Pictures From This Week March 19 to 26

This week has been a week of setting up the house and a lot of walking. I have walked to the Market most days.

The Harmattan dust has gotten light enough for me to use the sun. My 2011 solar cooker was still in the house. I brewed a liter and a half of tea while I fixed, washed and sun dried some cylinders for the India Mark II hand pumps.

Reconstruction continues at the Cathedral. They are about finished with the new ceiling tiles, then the electrical. The main setback is the new windows. They want to be able to have Easter service in the Cathedral. They can finish most things but the windows. We will see in less than two weeks.

The brass and percussion sections of the Boys & Girls Brigade Band continues to practice at the side and  back of my house. I tried to upload a video of the percussion section but is does not appear.

One morning on the way to shop I saw a bunch of kids playing in the pews. I gathered them up at the back pews for a picture. As I was about to take the picture the tall boy sees us, comes running up to get in the picture and yelled "Wait Grandpa". What I wish I could do is get a video of the kids looking at the picture in the camera.

 Sunday the Cathedral Bells started ringing at 6AM. The Boys Brigade post guards at the entrances and on the roof of the toilets from my point of view he is standing on the canopies. The Youth Band started singing greeting songs a little before 8 AM. The crowd moved in for the next hour. The service started around 8:15. This is a combined English & Hausa service. There will be little English. Also today representatives of the Christian Pilgrims Commission have come to talk about the Federal Government decision to stop paying for pilgrims. Last year over 20,000 Nigerian Christian Pilgrims went to the Holy Lands. They fill chartered planes for the trip. One person told me they thought the costs was something like $500 per person. Archbishop Babba who is a member of the Commission made the announcement. Being a pastor he took about 1/2 hour and being the funny person he is he had the crowd laughing. He encouraged the church to collect their own money and send some of the leaders or elders or pastors to the Holy Lands each year. My thoughts were to not support the people with the ability to support themselves but to send regular members and youth. The youth are the future of the church.

After the Commission the Yola Diocese Bishop installed the new District Pastor for the Jimeta District. Rev. Raymond Edwards. He is not the pastor at the Cathedral. The choir had a special song for the day and the Women's Fellowship had a song. The sermon started around 9:30 and Communion started around 10:15. Of the around 3500 people there many had left after the offering and maybe 2000 thousand were left for communion. The Pastor told them to be orderly and that not everyone can be first. So a majority jumped up into the aisles to get in line. They had several extra pastors present so they had three lines. I went back to the house for water and discovered that the power was on. I quickly plugged in all my electronics for recharging. Then went back to get in line. The service ended a little after 11 and so did the power.

On Saturday Yakubu, Teresa, the trainers from Kenya and I went to the market. I showed Yakubu the propane burner I wanted. He went to a vendor and got him down to 3500 naira. As of Saturday I had an empty propane burner. Monday Adams and I were to go to the Yola Diocese Bishop's new quarters to measure the depth of the water and depth of the borehole. Adams had to go to a government meeting on his pension. The government is trying to clear the roles of the deceased pensioners. The Diocese sent a bus (van) to pick me up. I got stuck in the sand  by the house. They gathered guards and everyone else and pushed it out.

Unfortunately, the diocese had not asked Yakubu and Adams to be involved with choosing the driller or making sure the borehole was properly drill. It was drilled on a slant and I had a hard time getting a weighted tape measure down to the water. We have no idea the depth of the borehole. Today (Tuesday) we are suppose to pump test the borehole. I think we may not be able to accomplish this until we find out how deep it is. On our way back, we stopped and a cooking gas peddlers shop and filled the tank. He saw me and said 2000 Naira. I told him we will go to the market and fill it for 1500. He took the tank and filled it. Then he asked for 200 more. I gave him 100 more and he was happy.

Cooked chicken noodles on the new stove. Last night and this morning I will have my first hot oat meal breakfast.

Power lasted this morning from 4:15 to 7:05 enough time to reduce the pictures, upload them and write this post. I am going to publish it unedited. I edited it Tuesday night. There were not too many typos I found.