be bought. (The tools had been stored in my house. The house had been used by a group from the Health Services Board for meeting, the keys and been given out to have the house cleaned and small kids had been caught crawling through the bars in the widows. One complete tool kit was missing and many of the other tools from the second kit were gone. These tools have been here for several years and were donated by my organization.) 

Bulama and Adams went to the market to buy the tools needed for the job. I did not go with them to avoid the Bature price. Bature is white man or European depending on who defines the word. When a Bature is involved with a purchase the price always goes up. Sometimes double. I am pretty good at bargaining down. But not as good as Adams and Buluma who start at a lower price level.

While they were out I collect the other tools and a selection of replair parts to repair their cylinder if it was either a Mark II or II. I decided to bring along the used Mark III cylinder that I bought last year for the class on pump repair. Later that evening Bulama and I went to the market to pick up the pump stand that was already purchased for this project.

The plan was that Adams, Gamekasa, Yakubu (the pump repairman, Not Yakubu Bulama), would meet at my house at 7AM to load the truck and leave for Garaha Larh. We would pick the Rubin up along the way. This is an opportunity for the pump repairman we trained last year repair a Mark IV. Bulama cannot come due to a conflict in schedule so I am driving and we have room for everyone. At 7:30 Adams, Yakubu and I had the truck packed but Gamekasa was not here yet. He was coming from Numan. Normally, only a 45 minute drive. With the current emergency law in force there are a series of check points between Numan and Jimeta. He had not allowed enough time for the check points. The check points at the Jimeta Gate and at the airport/Air Force Base are very long this time of the morning.  We called him and he said he was at the Jimeta Gate. It was 8:30 before he arrived. 

From the truck it looks like the trail becomes a motorcycle trail.

We traveled out of Jimeta North across the Benue River, past the Federal University of Technology Yola (FUTY), through Song, Gombi, and on to Hong. After we crossed the Benue we stopped to pick up Rubin near the top of the hill on the north side of the Benue. On our drive we were lucky that the various police and military check points were not long. The longest was probably around 10 minutes. After over 2 hours on the road we turn onto a rough gravel road at Hong and head into the bush. It is not long that the gravel road become dirt and the dirt road turned to bush road. After we went through the town of Garaha we made a wrong turn somewhere. When we got to a wide dry stream crossing where some school boys were on their way home, we stopped and asked how to get Garaha Larh. They said there were two ways. Go back Garaha and turn at the junction we missed or go on to their village and follow a bush trail from their village to Garaha Larh. The piled into the back of the truck and one in the cab and we headed down a bush road to their village. They showed us the trail to Garaha Larh.  We continued down this motorcycle trail several kilometers until it made a sharp turn down a steep bank to cross the dry stream bed. But at this location there was a deep cut and thin passage. From where I stopped it looked like a motorcycle only trail. We all got out and walked up to the turn. It was passable. Everyone walked across and waited for me on the other side. It was a little tight but gravity help take me down.

Hole dug for Pump Stand to be concreted into.

We arrived at Garaha Larh and went directly to the new borehole to unload the framing material. Adams told me they had gravel packed it to the top. I asked why it was not grouted and he told me the drillers did not have grouting in their contract. We had not planned on grouting the borehole and had not brought enough cement to make the concrete pump platform. The gravel pack had settled considerably. Before I could drop a tape down to measure the depth, the local mason started digging and plugged the area between the 4 inch casing and the 8 inch boring. 

I took a rebar and tried to break through the bridge of soil. Others joined in but they were just compacting the soil bridge. It took a while to explain what I was trying to do, that we were trying to remove or knock the soil down the boring on top of the gravel pack. With the addition of some water and a lot of pound and wriggling of re-bar we finally made progress.

When they started framed up the pad they realized that all of the framing material was not brought back from Wakka. With a little local resources and compromise in the design they were able to make an acceptable pad frame.

Click image to enlarge

When we were satisfied with the pad building work we left Yakubu to supervise the installation of the pump base and the pad. The rest of us went to the  pump to see what we could do there.  This is when I looked at my office worker hands and saw that the skin was gone from the blisters that had formed on my little and ring finger on my left hand and my little finger on my right hand. I had not brought work gloves. They were pretty ugly the next morning.

Click image to enlarge and see the mud in the cylinder.

The pump cylinder was fully packed with drilling mud. We found the borehole be 6.5 meters deep to the static water level from the pump stand top and about 18.1 meters to the bottom of the hole. The "so called" driller had put in 18 meters of pipe. The inlet to the pump cylinder would be at the bottom of the hole. The team cleaned the cylinder, plunger and installed new seals in the plunger. The foot valve seal was poor and we did not have a replacement. As we were reassembling the plunger parts and tried to connect the foot valve to the plunger assembly we realized that the screw threads that screw into the foot valve were missing from the plunger assembly. I suggested we replace the complete cylinder with the used but functional one I brought along.  The next problem was that we did not know it the “so called” driller had properly cut the operating rod and the pump chain was stuck on the rod. With great effort and the use of the 36 inch pipe wrench we sheared off the chain rod making the chain useless. But when we tested the rod length it was about 6 inches short. At the top of the pump stroke the plunger would be out of the cylinder.

I had brought a spare used chain on the trip. It was not perfect but will work fine for a few years. While Rubin cut and threaded a replacement rod, I went back to the new borehole to see how that was coming along. When I got back they had finished and were ready to assemble the pump head. I asked Rubin if he has set the foot valve and unscrewed the plunger assembly from the foot valve. He assured me he had done it. In reality he had set the foot valve and tightened the plunger to the foot valve.  When they finished assembly and pumped we got no water. The foot valve which is suppose to be fixed to the bottom of the cylinder was still attached to the plunger and going up and down. We attempted to set the foot valve but could not unscrew it from the plunger. In the attempt to do it we disconnected the operating rod from the plunger. We then had to pull the riser pipes to retrieve the plunger.

After a lot of looking like we did not know what we were doing. We got the pump reassembled and pumping brown water. Some of the riser pipe had been coated inside with mud and had not been cleaned very well. We probably had disturbed gravel pack (assuming that the “so called” driller had installed a gravel pack) when installing, removing and re-installing the riser pipes. After a while the water was cleaner. By the time we left the water was much clearer than the water from their hand dug wells or from the holes they had been digging in the stream bed for water.

First water in 3 years.

We only re-installed 5 of the 6 pipes that had originally been installed. This should give a large 3 meter area below the pump for any remaining sediment to settle. The pump inlet is still 9 meters below the static water table. They should get long service before the sediment builds back up.

We went back to the new borehole and saw that it was completed and signed by the mason. Next week we will return with the pipe and the rest of the pump to complete the installation after the concrete has cured.

We made it out of the Bush to Hong as the sun set by the more direct route than we took in. Somewhere along the way as we bounced through ruts, gullys and holes the spare tire that was wired to the bottom of the truck broke off. I man on a motorcycle came along side and tried to yell at me to stop. I thought he wanted to pass so I gave him room. Then he disappeared. The loud diesel engine made it impossible to hear. As we reached Hong he was chasing us again with our tire tied to the back of his motorcycle. We gave him a 1000 Naira for his honesty. 

We made it back to Yola by 8 pm. Dodging potholes and areas where there is no pavement at all in the daylight is hard enough. Two hour of night driving with miss aligned headlights, facing traffic with high beams on or one light and some with no lights, people on bicycles, walking, or slow motor cycles with up to four people and a broken fuel gauge with a bit of a tense ride home. One trick I learned was to find someone driving about the same speed and follow them so when they bounced or swerved I could slow down or avoid the pothole. Some of their potholes here will fit a small car and can be up to a foot deep.