Timbukum Another Government Project That Does Not Work

Timbukum

Our day started early. Yakubu Bulama showed up at a little after 6 AM. He is driving his old Toyota van today. The Health Board is using the Hi-Lux to visit one of the Community Based Public Health Care (CBPHC) sites. They are doing community surveys of the villages around the Bingia and need the four wheel drive truck. We will be headed south to the village of Timbukum. It will be several hours of pothole dodging. The section of road from Mayo Belwa to Ganye is one of the worst in Adamawa. Not as bad as the Lamurda road but much longer. Each way will be nearly 4 hours. Our original plan was to drive down the night before, stop at Dashen Bible College to look at their pump problem. Stay overnight in Ganye and meet with the Bishop in the morning before driving the last hour down to Timbukum. We found out that the Bible College did not have a problem and the Bishop was going to Yola for a meeting. So we decided to make it a long day trip.

Roadside Food Stand

I was up at 5 to shower and make some breakfast. We stopped and got gas, cool water to drink and some engine coolant at a station on the edge of Yola and headed out of town. Yakubu and Adams had not had breakfast. So we stopped at the first village outside of Yola to buy some roadside eats. The lady had fried yams, fried sweat potatoes and bean cakes. We got a small bag of the combination of all three and headed on. Yams here are a large tubular without a lot of taste. 

Yakubu’s van is 16 years old. As you go up hill the temperature rises and as you go down is lowers. We had to stop once on the way there and once on the way back to let it cool down. The mechanics here do not believe in thermostats. Most vehicles have had them removed. They also do not add coolant just straight water. I told Yakubu that the coolant helps the radiator from boiling over. He had purchased some coolant when we stopped for fuel. He added it to the radiator when we stopped the first time. The engine is behind the front seat and the radiator and fan is between the driver and passenger seats

 We passed the Bonotem Bishop in Jada as we were finishing the bad part of the road and he was headed into it. We arrived in Timbukum around 10:15. I went to look at the old pump that was slow to recharge back in 2008 when I last visited here and found it was still slower now. When you stop pumping you can hear the water leaking out of the riser pipes. Yakubu could not find the church chairman but a white man walking around the village drew a crowd. We spent about a half hour talking to the people about the hand pump. Then we got directions to get to the solar powered borehole.

Timbukum is a village north of Toungo in the south end of Adamawa State. At the request of the local church through the Bonotem Bishop the village has requested assistance in finding out why the Millennium Development Goal solar powered borehole and tank does not deliver water. This is one of the government projects that the village did not know about until the driller showed up and started drilling. The borehole, tank and tap stand are located at the government Dispensary. If you click on the picture you will get a larger picture you can see better.

Upon arrival at the pump we could hear the distinctive sound of the pump trying to pump water and air. The people present reported that in the morning they get one or two buckets of water then it only drips all day. It appears that the pump is set at the water table rather than below. We found water at 70 feet with the water level indicator. We shut down the pump and waited a half hour. There was no significant recharge. Also, indicating the pump is set at the top of the water. We decided to pull the pump but discovered that the power cable does not have any slack. It enters the borehole through the cap and is cemented into the concrete base. To lift the cap and pull or add pipes to the pump will require the cable to be cut and additional cable spliced on. We did not have the additional cable or tools to do this work. We could not determine the depth of the borehole without removing the pump.

After listening to the pump I climbed the tower to see how the solar panels were connected to the pump. The wiring job was very professional, with all loose wires secured. The circuit breaker that I turned off at the top of the tank had never been switched off since it was installed in 2008. After switching off the pump I laid under the solar panels waiting to see if there was any recharge. After they determined that there was no significant recharge we decided to pull the pump. As I swung around to climb down the steel ladder I smashed my right shin on something. I climbed on down and then we discovered that we could not pull the pump. So I went back up to turn the pump back on. It did not want to turn back on. Yakubu climbed up with a screw driver and I disassembled the case and cleaned out are the wasp nests and mud wasps nests and still could not get the circuit breaker to stay in the on position. I removed one of the two plastic bars that were holding the two switches together and pushed as hard as I could and it finally clicked into position. We will be leaving with the pump working the same as before. No worse and no better.

Best Case: The best case for this project is that the borehole was drilled to over 100 feet deep and the pump can be lowered into the water by three or more pipe lengths (30 or more feet). Lowering the pump will provide more water above the pump to be pulled into the pump. The pump will draw the water down in the borehole causing the water in the ground to flow into the borehole. Pumps will operate best at a minimum of 3 pipes under the water table in an aquifer that is quick to recharge. In slower recharging aquifers the pump will need to be much deeper. There are indications from the other water sources in the area that this will be a slower recharging aquifer. If the pump can be lowered then a water level probe needs to be added to the pump to switch the pump off when the water level starts to reach the inlet to the pump. This will create a non continuous flow but will increase the pump life. Pumping air is not good for a pump.

Worst Case: The borehole is drilled to less than 100 feet and less than three pipes can be added. A new borehole will need to be drilled. The first step in this process will be to perform a geophysical survey of the area to determine the apparent depth to water and the thickness of the water. Unfortunately, the location of the tank tends to restrict the location of the borehole to a reasonable distance to the tank for pumping and electrical wiring. Based on a short review of the general geology of the area it is anticipated that the borehole will be drilled through a shallow layer of overburden and into weathered and hopefully fractured basalt or other volcanic formation. The area is shown on some maps as recent volcanic activity. Recent in geological time scale. If this is true than it is possible that below the volcanic formation can be layers of formations which could be contain significant water. Drilling through the assumed volcanic layer will be quite costly. The geophysical survey will provide a more accurate estimation of the hydrogeology of the area. Since the village never requested or were not consulted about the borehole they do not feel it is their borehole. They may not be willing to spend much money to fix the situation.

We left Timbukum around 1 pm and headed to Dashen Bible College. Earlier as we had crossed a bridge we saw some boys in the middle of the walkway of the bridge selling mangos. We stopped and bought mangos. The were selling them at 10 Naira each. Fresh and tree ripened. We each washed one off and eat as we drove to the Bible College.

Dashen Bible College provides education to Evangelist and Catechists and also has a Secondary School. They have posted some of the highest scores on their various levels of exams in all of Adamawa. Their PTA had raised money and drilled a borehole on the school grounds. They had not consulted with the WASH Team and hired a driller without doing any geophysical survey. The borehole was successful but they had some problems with the pump. Back in February the principal had asked Gary of Global Health Ministries for some help. This was the first chance that the WASH Team had to come down this way. In the mean time the pump had been repaired. 

 

After a short visit we headed back towards Jada. We drove around Jada looking for a place to eat. None of the spots we found looked to clean. We headed back out of town when I spotted a small spot with cooking pots out front. It was a two table restaurant. The kitchen is at entrance. That is Yakubu's van out parked outside. They had pounded rice with sauce or vegetables. I had the red sauce with a couple bits of beef and a almost cool Pepsi. The even had spoons, forks and knives in a basket at the table. We were not in Numan. (That is a story from last years blog. Eating at a restaurant in Numan we asked for a spoon and knife and the waitress said “This is Numan.” )

 We also had time to stop in Mayo Belwa to see the pump that we have been working with for the last three years. It appears to have a broken rod. There is a rather long story about this pump, bad driller, followed by bad driller, and then the water committee chairman making off with the funds. The use is so heavy on the pump that it tends to break a lot. There may be an alignment problem The second bad driller had trouble aligning the pump over the borehole and ended up taking a cutting torch to the tank to make it fit. Then kids through rocks through the opening and jammed the pump. This year the rod is broken. I would not be surprised to find debris in the pump again. I think they need a new tank and head. The profits from the 2008 fair trade sale at Mount Calvary were used to support this project. Part of the stolen money.

In all we had a successful day. I am fairly confident of our findings in Timbukum and it is now three days later and I have not gotten sick from the roadside meals. I no longer limp and the shin only hurts when I twist the knee.