One day more in Nigeria.

I have come to the end of the trip and as usual all the work piles up at the end. I spent the last three days mostly working on a Power Point presentation for Pastor Ruth Ulea to use when goes to Germany and Denmark next week. I put it into my Drop Box. You can download the presentation at the following link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnpiik5ffelkb0c/Pastor%20Ruth%20Ulea%20Show.ppsx?dl=0

Tomorrow I will fly to Abuja and stay overnight. Then Wednesday I fly on Ethopian Airlines to Addis Ababa and on the Washington D.C. I am scheduled to have an overnight layover but instead I am going to stay in DC for awhile. My wife is flying in and we are staying at our son's house and playing with Sydney our granddaughter.

My trip had three purposes. Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry paid my airplane ticket. They needed someone to have a face to face discussion with the Demsa Health Centre Renovations Building Committee about the plans to renovate the Inpatient Building and add a surgical theater. That was a one day meeting and then a few days of reviewing the notes and writing up what was decided at the meeting. Pretty technical and boring stuff. Basically, the expansion for the surgical Theater will need to be a little bigger to make the flow of people, equipment and supplies work.

The second project was to carry a DrawTite trailer hitch for the Toyota Hilux truck, get it installed, teach some trailer backing lessons, train the water team on using the compressor for cleaning out boreholes. My previous posts have had pictures of my traveling with it. Thhitch fit perfect. Only had to hit one part with a hammer once. DrawTite made an excellent product and E-Trailer.com provide me great service. 

The backing lessons have not gone as well. Yakubu had an accident and he burned his right hand. With a manual transmission it is difficult to try to back up and not use your right hand.

We took the compressor out to the Fulani Centre at Bronnum Lutheran Seminary. We were told they had a broken borehole we could fix their pump and train on flushing the borehole with the compressor. Unfortunately, the pump was not on a borehole but was mounted on a hand dug well. We fixed their pump but did not get to use the compressor.

On Friday we went out to the village of Mabakaure on the road to Numan. They did have a borehole. I was deeper than we expected and to get the air jetting tool to the bottom we had to lower 15 feet of air hose down the casing.

The flushing went well but we had gotten a late start and could only flush for 90 minutes. The water repair team wanted to quit after only 30 minutes. The water blowing out of the borehole looked clean. But when you put the water in a bucket you it was still a little brown so we continued.

My last project was to continue working on the Deaf Church. The money for the roof was transferred the day before I left on the trip. When I arrived on Friday August 22nd they were already installing the rafters. By September 11th they had completed the roof. The roof came in under budget. There was enough money left to pay for the exterior steel doors and the aluminum casement windows.

Arrived in Yola After 4 days of Travel

The plan almost worked.  The plan was to book my flight to Abuja, Nigeria on Ethiopian Airline (United express to Washington DC) and overnight in Washington, DC where I can visit my Granddaughter. The Ethiopian connection through Addis Ababa was scheduled to arrive in Abuja at 12:20 PM and the Arik Airline flight to Yola leaves at 2:20 PM.  The flights I have taken before through Europe have all arrived after 4 PM so I had to overnight in Abuja. I once made the connection on IRS airlines when their flight was running late. IRS is no longer flying in Nigeria. The Ethiopian/United tickets were $400 cheaper than flying through Europe. I did not book my ticket on Arik because I had not ever taken this route and I heard that immigration was doing health checks.  I did not want to miss the flight and then have to try to re-book.

The plan seemed sound except on this trip I will be traveling heavy. I had a Drawtite trailer hitch (with packaging it weighed 58 pounds) with me as over-sized luggage. United from Minneapolis to DC would not check my luggage through to Abuja because my layover in DC was more than 10 hours. So I ended up spending Tuesday night at Dulles airport with my luggage. The Ethiopian Air flight to Addis Ababa was a Boeing 777-300LR and new and comfortable airplane. Good food and service. They give you a sleeping mask, tooth brush and some socks.  

The transfer at Addis Ababa went smoothly; I even found a live electrical plug to recharge my computer. The flight to Abuja was a new Boeing 777-200. We arrived early in Abuja.

I had expected the immigration and customs to be slow. I was surprised that the health check was a form we filled out on the plane, that nobody read and a guy that took my temperature with remote thermometer. He just shined a light into the side of my head or on my ear from a couple feet away. It took less than a minute. Immigration lines were shorter for people without Nigerian passports. Customs wanted me to open the box and wanted to know how much it cost. I told him it cost $178 and I showed him a picture of the hitch. I said it is a big piece of steel than connects to a Hilux so we can tow a compressor and repair bad borehole. I told him I was working with a church to bring clean water to villages. He said “God bless you” and sent me on my way.

I arrived at the Arik ticket office at 12:30. The Governor of Taraba State had had a meeting with a large number of his staff members in Abuja. They had reserved all the seats on the Arik afternoon flight to Yola. While, I arrived at the Arik ticket counter with plenty of time, there were no tickets. I purchased a ticket for the Friday afternoon flight. I called Bishop Benjamin Fuduta and he arrange a room at the DRACC Guest House near the airport.  By taxi it is only a 15 minute ride.

The Arik flight has a limit of 20 KG (44 pounds) for you checked luggage. The box with the hitch was 26 KG and my suitcase was 21 KG. I moved as much of the heavy items (ball mount, ball, torque wrench and accessories) from my suitcase to my carry on. I was only 18 KG overweight and it cost me 9000 naira ($54). With the $200 excess luggage cost for the flights to Abuja the cost to transport the trailer hitch was $254 to Yola. This about the same as the cost of the hitch, ball mount, ball, electrical kit, and other accessories). This is still cheaper than the alternative methods of shipping we had found. 

When I went through security check at Abuja to get on the flight to Yola they x-rayed my carry-on and wanted to inspect it. When she saw the ball mount she told me it was too heavy that I would have to go back and check it in as luggage. I went into my story of just being a volunteer with the church to help bring clean water to villages and my over luggage was already checked and I might miss my flights. She finally, said “Go”. I took her “Go” to mean to go to my flight.

We arrived in Yola a little late. The box with the trailer hitch was last to be brought from the plane on a cart by itself. The new terminal building’s roof had been blown off in a storm. The baggage area was back outside. Fortunately, there was only a little sprinkle. Yakubu picked me up in the Land-Yota. 

Regina and her family had cleaned up the house and weeded the area in front of the house. Most to the sandy area around the house is now gardens.

We brought my luggage into the house and then went Luka’s Supermarket to get some drinking water, canned meats, oatmeal, breakfast cereal and other items to get me through the weekend. After we got back I realized I had no dish soap or chorine to wash the dishes. I will make a shopping list and walk to the local shops for the basics.

Regina and I fetched water on Saturday morning from the faucet by the pump house and I have a full barrel of water. The power situation is much improved. The church is hosting a youth convention and had their generator going until almost 8 last night. The power from the grid came on sometime after midnight and is still going at 11 AM. I may get ice in my little refrigerator.

Construction of the roof has started at the Deaf Church. I won’t see Pastor Ruth or the Vicar until Sunday. I will take some measurements and update the drawings of the floor levels from as designed to as built. 

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.

Trip to Gorobi, March 25th

Click to go to Go Fund Me

Click to Enlarge

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.

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.

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.