Galdima Church Dedication

Our primary purpose for going to Bali was to attend the dedication of a new church at Galadima.This church was just four mud block walls when I visited it in 2010. The Pastors' Wives Association had visited in 2009 and told the people of the village that if they built a church the wives would pay to have a roof constructed. The roof was finished in 2010 and struck by lightning in 2011 and repaired. Now it 2013 the church has had the mud blocks covered with concrete, the floor finished, pews and an altar built. It is time for a dedication. Before we left I decided to take a quick picture. The local District pastor Rev. Joshua Mamman is in the back. He did not ride there. He moved into the back seat with his wife, Pastor Buduku and his wife. This is not the first or last time we will have 4 in the back seat. We left a little after 8 AM with a quick stop for diesel and another for a bag of cool water to put in my cooler.

For the few of my readers who have been to Bali. You probably crossed the old bridge on the left. There is now a wide two lane bridge.

Pastor Bunduku had been to Galadima earlier in the week to check on the preparations. When he was there he was told that a woman had been saying crazy things and the villagers had said she had evil spirits. So they bound her and tied her to a tree and left her to die. Pastor Bunduku went to her and gave her water then asked where her husband was and told someone to bring him. He talked to the husband who said she was sick and started talking crazy. He does not want a crazy wife. Pastor Bunduku convinced the husband to let him take her to a hospital. We do not know what her current condition is now. But it is much better than being tied to a tree.


 When we arrived the church as in the final stages of being prepared for the dedication ceremony. The Pastors' Wives had arrived on Saturday in two vans and a truck. Drummers and a trumpet player had walked the 6 kilometers from Garba Chede. The ceremony starts with a procession from center of the village to the church, lead by the drummers. The women were lined up in one line and would sing the whole way while the drummers drummed a different tune. The other line was other people, church members, guests and villagers. At the end were the local Evangelist, Catechist and finally the Pastors.

I stood to the side and shoot a video as the procession went by. By the time the end of the pastors had passed the front was more than half way to the church. I had to run through fields to get back in front of the procession to shoot a video of them arriving at the church.




They went to the front of the church where they said a prayer and then Pastor Bunduku read the dedication ceremony in Hausa.




Then the Catechist that started the church unlocked the door while something else was read. I did not have an interpreter as I was busy taking pictures.


After the door was unlocked another verse was read and then I heard my name called at and realized I was suppose to cut the ribbon. After the ribbon was cut we filled the church to overflowing.



I found a good seat by a window where the wind was blowing in so I could stay a little cool. Soon all the windows were blocked by people outside looking in.

 I cannot remember all the ceremony. They blessed the Baptismal / Offering Stand and then the Pulpit (which was designed for a tall person). After the pulpit was blessed they called for me to cut the pink  ribbon in front of the Altar. I quickly said the Pastors' Wives leader should cut this ribbon for they had provided the roof over our heads. She quickly moved to the front and cut the ribbon before anyone could protest and before I could get in a position to take the picture.

 They blessed the Altar and the church service was started. The Church Elder of the month read the announcements and said that last week they had 46 people in attendance and they collected 700 Naira in offerings.

 At the part of the service where they ask for guest they introduced me and told the church that one thing that the children of Mount Calvary had done was to buy a donkey for the Catechist to use. The donkey decided to break every pot in their compound. It must have had been forced to carry heavy pots before and did not want to do it again. I was asked to greet the congregation. I told them that I was bringing greetings from America and from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Excelsior, Minnesota. Explained that Mount Calvary has been working with Jimeta Cathedral for the last 20 years starting churches like Galadima in Taraba State. I told them that I was happy to be part of the dedication and that I will take part of the yellow ribbon I cut and the pink ribbon the Pastors' Wives had cut back to Mount Calvary. We will display it so part of their church will be with our church. After I finished there were various dignitaries that spoke. While the village chief spoke on and on, an old man outside the window said something and Yakubu started to laugh. He told me the old man said  "You are not a pastor, you are not giving a sermon. Just sit down."


The Pastors' Wives spent about a half hour telling about how they have been working for many years to help start churches like Galadima. They had all the former leaders of the organization come to the front to thank them for their leadership and years of service to the church. The pastor in the center is the wife of the pastor at Pella. Her church is not far from Pella near Hong. At the end of their presentation the leader looked at me and told me that the Pastors' Wives do a lot of evangelism. But their biggest problem is the lack of transportation. They have to hire buses (vans) and drivers whenever they go out for evangelism. If this had been a different setting I would have given them my Money Tree speech I give to people who think money grows on trees in America.

The Pastors' Wives had handed out presents to various people for their work in starting churches in Taraba State and the Bali Project. After a few more hymns and special numbers from the Pastors' Wives, the youth, and the Garba Chede Women's Fellowship the sermon was started.

Pastor Comfort Albert Pukuma provide the sermon with the local Catechist interpreting from Hausa to the local language Jirim. She is an impressive speaker and I did not understand much of what she said. But I could tell that she had the full attention of the church and everyone outside.She had a short sermon for an African pastor probably less than 45 minutes.

After the sermon and a hymn we had the offering where the basket or in this case a plastic tub was placed at the front of the church and the youth band sings while everyone files past and places their hands into the tub and releases what is in their hand. Today the attendance was close to one hundred and there were 1,000 Naira notes in the tub.

After the church service ended the drummers loaded into the back of the Hilux and several others for the ride back to Garba Chede. We dropped off Pastor Bunduku and our other passengers at Garba Chede except for two young girls who Yakubu told me he had been asked by one of the Pastors' Wives to drive them to Yola and meet her at the Cathedral where we were going anyway. She would meet us along the road and join us. I had assumed that they were her children but later I found out they were from Galadima and their parents had asked that they be taken to Adamawa, where they can go to school.  There was also a young boy who was to go but he refused to leave fought to get out of the other vehicle he was in. One of the girls spoke Hausa and Yakubu could communicate with them. I bought peanuts at Garba Chede for snacks and gave them water to wash it down. We stopped in Jalingo the Capital of Taraba State and bought more water and some soda and crackers.

 We went a little off the main highway so I could photograph the church in Jalingo for their companion congregation Valley of Peace Lutheran in Golden Valley, Minnesota. While we were making this detour the vans with the woman who was going to meet us probably went through Jalingo on the main road. When we were a few kilometers outside of Yola the lady called Yakubu and asked where he was. They were at the Cathedral and never saw us on the road. We delivered the girls to her about 15 minutes later. I certainly hope that these girls will thrive in their new home in the Hong area of Adamawa. They slept much of the ride or talked and looked out the windows. They still had an overnight stay in a guest house and then a few more hours of driving to their new home.

Trip to Bali & Gashaka-Gumti National Park

Yakubu and I had been invited to go to Bali to attend the dedication of the Galadima Church Building. We left Friday at Noon after getting the oil changed and buying diesel fuel for the Hilux. We stopped for lunch at Twin Sister's Restaurant in Mayo Belwa. The next stretch of road to the Taraba State Border is pitted with pot holes. The Federal Road Maintenance Agency is working slowly on this section of road. In some areas they are removing the whole pavement and installing a new section. Mostly they are digging out the potholes and filling in the area. The digging is a few days ahead of the filling. You do not want to drive this section at night.

Historically, the worst road is the Jalingo to Bali Road. Most people have not taken that road and take a much longer but faster way. This road is almost completely reconstructed with the a wide two lanes, wide shoulders and new bridges. In total what took me 6 1/2 hours in 2010 only took 5 hours. Back in the 1990's that was all day drive. When the Mayo Belwa to the Taraba State border is fixed the trip will be under 5 hours.

We arrived at Bali in time to take a few pictures of the reconstructed Mount Calvary Church and visit with Pastor Bunduku the coordinator for the Bali Project. The Bali Project is a companion church project of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church of Excelsior, Minnesota and the Jimeta Cathedral. Mount Calvary provides about 2/3 of the project funding while Cathedral provides the management and the remaining funding. These two churches have been working together for almost 20 years. The Bali Project provides missionaries called Aikakke or the plural Aikakku. These missionaries have bible college diploma as evangelist or catechist. The Catechist have one more year of training. While in Bible school their wives also attend training and will work with the women of the village. The Aikakku are assigned to remote villages in the region around the town of Bali in Taraba State. Currently, there are 23 Aikakku and Pastor Bunduku. Pastor Bunduku reached retirement age in December of 2011. He agreed to continue working for one more year while the Cathedral Bali Committee worked on his replacement. I will now retire at the end of the month. The decision of how to replace him is not  yet complete.

I have always wanted to see if Gashaka-Gumti National Park and Game Reserve would be an alternate to going to Yankari National Park for the people making companion trips. We asked Pastor Bunduku if he had plans for us to visit any Aikakku on Saturday. He did not so we suggested that we go investigate Gashaka-Gumti. The road to the park proved to be worst road of the trip. The 90 kilometer drive took 2 hours (28 miles per hour average).

Along the road Yakubu noticed that the thatch roofs round houses were different than he had ever seen. The sticks that support the thatch was sticking out at the peak like a teepee. When saw a man working on his roof we stopped and photographed him and his wife.


When we arrived in Serti we first saw a sign for the park and turned in. It turned out to be the Staff Quarters for the park. We stopped and asked one man where we should go to find out information about he park and he directed us down the road another kilometer. It turns out he was the director of the park. About two kilometers down the road we found the Camper Lodge. This is where some people will stay outside the park and drive in each day. They had a reception, restaurant, four different types of cabins (most with 1 double bed and a few for drivers with a single bed). The most expensive was only $3,450 ($22). We did not see the rooms. We sat in the restaurant with the manager (David) and discussed the features of the park. We ordered lunch of rice and vegetables with chicken. Then we found out the chicken would take time so we changed to just rice and vegetables. As we were discussing the options for touring the park David suggested that we could take a short hour and 1/2 trip into the park to see some views, some places where anglers come to fish and maybe some animals. This time of day most of the animals have gone back into the shadier bush to get out of the sun. The best time is early morning when the animals come to the river for water. He asked one of the workers to work up a price for a short tour. The price worked out to 3,700 Naira ($24). We thought this was quite reasonable and told the kitchen to add the chicken back into our meals and we would have lunch after we returned. This sign was on the side of the registration building. The tour does not include transportation and giving your guide a little money for his efforts. David put on a Safari vest and become out guide for the afternoon.

The park entrance was a few more kilometers down the road just outside of Serti. The park is actually very large with 6,731 square kilometer. The northern edge starts in Adamawa State with savannah, woodlands and swamps. The Adamawa area has the lions and other savannah species. The center section where we are is higher up and is more open woodlands and savannah woodlands with more primates. About 45 kilometers in is Gashaka Village where there is camping buildings. This is a true camp. You bring in your own food and cook. It is mostly used by researchers, students from all over Nigeria and Europe. Also sports fisherman will base out of the camp and go to various rivers and streams. We will only be going into the park as far as the first Hippo Pool on the Mayo Kam River. As you go further into the park you get into mountains where only there are only jeep paths for the rangers on their anti poaching patrols and foot paths.

 Our first stop after going down a steep valley and having to use 4 wheel drive to get back up the other side was an overlook of the park to the north. From here you can see to the rolling hills of the Gumti sector of the park in Adamawa State.




 Next we stopped at the Mayo Kam River bridge crossing. This wooden bridge is removed before the rainy season and replaced each December. The rains have already begun here but they are few and far between. They will get going in earnest in by late April and early May and continue into November. You can see the remains of the old steel bridge.

A little further up the road we stopped at the first fishing area on the Mayo Kam. The pools are cut through granite. Schools of fish about a foot or more in length can be seen cruising through the shallow waters with larger fish breaking the surface in deeper areas. We spent close to a half hour climbing the granite boulders and moving up stream to more pools. These are the breeding grounds for much of the fish of the rivers feeding the Benue River.

Pastor Buduku found a pothole made by a grinding stone spinning around on the granite. I found the remains of a larger one a few meter further upstream.









We continued upstream to the Hippo pool area. As we drove in we saw a waterbuck but I was too slow with the camera from the wrong side of the truck. At the Hippo pond area of the Mayo Kam River we saw one Hippo we seemed most disinterested in us.

On our way out of the park we had a babbon run across the road in front of us and then a mother with a baby on her back drop out of a tree next to the truck and run away. I caught a picture of the male babbon on the ridge not far from our truck.




Back at the Serti Camp we had lunch and were surprised that it started with a rice and vegetable cream soup, followed by rice with vegetable soup and they had fried up three chickens. There was way too much food. We shared the chicken with David and after they brought out a fruit salad. All of this in addition to the minerals we had earlier and 20 sachets of water we had taken on the tour with us came to only $3710 Naria ($24) for the three of us and we took chicken back to Bali with us.

The Governor and now the Acting Governor have both said that the rebuilding of the road to the park is a priority for Taraba State. If this road is finished this will be a nice destination for visitors to Taraba State. I mentioned earlier that Taraba State the rainy season starts earlier and ends later than in Adamawa. The Parks "Closed Season" is May to mid December. We also found that is true for the Bali Project. By late May and  until early December you cannot visit most of the locations where the Aikakku are posted.

As we entered Bali just as it was getting dark a man on a motorcycle yelled to Yakubu that his tire was flat. The back right tire had hit one too many potholes and the inner tube and given up. We happened to be just in the area where vulcanizers (tire repairmen) were set up. We pulled over and the vulcanizer said put on the spare and he will have our tire ready in the morning. Yakubu looked for the tool to unlock the spare tire from under the truck and remembered that one of the drivers had borrowed it for another truck that was going into the bush and had not returned it. The vulcanizer said he would repair it while we waited.  He pressed a patch onto the tube and then lit a fire a cup on the press and protected the rest of the tire with sand. It took about 20 minutes for the fire to burn out and the press to cool down enough to remove.

I am posting this without reading it a second time. I am on the Church generator power and it will not last much longer tonight. My little generator is about out of fuel. I have three days left.

HIV/AIDS Development Fund, Widows Self Help Training

Today was an interesting day. Extra food continues this week. I will probably put on weight this week. Sunday after the Ordination Ceremony I attended two receptions and had take home food for a couple of day. Tuesday Yakubu was hungry so we stopped at Friendship Cottage Guesthouse for a large plate of spaghetti and fish. Wednesday Pastor Ruth wanted to out to eat so we went to Tastey Menu and I had a big plate of rice and Spanish Chicken. This evening I went out to see what the Widows Self Help group was learning and they were baking corn cakes in a charcoal oven and frying donuts in a pan of peanut oil over a wood fire. (What I call 3 rocks and a pot cooking.) Their training is organized by Devine Comforter's Ministires Intl.

Widows in Nigeria and many other African countries have difficult lifes.  Many tribes to not allow the widows to inherit their husbands estate. Many had never been trained for earning money but only for the life as a wife. Life as an African Women is hard. Go out early to collect fire wood and water. Cook pound some corn or other grain to make a porridge for breakfast. Swipe the sand in their compound and start lunch, wash clothes, help with the planting, etc,.

When a man looses his wife he usually remarries. But widows are not seen as someone to marry. Also many of the widows lost their husbands to HIV/AIDS and themselves have HIV/AIDS.

They are here behind my house. I stopped over to see what they were doing and got to sample their donuts and corn cake. The charcoal stove is hard to regulate the heat and they used too much charcoal. The outside of the corn cake was a "burnt offering". The corn cake is very much like cornbread you get Alabama but a little sweeter and firmer.  The organization is going to donate 10 charcoal stoves to the widows in Northeast Nigeria. Each stove is just under $100 (15,000 Naira). This is a lot on money for these women.The training includes soap making, jewelry making,  cooking and money management.   But when you are worried about where the money will come from to buy food tomorrow, it is hard to think about saving a few Naira to help you make more money in the future.

We discussed the concept used by Heifer Project with animals and farming. That a group 15 to 20 of women would get organized as an association. The would decide who will get the first 5 stoves based on who was most ready operate a baking business. The other women would know who will be 6th and 7th and so on. When the first 5 pay back enough to buy another stove the 6th person gets a stove. When the first six pay back another $100 then the 7th stove is bought. All the women in line for a stove are watching the others and making sure they are paying back the loans and not out buying new wrappers. They were interested in the idea.

The organizers and I were talking and I mentioned my solar cooker. They said the poor widows could not afford a cooker. So I showed them my cooker made from waste boxes and aluminum foil. Tomorrow I will have to put it out and heat up some ramin soup.

Tomorrow they will be making soap. I have never seen the process, except on TV. The Spring of Hope HIV/AIDS Support Group was trained last year but have not been able to raise the money to buy the equipment. They asked me to find them $400 in America. I offered to arrange a Development Loan the Spring of Hope but the women that were doing the soap project wanted a gift that they do not have to repay. I told them that they did not want to start a business they just wanted charity.

Farah James the Director of Spring of Hope told me that they have a development fund that is a rotating loan fund but it is too small for the soap project. They have collected Naira in small bills from members of the group and those who contribute can submit a proposal to a committee to get a loan. If the committee agrees that it is a sound proposal and the member is in good standing then the money is loaned.

 The LCCN Deaf Centre is also talking about starting a development loan fund. So I suggested that Farah get with Pastor Ruth to explain how their fund works. The amount of money is small so they cannot keep it in a bank account. The banks here charge fees for everything you do in your account. You can easily use up much of your money in fees if you only have a few thousand Naira. They have a locked box. The box is in Farah's possession as the custodian of the money. Three other people have the three keys for the three padlocks. To get any money out you need all four people to be present.

Most of my day today I was either working on Yakubu's Visa Application or drawing illustrations for the pump repair class we will have before I leave. Going out to talk with the widows, Farah and getting some free food made for nice breaks in my day.  Drawing in a 95 degree room is a challenge to keep the sweat off of your paper. I bought a student drawing board, a tee-square, and a set of triangles. Now to remember back to my drafting class from 1972. At home I would just do it on CADD and take it to Kinko's to print on their large format printer. This is my sketch to show that the underground geology in this area can be complex and not like the simple drawings in the Lifewater manual we will be using for our class.

It is already past 11 PM and I have probably used more than half a tank of fuel in my little generator. Time to shut down the electricity and hope the Power Holding Company turns on the power tonight so I can sleep under a running ceiling fan.

Drivers License, Deaf Centre and other things

The last few days have been interesting. Sunday was the ordination of two of my friends. Pastor Ruth Ulea is now the first and only Deaf pastor in the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria and Pastor Adama Isa Raymond is going to be an instructor at Bronnum Lutheran Seminary. Adama spent two years at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. At end of her first year she came home and got married. Nine months later her daughter was born in St. Paul. While she is a Minnesotan and has a US Passport she still does not want to get too close to that Batura (White Man).

After the ordination I got in the borrowed Toyota Land Cruiser, Prado and headed for Jimeta with two members of the local Deaf congregation. This is the first time I have called it a congregation. Since there was no pastor I had been referring to Sunday Services at the LCCN Deaf Centre. Now I think I can call it a congregation. The Prado is Yakubu's mechanics car. What a piece Junk. At 60 Km/hr it just about shakes off the road. The brakes are soft and the tires bald and hard. Whenever you brake softly or make and easy turn the wheels squeal like you are pushing it to the limits. The three second rule is more like 6 seconds. But if you have a 6 second gap here it will be filled up with cars immediately. The transmission has to be double clutched for most gears and first has to be jambed in. The radiator cap is missing the internal parts so when the engine heats up the water just boils away. I now carry water with me when I use it. For short trips around town it is ok. This morning I will run to the filling station for get fuel for my generator and a few liters for the Prado. We will probably be giving it back to the mechanic today or tomorrow. Maybe, if we keep it he will actually work on the Land-ota that he has had for over a year.

The past couple of days I should have been making drawings for the pump repair class but instead I have been making a drawing of possible patio modifications for the Deaf Centre to make it a better place to hold services and better as a school.This is just a concept to get conversations started. To the immediate left (west) of the center is a public school pit latrine. The smell is not good. They had proposed a wall to block the smell a little, a new higher and more pitched roof over the existing patio and a gutter system for the existing roof.

I took this a few step further and made a storage room on the west end. I extended the patio to the east end of the building and excavated the east half to make stadium style seating. There are only three levels and they are wide enough for benches and desks for school or two rows of benches on each level for services. Foru services this is about 50% more seating. Currently, the Pastor stand in front of people who are seated on benches at the same level. To read her sign they have to always be looking up. This makes for sore necks. The wall on the east end is to block the morning sun during services. High contrast lighting is also hard for reading sign. Black boards can be installed on both walls for outdoor classes. The roof overlaps the existing building roof and a large gutter is added to the existing roof to take the water to the west and into the existing stormwater culvert. I just thought of one more improvement as I was writing.

Yesterday I drove to the Federal Road Safety Office to get my eyes tested, photographed and digital fingerprints taken for my Drivers License Renewal. The system in concept is good but the implementation is bad. You first go to the internet to start your renewal. They have entered all the old drivers licenses in the system and you just add the new information they are asking for. Then you go to the bank and pay your fee. Take the application and the fee receipt to the Federal Road Safety Office where they verify your information, do the biometric data, and issue you a 60 day temporary renewal. Then in 60 days you go back to the office and pick up your permanent license. That is the concept. The reality is that the website had my name as Edward Johnson Jay. Yakubu's name was Linus Bulama Yakubu and his birthday was also wrong. You cannot change your name or birthday online and once you pay you cannot change it at all. The online instructions is to go the office and they will make changes. I tried to do this but they did not understand and they went online and made me a new application and printed it out for me. I did have one advantage, I went to the head of the queue as a Batura. They printed out a new application for me and I went to the bank and returned. They told me they would process it and to return tomorrow. Of course I was not going to be available so I actually returned a week later. I then went back. I had been approved. The gave me papers to to the next office where the manager, initialed it and sent me back to the first office for the eye test. It is similar to the device we use in Minnesota except it has road signs at the bottom. I could not read any of the characters at the top but they asked about the signs which I could easily read. They gave me an 80% and sent back to the second office. Here he approved again and sent back to the first office to get picture, finger prints and they issued the 60 day renewal. When I leave here in 3 weeks I will give Yakubu my 60 Day license and a letter requesting that he can pick up my permanent license. I did not have to pay anymore than what I deposited at the bank. Three years ago I had to pay cash at the office and had to add an extra 1500 Naira to pay the driving tester not to give me a driving test. This was not my choice. It is what the manager said the extra 1500 was for.

Yakubu was with me at the office to renew his license. The internet network was down so they could not go online and change his information. He will have to return again.

We had the plans for the Demsa Health Clinic Improvements and our next stop was to give them to an estimator to see if his construction costs will be as high as the estimate we got from the Architect that designed the buildings. Yakubu was talking to him as we were driving towards his office. He was out and would return in 30 minutes. About that time we were passing Frieneship Cottage Guest House and Yakubu said we should have lunch there. They have good food but are slow. I got to the Police Barracks Round-About and went all the way around at headed back to the Guest House. Then Yakubu told me we would have lunch after the meeting. But since we were here he would call the man and tell him we would be and hour. When we went into the Guest House Bishop Ben was just signing into a room and the man we were to meet was having lunch in the restaurant. Yakubu explained the project and gave him the plans and Bishop Ben joined us for lunch. He had just been to my house looking for me and to Yakubu's office. Instead we enjoyed the air conditioning and a plate of spaghetti (spicy) and fish. We think they had to go to the river and catch the fish.

Today, I will drive to get fuel for and start drawing illustrations for the pump repair class. At 4 we have a meeting with the Deaf Centre and the Cathedral. With Pastor Ruth now having a call from the Cathedral and the LCCN Deaf Centre under the LCCN Headquaters we have some questions. Some people think that the Diocese will take over responsibility for the Deaf Centre and some do not. Church politics and get messy. Simple things can have complicated relationships.

The Pied Piper in Nigeria. February 14

Garaha Lar

Pastor House 10º 25.5009’N  012º 50.9226’E

Meeting Place 10º 24.4550’N  012º 50.8742’E

BH1   10º 24.3554’N  012º 50.8073’E

BH2   10º 24.5114’N  012º 50.8724’E

Well1   10º 24.5183’N  012º 50.8701’E

Well2   10º 24.4638’N  012º 50.8579’E

Today we are driving north for an initial meeting to introduce the WASH Protocols to the village leaders of  Garaha Lar in Arewa Diocese. Arewa is Hausa for North. Our guide for this trip in the Arewa Diosese the Rt. Rev. Amos Bukata. We met Bishop Amos in Hong and proceeded to Garaha Lar. The road was initially an improved dirt road with areas of wash outs.We turned onto a typical unimproved bush road for another ½ hour or so. On the way in we paused at a village and looked out at a Dispensary building that Arewa Diocese had renovated and will have an opening on March 30^th. Bishop Amos pointed out a bore hole with a hand pump. He said he thought the borehole was good but the pump was broken. I did not take a GPS reading or any pictures as we thought we would be coming back the same way and we would have time to stop. We took another route back.

We arrived at Garaha Lar and asked directions to the Pastor’s home. The Pastor is a senior pastor in the LCCN. I was surprised by how good his English is. Most rural village pastors have little opportunity to practice their English they learned in school and they preach in the local language. He has had many assignments over the years and has chosen to return to his home village. He told us that the community was 99% Christian. Also they had a new borehole drilled by a politician and like many politicians it did not work. 

While we sat in the shade on the porch of the Pastor’s office, Yakubu pointed to the children at the gate and on top of the wall trying to see the White Man. As I approached the gate to snap a picture some of the children disappeared and a few continued to watch me, ready to run.  When I came closer, those that stayed looked away like they were uninterested. When I turned the camera around and showed them the picture they all wanted to have their pictures snapped.

After the Pastor gave us Maltina drinks for refreshment, we walked to a central area of the village where the leaders and others had gathered under a large Neem tree. Bishop Amos gave a quick introduction. Yakubu introduced Adams and me and then explained that we were from the Medical Board Water Department representing the WASH program. The concept that he stressed was that the village must participate in the program and not be a passive receiver of a gift. The water is their water any borehole in their community is their borehole. They will be expected to organize and collect money to help pay for the borehole and continue to collect money to pay for its repair and eventual replacement. After he was through there were some questions and he tried to clarify his remarks. They did not seem satisfied with his clarification. Bishop Amos then spoke for a while, I believe in Kilba the local language of the area. At the conclusion of his remarks the people seemed satisfied. We thanked the people and started our tour with the new politician borehole. 

 

As we were driving to Garaha Lar, I had noticed that the hand pumps had tires attached to them. This is a Kilba tribal area and I have noticed that the Kilba are resourceful and community minded people. Most of the villages are clean and orderly. The plastic bags that litter many villages do not seem to be present in Kilba communities. The design of the India Mark II and III pump handle is such that it bangs against the bottom of the pump head. This eventually, causes damage to the handle or the pump head. The tire is placed to bounce the handle off the tire rather than the pump head.

This borehole was drilled by what Adams calls a “so called” driller. They do not care about getting water and do not understand the proper techniques of drilling and pump installation. The pump was installed in November. They had not cemented the pump stand into the ground. It is already loose. The driller did use a Down The Hole (DTH) hammer to drill in the bedrock. The say that the little water they did get out of the borehole was dirty. The driller had used mud rotary drilling to the bedrock and had not properly flushed the mud out or developed the borehole. This borehole is a candidate deepening with a small DTH hammer. The pump and pump stand can easily be removed and reused on this or a new borehole in the future. 

The difficulty with deepening a bedrock borehole is lining up a large drill rig over the existing hole. A 4 inch diameter borehole with a 3.5 inch bit does not leave much room for error. The large trucks and trailers used here are lined up with no precision. To maneuver and level the rig to ¼ inch precision would be difficult. The second problem is that they do not have DTH hammers and bits small enough to fit through the existing casing. The smallest I have seen here is 5 7/8 inch.

I have been considering this problem for the past few years and had been working in the concept of cable tool drilling that used a heavy bit that is repeatedly dropped to crush the rock. In the granite around here a cable tool would probably drill less than a meter per day. I have recently learned that Lone Star Drill is offering a option for a 3 inch DTH hammer with a 3.5 or 3.75 inch bit with its LS 200 Portable Drill Rig. This portable drill can be more easily aligned with a existing casing. Now I need to find an organization willing to finance a pilot project to purchase and ship the drill rig over to Yola, purchase a truck to transport the rig and purchase a compressor to operate the hammer. All together I am thinking the projects will cost between $100,000 and $120,000 for a one year pilot project. I hope my fellow Nebraska native Warren Buffet, who just bought Heinz and his friend Bill Gates might have a little pocket change for a project this.  I eat Heinz baked beans over here every week and like their canned vegetable salad when I can find it.

 

When the children saw me taking a picture of the hand dug well they decided to give me some perspective. The children following me are multiplying and want to be in every picture. 

After visiting two of the hand dug wells, we went to the other politician borehole. It was also drilled to bed rock and stopped. This driller cleaned the drilling mud out of the hole before installing the screens, casing and the hand pump. The pump appears solidly installed and the borehole produces clear water. Unfortunately most of the water is probably in the weathered bedrock below the level of the pump. After pumping a short time the casing runs dry and they have to stop pumping and wait for the water to re-fill the casing. By the end of the dry season (May or June) it will get worse and worse until they get no water at all. The second problem is that the rod catches on something on the upper part of down stroke. This could indicate several things. The borehole is not vertical, the pump stand is not centered over the borehole, the operating rod joint are catching on the riser pipe joints or there is a problem with the pump head.  If a pump is properly installed the operating rod joints are a minimum of 6 inches above the riser pipe joints. We won’t know what is causing the problem until the pump is removed from the borehole. This pump is also a candidate for deepening but the pump stand is solidly installed and would be difficult to remove without a jack hammer. 

After seeing the second borehole we headed back to the meeting area and the crowd of children had grown.

I stopped under the big Neem tree and sampled some ground nut (peanuts) some women were shelling and purchased what they call pancakes for the ride back to Hong. They taste like pancakes but are greasier and more like large donut holes. I asked for 5 at 20 naira a piece and gave her a 100 naira bill. She put in five and started to give me the bag and then started adding more. I still had three left when we got home.

On our way to Hong we stopped at Wazhimamyi (10º 23.7737’N  012º 56.4102’E). Wazhimanyi is the home village of one of the LCCN Accountants, they have submitted a request a future water project to the Medical Board but had by passed the Bishop. We stopped and the Bishop and Yakubu discussed the project and Yakubu gave the proposal to Bishop Amos to be reviewed by their staff.

Next we stopped at the second Dispensary that the Arewa Diocese has renovated and looked at their well. It needs to be cleaned out and covered with a hand pump installed to keep the water clean. Even with a cover the water should be boiled or filtered before drinking. Household biosand filters would be an appropriate technology here. The problem with biosand filters are the initial cost of the filters. 

As I have said in past blogs. Rural farmers' first priority is to have enough water to live. Their second priority is to the water source close to home so that the time spent fetching water is minimized. Their third priority is having the water clean. Most villages are at the first or second priority stage in their development. More education on Sanitation and Hygiene are needed to move them on to water quality. 

After leaving the dispensary site we noticed a large flock of birds had been spooked out of two large trees. I looked again and realized they were bats. There are no large caves in this area. Bats sleep in the trees.

Clicking on the pictures will make them larger.

 

February 12th, Todi Diocese School and back to Ngbekendiwa

Today's trip was an initial visit to the Todi Diocese to visit their new school site which is has no water source and the fourth trip to Ngbekendiwa ti see how the community is coming at getting organized.

The school is located on the Todi Diocese Secretariat site near Beli. The Secretariat building is a little less than a kilometer from the Numan to Jalingo Road down an unimproved bush road.  The road from Numan to Beli is one of the worst roads in Adamawa State. The 31 kilometer trip takes almost and hour of pot hole dodging. There are lot of signs for the Federal Road Maintenance Agency but not sign of any work being done.

The facility is located on a large plot of land with the Secretariat building at the top of a hill. The three room school building is located about 200 meter from the Secretariat building and 400 meters from the only borehole in the area. When the Secretariat building was built in the late 1990's they had a borehole drilled to a reported depth of 100 meters without hitting water. Or it could be 100 feet and they hit water but never installed any casing. It depends on who you are talking to. I prefer the report from the Archbishop who was the Todi Bishop at the time, that they did not hit water. It could as easily had been drilled to 100 feet. They use both systems here and many times the wrong one is reported. Either is possible here on top of the hill. In 2008 we uncovered the old borehole and found that it had collapsed about 30 feet down.  The Adamawa geological map shows this area as Feldpathic Limestone. The school is not significantly lower than the Secretariat. The borehole is somewhere between 10 and 15 meters lower than school. The general slop is the north towards the Benue and to the west. 

We met with the School Principal and the new Todi Diocese Bishop the Rt. Rev. Clement Dogo. The Principal had contacted the LCCN Medical Board Water Department directly. Yakubu explained that the Water Department WASH program was designed to help communities and that funding was mostly reserved for communities. If a Diocese wants a borehole they are responsible for their own funding. Yakubu can contact various foreign funders but the majority are not doing Church Infrastructure at this time. Yakubu explained that they do not do any work without first having a geo-technical survey performed that would cost 50,000 Naira. The Principal and Bishop told us that they wanted a motorized borehole with an overhead tank. That in the future they plan to build staff housing with water for the staff, the secretariat and the school. They called us back on Wednesday and said they have the 50,000 ready and they want the geologist to come out for the geo-physical survery.

On our way back to the highway we stopped to see the borehole that is on the Diocese property and down hill from the school. The hand pump requires two people to operate it. The staff at the secretariat said they had fixed it several time but they do not use it so they did not know that it was broken. Mostly the local people use the borehole. The staff has tried to get the local people to help pay for the maintenance but they have refused. The indications are that the riser main has come loose and is hanging on the operating rod. What is amazing is that it still pumps a little water. Two people have to pump for a half an hour to get a little flow of water. I suspect the pipe is loose at the connection to the tank and on the down stroke of the handle the full pipe splashed a little water into the pump tank.

Next we headed a short distance down the terrible road and then headed north and east through bush roads that were better than the Federal highway to Ngbekendiwe.

Ngbekendiwe and the former Todi Bishop requested assistance from the WASH Program in 2011. The government and various politicians had drilled 4 or more boreholes in the community and none of them have ever worked.  In 2012 I visited with Yakubu and Adams to see the progress they had made towards organizing the community. They had raised an little money and were working on getting a Certificate of Recognition as a social cooperative in order to open a bank account. 

We met with the Lutheran Pastor, the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) Pastor, members of the committee that was formed in 2011 and a ram behind the Lutheran church. This year they have the Certificate and a little money in the account. Since they want to have a borehole with a solar powered pump, overhead tank and a small distribution system they have to raise a lot more money to meet the criteria of a 10% contribution. A 10% contribution is minimal contribution for a village of this size. In the same amount of time they have raised 50,000 Naira a smaller more rural village raised over 300,000 Naira. Most of the households could easily afford to contribute but they do not see why they should. All the other boreholes were free and did not produce any water. Why should they pay for a borehole that will not produce any water. One man in town had one point surveyed by a geologist and did not find an indication of water. The do not want to contribute to an effort they do not think will work. The Lutheran Pastor who had been working to get this process moving for two years spoke at length with the conclusion that after two years they had not made enough progress they should not continue. The COCIN Pastor argued for some additional time. In the end they agreed on waiting until the end of the month and before making a decision.