Hong, Large concrete tank on rock outcrop on the right and small red tank.

This week has been busy. Monday and Tuesday was planning for Thursday and Friday. We were suppose to get all the parts needed for Thursday to install the improvements I designed for Banjiram. But we ran into problems and got nothing actually purchased. Wednesday we headed to Hong and Pella up north and east of Jimeta. I wanted to cancel the trip and concentrate on getting ready for Banjiram. I am now glad we did not.

Adams showing Gamakesa the old hand dug well

Hong. Hong is the seat of the Hong Local Government Area. The Government Secondary School PTA has asked us to advise them on improving the water from their borehole and improve their distribution system. Adams has gone up and flushed the borehole and had the electric pump repaired and tested. Yakubu now wants to see the distribution system. They assume it is no good after being in the ground for forty years.Nobody knows where the pipes are, sizes or anything other than there are two tanks. The original tank was  built by the Lutherans up on a large rock outcropping on the side of the hill. It was filled from a large hand dug well. The hand dug well was in a building that has now fallen down. Adams and the drillers thought it was an old borehole until they started digging it out and discovered the old well. A smaller tank was built when the borehole was added. Most of the teachers and principals are new and have little information.

Gamakesa on top of old concrete tank

This is a little unusual project. It is for improvements to a government facility. But many of the students are Christians and Lutherans. Also Gary Sande who works as the Nigerian Coordinator for Global Health Ministries was the missionary that started the school back in the 1960’s. People still talk about Mr. Gary and his Volkswagen Beetle bouncing down the roads. (I claim literary license on the validity of these statements about Gary and his Beetle.)

Hong GSS borehole

We found the 6 inch borehole with steel casing to be 77 feet deep with water at 19 feet. It was reported the when the pump runs the borehole will run out of water. They you have to stop the pump and wait for the water to return. But, no one that was there had been at the school when the pump was running.Everyone is assuming that the existing pipes in the ground are leaking. No one has been at the school since the pump quit working a long time ago. The pipe could be good. One problem is that it is all galvanized. Which means that zinc can leach out. A part of me is hoping that when a leak test is run that it will show leaks and we can install some heavy duty PVC pipe. When I started asking question about how they wanted to improve the system they had not yet thought about what they want to do with the water when the rebuilt pump is installed. I asked a few leading questions to get them thinking. I will need to sit and think a while to determine the series of questions that they need to consider before a distribution system is designed. 

Maspalma Samson explaining resistance survey.

After we had finished I decided to go back to the borehole and see how much my altimeter on my new GPS and changed in the hour since I took the first reading (2 meters). While I was taking the reading a young man in a red vest came up and introduced himself. Maspalma Samson is a geologist with the Nigerian Geological Survey who was from Pella and has lived in Hong. He has mapped and entered the geology of the area in GIS systems. He was here collecting water samples for his Masters in Environmental Science. He had heard we were coming to the area when he had been in Pella collecting samples. I called to Yakubu and Adams to come back under the tree. They were headed back to the Admin Building to have a look at the pump and were in a hurry to get finished and on the next task. I introduced them and after a half hour of conversations, exchanges of emails and phone numbers we were on our way to find old people.

Mølgaard's cook with wife, son and daughter, approx. 1977

Picture: Elisabeth Holtegaard, whose car we had borrowed to make this trip, had given us a picture of a man and his wife who was believed to have lived in Hong. The man had been a cook for various Danish Missionaries. When Elisabeth had told them she had meet the wife a few years ago at the LCCN Annual Convention they wanted to thank her for all the help she and her husband provided many years ago. They collected some money and gave it to Elisabeth to give to her or if she had passed on to her family. I thought we were on a Fool’s Errand. We found man who knew where some of the elders sit under a Neem tree in the afternoon. None of them recognized the picture. 

Pella: Our mission in Pella is to estimate the cost to clean out, cover and install a hand pump on the old hand dug well near the Maternity clinic. We had brought Gamakesa with us. He is the expert on well digging. As we drove into town on the new road we decided to first go to the Bible College where we had installed a pump in 2009. They were happy to see us and told us the pump was working good. We pumped the handle once and water started flowing. They had planted a little garden at the end of the waste trough to use the spilled water. When we went back to the car I saw this motorcycle wheel with some strips of tire tubing going to a little wheel in a mud housing. I asked what was? It is the blower for the forge for the black smith. They had taken a fan wheel out of something and formed a fan housing out of clay. It was still wet but they spun the wheel and air blew out of the little hole by the ground. This is the smallest forge I have ever seen.

Blower for the Blacksmith forge.

They gave us some groundnuts (peanuts) for a snack. Gamakesa told me they did not have a NAFDAC number. I guess most of the white people he had been working with only ate things approved by the Nigerian version of our FDA. At first the joke as lost on me. I had been eating local food for several years now. We thanked them for the snack and went back to the main part of town.

It only took us a few minutes to determine that the 4 foot diameter well was 21.85 meters down to the water and the water was 2.3 meters deep. As far and anyone knew well has never been cleaned. There could be another 2 meters of buckets, bags, rocks kids tossed in and whatever from last 40 years. Gamakesa thinks it will take 7 days to get cleaned out if he can find pumps powerful enough keep the water pumped down so the workers can dig.

As we were about to leave Helena the Nurse Mid-Wife in charge of the maternity clinic talked us into staying and having some coffee. She said the water was hot and ready. We sat under a mango tree and I commented that it was too bad that the ripe mangos were so high. A little while later we saw some kids with a long stick knocking down the few remaining ripe mango. They brought over a pot filled with mangos. Helena washed them with salt water and we ate fresh mangos. We showed Helena and others the picture of the couple we were looking for and she and everyone else said they did not know her. About then the local Pastor came up to great us. We offered him a mango but he was on his way to meet with the chief at his palace. We showed him the picture. He took one look and said he had been with them when he was in Jos. She is now a member at the Gombi Cathedral. They will be able to find her there. She is old but still very lively. Amazed we thanked him and Helena and headed for Gombi which on our way back to Jimeta anyway.

Cook's wife at Gombi Cathedral

Gombi. Gombi is the home of the Shall Holma Diocese. The Gombi Church is now there Cathedral. It is only a kilometer out of our way. We parked outside the gate because the Boy Brigade was practicing and no cars were allowed in. I told them I would guard the car so they can go into and ask questions without having to explain why they have a white man with them. As I was sitting on a large tree root an older lady walked up and went through the gate. It was the lady they were looking for. She was coming for Wednesday evening bible study. Yakubu explained to her that Elisabeth Holtegaard wanted to see her and gave her money to come to Jimeta. If we had not stopped for coffee with Helena we would not have met the pastor and the lady. If I had not decided to go back to the borehole for a second measurement we would not have met the geologist with knowledge to the area that could be of great help to us in the future.

Cook's wife and her son in Jimeta

On Thursday while we were in Bamjiram the lady came to Jimeta to visit Elisabeth with her son that is shown in the picture. She brought along pictures of all her children for Elisabeth to take back to her friends in Denmark