March 10, Return to Garaha Larh, Lost in the Bush again.

Monday morning we returned to Garaha Larh. This was project is both training and water project. We were just going to install the new pump, test both pumps, show the chairman of the local water committee how to test the pump and have him change the seals on a pump piston.

Yakubu, Adams, and I drove across the Benue River and picked up Ruebin part way up the hill. There we also picked up some small breakfast cakes. A women was frying the small cakes in oil over an open fire along the road. These were made with corn flour and tossed in a mixture of spices. They were pretty good and plenty greasy.

Today we have the new Toyota Hilux. It is a gasoline powered small heavy duty 4 wheel drive truck. The last trip we drove the old diesel powered Hilux (I think it is a 1989 or early 1990s). It is a Lazarus truck. I has come back from the dead more than once. It has seen a lot of hard miles on bush roads. The old truck is not as bad as many vehicles on the road. Diesel here is expensive and is not subsidized.

Gasoline is subsidized and is relatively cheap (less than 95 Naira per liter about $2.15 a gallon). The problem is that to get the subsidized rate you have to go to the National Petroleum station. Currently, there is a gas crisis. The lines at the National Petroleum Station in Jimeta is close to a mile long at most times. The commercial gas stations in Jimeta rarely have fuel. They sell fuel at a little above the subsidized price. All of their signs say 95 Naira but if they have fuel they will charge you 110 to 130 Naira per liter during normal times and 160 or more now.

We start our trip at 7:30 AM with the fuel gauge between 1/8 and empty. There are stations open across the Benue. The closest ones charge around 160 Naria per liter. We went past the University and past a few open stations and went in to a small station that was charging 140 Naira. 10.000 Naira purchased 71.4 liters almost filled the tank

We made our third stop at the next larger village. This stop was for fried yams and Suya. These are snacks we can eat as we drive. Suya are small pieces of  meat or to be more precise I would say meat trimmings, that have been cooked over a fire and rolled in a combinations of spices. If I had not been driving I would have taken a few pictures. These are the normal stops that are made on trips like this. Last week we were late and we drove without food.

We made good time until after Gombi, The two Military checkpoints after Gombi were long. There had been an attack north of Gombi over the weekend. It is not known if it was Boko Haram or another group that had a conflict with the village.  A couple churches were burned and people were killed. Garaha ares is calm. We made it to Hong in 2 1/2 hours from Jimeta. We stopped there to get bleach to disinfect the borehole and a notebook to give to the water chairman to record his pump tests results. It was market day in Hong and the highway along the main street was already filled with vendors. We drove past the market and Adams got out and walked back to the market area.

Google Earth View of Garaha Area. 

Lost in the bush again. Last trip we got on the wrong trail after Garaha and went to the village of Dabna to the southwest of Garaha Lar and followed a motorcyle trail back to Garaha Larh. This trip we stopped and asked directions in Garaha. We got on the correct road but we had to leave the road because of a collaped bridge. As we came up out of the dry stream bed on the north side of the bridfe we took the road to the right. It is a little hard to see from where we emerged but there are three roads. The far left road goes to Dabna, the center road goes to Garaha Larh and the right road goes to Garagha Dutse. Dutse means Rock. Garaha Dutse is beside a large granite hill. I got my camera out to take a picture and to use its built in GPS to see which way it was to Garaha Lahr. The memory card was in my computer back in Jimeta. It had the previous pictures and coordinates of Garaha Larh.

In Garaha Dutse we asked directions. With a lot of hand waving a farmer told us the directions. Off we went as we left the village we saw a man at a pump I suggested we confirm the directions. Adams and Yakubu said no we should turn right on the bigger of two trails. The hand waving I remembered was around the rock and left. Two of our crew were native Kilba and this being Kilba Land I had to follow what they told me. After about 10 minutes later they said to turn around. We went back and found took the smaller trail. This may have been the first time a 4 wheeled vehicle had taken this route. It was a single rut trail. After a while we came to some women working in a field. We asked an older lady resting under a tree if we were on the trail to Graaha Larh. She said yes we were on the right trail and there were no more corners (as interpreted). I gave her two thumbs up and a double handed wave.

We arrived in the village and found out the Chairman was gone to Hong for market day. We found the other young men that had helped us on the last trip and the village chief. As the young men unloaded the pipes, tank and pump head from the truck, I got out the weighted tape measure and checked the depth to the water (6 meters) and the depth  to the bottom on the borehole. Adams had reported that the driller had bored to 23 meter. My first indication was that the bottom was at 19 meters. We added a second weight (bolt) to the tape measure. The casing was not exactly vertical and the tape was sticking to the side of the casing making it hard to probe for the bottom. We decided to only put on 5 pipes. The bottom of the hole is somewhere between 17 and 23 meters. I initial reading was 19 meters. The bottom of the cylinder, inlet will be at 15 meters. The static water level was found to be 6 meters the pump inlet will be in 9 meters of water (29.5 feet) and at least 2 meters above the bottom.

Pipes & tank installed connecting piston to operation rod

After we installed the pump a man pump and pumped until we filled the 2 1/2 inch riser pipe and got the water flowing. We (we meaning Adams and Yakubu in Kilba) were discussing with the chief and some of the men some of the things to do to keep the area clean and to maintain the pump, when someone said the water had stopped. We looked at the outlet and no water was flowing. Then we realized that man who had been pumping the handle got tired and stopped.

The pipes we had bought in Jimeta for this pump were used. Jimeta has many of these used pipes. Many of the pump mechanics in this area are only used to the Mark III. When they are called fix a Mark III they convert them into Mark II and sell the pipes in the market. They do not know that you do not need to remove the riser pipe to replace the piston seals.They remove the 65 mm PVC pipes and open top cylinders and replace it with the 32 mm steel pipes and closed top cylinders. Almost almost all of the 65 mm pipes I saw in the market have missing gaskets (we would call them O-Rings). Without these the joints leak. We used teflon plumbers tape and still had a little leakage. The leak test of the pump is to stop pumping for 5 minutes. Then count how many pump stokes it takes to get water. With this pump it took less than three. This is considered in the good range. More than 10 strokes is considered time for repair.

First Water from new borehole.

After testing the new pump we went back to the pump we repaired last week. At noon there was a line of buckets waiting their turn to be filled. The people were waiting under the shade of trees. In a village with adequate water supply they will have finished the morning fetching of water by this time. In the evening as the temperature cools the lines will form again. In villages without adequate water the will pump all day and late into the night. This overuse of the pump quickly wears out the seals in the cylinders.

Line for water at pump at noon. 

This pump had its original 65 mm PVC pipes with the seals. When we tested it for leakage by stopping pumping for 5 minutes, the water resumed with the first stroke. This pump has very little leakage.

In Kilba land and some other places they install used tires to the back of pump.This seems to give them a bounce and also prevents the pump handle from hitting the pump head. I have seen pump handles and pump heads that are bent from years of banging.

While waiting the 5 minutes for the leakage test I decided to take a picture fromt the pump handle prospective. I used the widest angle that my camera had and exaggerate the length of the handle. Ruebin is the man on the left, Adams in the center and Yakubu on the right.

Click to enlarge.

We returned by the direct route to Garaha and on to Hong. Yakubu had some bringing him a package in Hong so we stopped and waited. After a while the man showed up with a bag stuffed with a fried peanut cake. Sticks of fried peanut residue from peanut oil extraction. It is used in a lot of dishes or to make these sticks little treats.

At the check point near Pella there were people selling mangos, onions, and other things. They were asking 300 Naria for a bowl of around 12 mangos. Adams talked them down to 200 Naira ($1.20). In Jimeta they would cost more. Adams, Yakubu and I both bought a bowl each. Ruebin bought 2 bowls and 2 bowls of onions. About half way to Jimeta my eyes started to water from the onion smell.

We arrived back in Jimeta at 5:30. The trip was about 10 hours total. After we unloaded I gave Adams a ride up to the transport area by the Main Market and drove to Luka's Memorial Market (small store). Luka has good prices and the widest variety of goods. I found some fruit cocktail in fruit juice, peach halves, peach slices in grape juice, sardines in tomato sauce and a variety of other things that I will eat over the next six weeks. My pantry is now full.

Peanut cakes.

I hope there are not to many errors in this posting. the network is slow so I am going to post it and edit out errors later. Most of it has been read twice. I always find errors. Even if I proof read it 4 or 5 times. Yes there were a lot if errors. I hope it is a little better now. I am finding that the only good internet time is early in the morning. By 10 AM the network becomes overloaded.

Mangos from Pella.

Pantry of food.

Saturday March 9, Walk to Market, Wedding and Buying Pump.

Saturday March 8, 2014


Saturday, I woke up at 3 AM when the power came on and noticed that the internet was running. It has been trouble during the weekday. I had several emails that I had tried to send but had failed many times. So I got up and sent out emails and Face Book messages and posted some pictures on Face Book. I got back to bed before sun up and slept in until after 9 AM.

Late morning I started to walked to the main Market to buy some parboiled rice (about a mile one way). Yakubu Market had wanted 1200 Naira ($7.12) for a 2 pound bag of Uncle Ben's. I was not willing to pay that much.

A wedding had completed at the Cathedral and the reception party was underway on the compound next to the Cathedral. The house I live in while I visit here is in the North East corner of the compound. The Deaf Centre is in the North West corner. Most weekends in March, April and May they will have a wedding reception on the compound. Last year we had three on the same Saturday.


I stopped at the wedding and took a couple pictures. The wedding was well attended. The groom is a doctor. I climbed up the spiral staircase to the balcony exit of the Cathedral to get good view. The wedding always publishes the color theme. Women will find matching fabric and will make dresses and head scarves to attend the wedding. I noticed a lot of women had the same pink and grey fabric made into a variety of dress styles. Then I spotted a three men chatting up some ladies with trousers and matching ties made of the same material. I asked one of the men to strike a pose

Click to enlarge

I headed on up the main road to the Jimeta Main Market. It is about a mile walk. Along the way I saw a man with a pull cart hauling a heavy bed. These movers earn little money for hard work. The picture does not show it but the street is a slight upward incline. The man was moving faster than I was walking. There a quite a few of these going along with and sometimes against traffic. Boys also push loads in wheelbarrows. There are boys throughout the market waiting for someone to buy something they need taken out to their cars or back to their homes.

Route to Market

At the market, I walked up and down up and down several rows of stalls before I found a man selling rice by the measure. Most had 5 kilo or 50 kilogram bags. He wants 600 Naira for the small measure of what he called parboiled, but the bag it was in did not say parboiled.. This is more than I was willing to pay. He told me 500 and that I would not find it any cheaper at any other shop. I continued on through several more rows of shops. I noticed shop with large container of what I thought might be dried mushrooms. I continued on and did not find much. Lot of shops with about anything you could need. Mostly made in China, Nigeria or England.

One of many aisles of shops.

I circled back to where I saw what looked like mushrooms and noticed he had rice in a bag labeled parboiled from Thailand. I asked him the price and he said 350 Naira for the small measure. I agreed and I got about 3 pound for $2.07. I have not yet boiled any to see what it taste like. I looked around his shop and purchased salt, dried peppers, flavored drink mixes, tomato paste in small packets and a few other things. The dried mushroom turned out to be sliced dried ginger. I bought a 30 Naira bag ($0.18).  I hope I remember where he was located he was a nice young man.

Items outside of one of the tiny shops

Closer view of main market.

The main market was under construction when I first came to Nigeria in 2006. I am told that the first contractor took a lot of money and disappeared. The second contractor was not a lot better. I believe it was open on my 2010 trip. Each of the little metal buildings have shops on both sides. Each shop is about 3 meters deep (10 feet). The smallest shops are only 3m X 3m. The biggest I saw was probably 3m X 9m. Most have their merchandise extended out past the curb and into the traffic area. These small aisles can be maneuvered by boys with wheelbarrows. There are a few wide aisle where car can move through. The storm drains were poorly constructed and many covers have collapsed. Besides shops there are money exchanges and restaurants. On the west end is an open meat market. I have pictures of it in previous blogs.

Later in the evening I walked up to the Plumbing pipe market area. It is only about 1/2 mile south of the Cathedral on Hospital Road and met Bulama to pick up the pipes, rods and pumps we will need Monday to finish the work at Garaha Larh. The materials originally ordered for this project was the wrong type of pump. He said he had the correct material and all was new. We are going to install an India Mark III pump. Their other pump is a Mark III. This pump is considered a Village Level Operator Maintenance (VLOM) pump. The main parts that need to be replaced in hand pumps are worn out seals on the pump piston. A VLOM pump can have its piston removed without removing the riser pipes. The main pump used here is the India Mark II which is not VLOM. It has 1-1/4 inch steel riser pipes. The rise pipes filled with water have to be lifted out of the borehole. This is a complicated and somewhat dangerous operation. It takes skilled pump mechanics.

The India Mark III uses 2-1/2 inch PVC pipes. The ones recommended by the Nigerian Government have stainless steel screw on fittings. Only used screw on PVC pipes are available in Yola. They are manufactured in Lagos so they should be available there. The piston is about 2 inches in diameter. After removing the pump head and disconnection the operating chain from the operating rods the piston can be removed by lifting out the operating rods. The 3 to 4 hour task on a Mark II is less than an hour on a Mark III and few tools are needed. There is another pump called the Afridev that uses the same riser pipes but they made every bolt the pump the same size. It is even easier to change the seals. We are exploring the options to have these pumps available in Yola.

After getting the piston to the house/office I inspected the piston and found it to be used also. I will bring along all the repair parts and have the Water Committee Chairman in the village replace the parts. We will also be training him on how to perform weekly checks of the pump.

Thursday and Friday, March 6 and 7.

This won't be much of a post. We got back from Garaha Larh late Wednesday Night with no power in the house. I cleaned up, showered and cleaned the popped blisters on my hands the best I could by flashlight (for the Nigeria readers a flashlight is a torch). I slept in a little Thursday and when I had power I worked the previous posting about our trip and an After Action Report. It will be good to get this job over so we can work on some procedures to make the work here more efficient and cost effective. I met with Adams and agreed to have him and Rubin come by on Friday to rebuild the cylinders we brought back from Garaha Larh.

Friday was another lazy office day. Rubin and Adams came by and they were able to change all the gaskets and seals on one of the two cylinders. They tested it and it worked. They used all the best parts from both of the cylinders and new seals from the supply of repair parts that I had purchased in Lagos a few years back. The only seal we did not have was for the cylinder couplings. Those were still usable.

After they finished I asked them to move the pipes that had been stored in the kitchen area of the house back to the office area. I was tired on standing on pipes while boiling water. I would have moved them except, I am being careful of the open blisters on my hands. I do not want to have to fight an infection. The hot dry weather seems to be good for clotting. On Friday whenever I would close my hand the wounds would break open. By Sunday they are stable. The cheap generic band aids I had brought last year do not hold up to the sweat. I have some of the real Johnson & Johnson brand I used on Sunday.

The rest of the day I worked on researching applications for grants for the Deaf Church Construction. The final cost estimate is not complete but we think they are about $2000 short of finishing the basic church building. I am hoping to find that money and more to enhance it to more than the basic building.

Early in the evening I went out to a small shop I know a little way up the road from the Cathedral. I asked if they had any antiseptic soap and which was the best. He suggested the Crusader Soap. The directions are interesting. I like the caution in the bottom left corner.

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.