Last Post Before Returning to Minnesota

Drill Rig at Waya, Bauchi State, Nigeria. Air Hammer into weathered and then solid granite.

Before taking you on my trip to Jos, a quick update on the Banjiram project. The water system operator has reported that once the solar powered system had a full day of sunshine that all the taps at all three sites are working.

After several delays due having problems with money transfers we finally headed for Jos and Waya. Yakubu left first on Friday May 11th. His mission was to continue working with the Jos Church and their mission outreach communities of Gada Biyu and Polchi. He also arranged to have a geophysical survey of the two sites performed. Adams and I waited in Jimeta for the money to get transferred to the driller from the Health Board so he could mobilize his drill rig to Waya in Bauchi State. For various reasons the money transfer was delayed and delayed. The plan was that we would drive to Jos on the first day of drilling so we could be there when they installed the Afridev pump. Adams had never seen an Afridev pump installed and we wanted him to participate in the effort. Yakubu arranged for us to stay at the Sacred Heart Pastoral Centre also known at Bishop's Court. The Nigerian Board of Accountancy is having testing of new accountants in Jos and the Lutheran guesthouse and most every other place was full. He told us to come up on Wednesday May 16th. We got on the road at 6:25 AM and made it to Jos 8 hours later without anything interesting happening. We were stopped by the same Vehicle Inspection Officers that had stopped us during the April trip. We showed them the papers they had given us and they said your papers are good. Most of the Police and Army Check Points waved us through when they saw a Butura (white man) driving.


Thursday morning we could not start the truck, The 80 amp fuse for the cylinder heaters had blown. It took us a while to diagnose the problem. A local mechanic got us started and took us over to his vehicle electric repairman's shop. He wired across the fuze and we gave him money to find and buy a new fuse. They were a little perplexed that we wanted to put a new fuse in. They normally just wire across the fuse and call it good.

We arrived at Waya the next morning to find that they had just started drilling and would not finish the drilling of the first borehole until Friday. We could come back on Saturday for the pump install.

Friday I spent by going to the Mashiah Foundation to buy quilted products and some jewelry from Women of Hope. When I arrived I asked Mary Beth Oyebaye if the health clinic has started operating yet. She said the building was not ready to house a health clinic but they are using it for their school. They have 70 students including the orphans they work with and this year they invited the children from the neighborhood. The have Nursery School up through 9th grade.

 I toured the school and was impressed by how the teachers and kids were interacting. Not the "I talk and you listen" approach that is used in most schools in Nigeria. Then she showed me her pride and joy, the library. It was packed with books. Both reference books for the teacher and lost of books that the kids can check out and take home. Most libraries I had seen at other much larger schools were less well stocked and dusty from not being used. The common belief is that if you let a child take a book home they will not bring it back. So the books are protected from the children.

Vivien with the teacher's reference books behind her.

Saturday, Adams and I went back out to Waya and having to break into the truck because I had locked the keys inside. Fortunately, they were sitting on the passenger seat. We pried the corner of the door open and hooked the keys with a wire. From then on every time we got out of the truck Adams would ask me if I had the keys.


It turns out they were not ready to perform the pump test and install the pump. We went through the procedures they would use to install the pump and went to look at the pump stand they had built. On Monday when we were back in Yola they performed the pump test and installed the pump.The pump test was a short term single rate test. They pumped at 85 liters per minute for 2 hours and never ran out of water. I hand pump will only pump 15 liters per minute. The borehole was drilled through weathered granite into solid granite to a depth of 25 meters.

The drillers were not drilling on the second borehole. They had run out of diesel fuel. They fuel they went and bought had a lot of water in it and was not useable. They were waiting for more fuel from Bauchi.
We left and returned to Jos by noon on Saturday. They started drilling an drilled to solid bedrock. This borehole has a much thicker layer of weathered bedrock and more water than the first borehole. Based on the pump test of the first borehole, either could be converted to use an electric pump rather than a hand pump sometime in the future as Waya grows and they can afford the cost of fuel to run and submersible pump.

After returning to Jos, I went to the Hillcrest School Staff compound to pick up 7 bins of books we had shipped from Minnesota. The books had been collected by members of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church for the students at the Remi Foundation, LCCN Deaf Centre, and the Bronnum Lutheran Seminary. We put two bins in the back seat and tied the other five into the bed of the truck. I was worried about rain and drove around Jos looking for a shop that sold tarps or plastic. I randomly drove down streets filled with all kinds of shops. After about 15 minutes I happened upon a sheet of plastic along the side of the road. It fit over the five bins in the bed of the truck.

I caused myself a lot of stress. I did not fuel up on Saturday night. We were told the diesel in Jos was 170 Naira per liter and in Bauchi it was 165. We thought we had enough fuel to make it to Bauchi but planned to get a few liters before Bauchi. We left at 6:25 on Sunday morning. All the fuel stations were closed. As we got out into the sparsely populated area between Jos and Bauchi it seemed I could see the fuel gauge drop. 20 kilometers outside of Bauchi the needle was below the last mark. I had been driving slow to conserve fuel and was getting a little tense. Ten kilometers outside of Bauchi we came to the first filling station in the past 60 kilometers and they had diesel at 165. We got 50 liters and headed to Gombe for brunch.  The rest of the trip went without incident other than a Highway Patrol Officer who asking us for money for water. I offered him a sachet of water and he laughed and waved us through. Later a young, I think female, Army private asked me what I had for "Baby on Sunday". I looked around the truck and said I had my wish that she have a nice day today. She laughed and waved us throw the check point. Only at two of the check points did the police or army personnel ask what was in the seven boxes.

We arrived at the Jimeta LCCN compound at 2:35 PM. With some help we off loaded the boxes into the house. That evening I sorted the books and set aside one bin of primary school books for the LCCN Deaf Centre. We had not told them about the books. Monday morning I took the bin of books over to them and a note with suggestions on how they should use them. I wrote that books sitting on a shelf does nothing. Books in childrens hands turns into education and encouraged them to designate some of the books the kids can check out over night. The immediate reaction was that the books would never come back. Then Ruth said that she will talk to the parents and will stamp each book with the Deaf Centre stamp. Ruth and the teachers were thrilled. Their little library of the dozen books I brought last year just got looking big.

Mrs. Bongi stopped by with a van and picked up the rest of the books for the Remi Foundation School for the Disabled. Later, Sekenwa Briska from the Seminary stopped by and picked up the Seminary Books. He had recently received his Ph.D from Luther Seminary in St. Paul. He had shipped 75 smaller boxes of books to Ghana through a friend. He was now trying to figure out how he would get them from Ghana to Nigeria.

I drove to the airport today to buy my ticket from Yola to Abuja on Arik Airlines. They had an office in the terminal. The terminal was gone. Torn down and a new terminal was under construction. I went to the IRS airline office and asked them where Arik was.They directed me to a building about a half kilometer away. They and a temporary office. You get your luggage checked there and they drive out out to the plane in a small bus. Wednesday I fly out of Yola at five and out of Abuja at nine. I will be back in Minnesota Thursday morning.