Trip Summary

I was asked to write a Reader's Digest version of my last 2 1/2 months in Nigeria for a newsletter. I figured I would write a summary blog on my last day here. I am mostly packed and ready to head to the airport in about 5 hours. In all this was a successful trip. There were some frustrations. I had delayed my trip a few weeks so I would arrive after the Health Board had there two weeks of administrative training. Their training got delayed two weeks. At the end of the trip there was problems with transferring money to a driller and that delayed the drilling of the Waya borehole to the very end of the trip.

I should introduce myself for those who do not know me. I am Jay Johnson. I am a professional engineer. I am a retired Lt. Colonel from the US Army and Army Reserve. I have traveled extensively in my military and professional careers. Since 2006 I have been traveling to Nigeria annually. The first two trips were short two week visits with the Minneapolis Areas Synod / Global Health Ministries Public Health Evaluation Team. Starting in 2008 I visited by myself for visits of 6 week to 10 weeks. In 2008 my purpose was to start learning the people and culture. I visited all the Dioceses of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria and over 100 villages. This is when I composed my three priorities for village water. 1. A village wants to have enough water to survive. 2. They want the water as close to their village as possible. 3. They want safe water.

The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria is based out of Adamawa State. Adamawa is a rural state in the northeast part of Nigeria on the border with Cameroon. It is mostly savannah. Deforestation is almost complete except in a few preserves and hillsides too steep to farm. They have two seasons. Dry season is from October to June. Rainy season is from June to October. In the southern part of the state the rainy season is longer and in the northern area it is even shorter. In the capital Yola the annual rainfall is about the same as Minneapolis. Except it is concentrated in a short period of time. Farming is mainly a rainy season business. We have had several rainfalls and the countryside is turning green. The vacant farm fields are now busy with people with hoes, or cattle pulling plows and tractors plowing. The sorghum has sprouted in some areas and the maize is being planted. On weekends the people from the cities head to their villages and plant their crops.

My original purpose in coming to Nigeria was to start my retirement career as a non-denominational water, sanitation and development consultant. All of my trips have been centered on clean water and sanitation, but have included work in community development. The three main organizations I work with are the LCCN Health Board Water and Sanitation/Hygiene (WASH) Team, the LCCN Deaf Centre and Spring of Hope HIV/AIDS Support Group. Over 90 percent of my efforts are with clean water.

This trip had a slow start as my main contact Yakubu Bulama the Water Coordinator for the Health Board and Projects Coordinator for the LCCN was working with the Health Board Administrative training for the first two full weeks I was in the country. I spent these weeks setting household in the old mission house on the LCCN Compound and visiting with the Deaf Centre. The guards at the Cathedral Church in the adjoining compound called my house the "falling down house."

 My travels this 10 weeks has probably totaled around 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) by road in public transportation and in LCCN owned vehicles. This was the most dangerous part of my time. Many of the drivers are not licensed. Some went from riding bikes to driving cars. Others drove motorbikes and drive their cars the same way. Few know the rules of the road. When I got my license I paid an extra 1,500 Naira ($10) so I did not have to talk to the driving examiner. The manager just gave me my license and told me that was what the extra money was for. 

Water accomplishments: There are more accomplishments than disappointments. Some of the disappointments are actually accomplishments (or steps towards accomplishments.)  The main two accomplishments were fixing the water distribution system at Banjiram and drilling two productive boreholes at Waya and a third at Polchi. (Waya and Polchi are in Bauchi State and are mission villages of the LCCN churches in Jos, Plateau State). We also were able to go to Timbukum, in the southern part of Adamawa State to start the review of the non-functional solar powered borehole that the Nigerian Government with money from the US Government had installed and never worked. We found that the pump was installed at the very top of the water table. The next phase which will do done after I leave will be to determine if the borehole is deep enough to lower the pump to under the water. We be a preliminary survey of the broken water system at the Government Secondary School in Hong that the PTA had asked for our assistance. In Pella we got to review the large hand dug well near the LCCN Maternity Clinic to determine the possibility and estimated cost to clean out the bottom of the well, cover the well and add a hand or powered pump. This is a highly productive well that has had continuous water for several decades. The water was over 6 feet deep. The hardest part of this project will be to find pumps capable of de-watering the well so the well diggers can enter and remove the several decades of debris that has accumulated.

Disappointments: We performed a geophysical survey of two points in the community around the Sabon Gari B District Church on the edge of Mayo Belwa. The survey indicated that there was not a significant amount of groundwater for a productive borehole at the two locations surveyed. However, there are several productive motorized boreholes operating in the area. The next thing for the community to do is to go to the owners of the productive boreholes and find out how deep they are and if possible measure the static and dynamic water levels. Likewise, the geophysical survey of the area where they want to install a borehole at Gada Biyu in Bauchi State found very little indication of groundwater. We have asked the geologist if an improved hand dug well might be possible. This village may require some more innovative system for obtaining water during the dry season.

Other Work: LCCN Deaf Centre is moving towards being able to serve more of the Deaf Community of Adamawa. Last week the Yola Bishop requested that the paperwork for the Ordination of Ruth Ulea as the first deaf pastor in the LCCN be forwarded to the Jimeta District Church. By tradition a candidate's home district is suppose to call pastors.Ruth's home church is in Arewa Diocese in Hong. They have sat on her application because she does not serve their community and for some other reasons. The LCCN Constitution on specifies that a District Church will call a pastor. In Ruth's case she provides Sunday School and church services in Jimeta and several other locations in the Yola Diocese. We fixed most of the roof leaks in the patio area where Ruth holds Sunday Services and I bought 7 sets of jewelry and some bracelets that some of the women make to support the Centre. They normally sell them for 300 naira in the local market. I talked them into sell them to me for 500 naira. I will be putting them up for bid on a website for a minimum of $10 (1,570 naira) with the profits going back to the Centre. I have started work on some concept designs for improvements to the LCCN Deaf Centre and improvements to the location that Church services are held at until a new church can be located, designed, financed and built. I was able to attend a meeting of the Spring of Hope HIV/AIDS Support Group. A part of the group has been trained in soap making. They only need $400 to buy the molds and ingredients for their first batch of soap. They have test marketed some of the soaps in their home villages and found that market to be more viable than in the more competitive Yola market. I hope to raise the $400 as a micro-loan when I get back to the US. I have made progress on fixing my "falling down house". The main opening that rats and mosquitoes come in through has been screened. There are two major roof problems that are washing away some of the mud bricks in the kitchen wing that will need attention soon or the kitchen wing will fall down. For the first time in the last three trips I have been able to stop and shop at Women of Hope store in Jos. I will be leaving the country broke but I purchased 71,000 naira of their merchandise. It will be for sale at the Mount Calvary Annual Fair Trade Fair the first weekend of November. I have a great tan from the elbows down and since I have driving the last month the left arm is now balanced with my right arm.


I almost forgot. After three years of sitting in Gaye Guyton's living room. The boxes of books that were collected for the Remi Foundation, the books I collected for the Bronnum Lutheran Seminary and the LCCN Deaf Centre arrived in Jos and I picked them up Saturday when we were there for the Waya borehole drilling. They were all distributed on Monday. The Deaf Centre library went from about a dozen books to almost 100. They are considering allowing the students to take some of the books home to read overnight. I have been in locked libraries at schools. Most schools to not have a library at all. The Jimeta Cathedral school has a room in their new expansion designated for a library but does not have books. The culture of reading is very small. Most students only read text books and some have workbooks.

Banjiram Last Visit During This Trip

Crowd at school taps before we added the 3" pipes.

 These are the before pictures. The borehole and tank are at a government secondary school. This is what it was like at the 10 water taps at the school everyday at 3PM when the water was turned on. There are 16 remote taps closer to the home. The flow at the remote taps is very little and does not last long. Most people walk the extra 200 meters to get in line. In a previous blog I discussed my redesign of the distribution system to try to get more water into the system each day and get it out to the village at the remote taps. Those who have followed my since 2009 have heard my three water priorities.

Crowd waiting at the ten taps at the school.

1. Have enough water to live.
2. Have the water close to home so you do not spend as much time fetching.
3. Have good quality of water.

On Thurday and Friday May 3 and 4 we went back to Banjiram to bring them the pipes and parts to improve the performance of the distribution system. The modeling for the re-design of the system starts to work with adding 270 meters of 2-½ inch pipe. It works better with 3 inch. Due to supply and demand currently the 3 inch pipe is cheaper than the 2-½ . I had been told that the buried pipes going out to the remote tap stands were 1-½ inch pipes. We only purchased fittings that would connect the 3 inch to the 1-½ inch. It took most of the morning to get the right pipes and the right lengths onto a truck to transport it out to Banjiram. The 6 meter long pipes that shop was selling were actually 4.92 meters long. We had to measure the pipes and recalculate how much we needed. We now needed 78 of the 4.92 meter pipe and they were still cheaper than the 2-½ inch pipe .

They did not have 1-½ inch tees so they sent out some boys to their other shop to get them. They finally, came back and tossed them in the bag of parts. I should have looked at them. They were 2 inch tees. It really did not matter because the pipe in the ground was actually 1-¼ inch. It also took a long time to get the 78 pipes from his other warehouse and loaded onto a truck. We made sure the driver knew where to go and we headed out at a little after 11. Our trucks had been parked facing each other. He went one way and we headed in the opposite. We had to get fuel and make a stop in Numan to deliver some paperwork to the Health Board Director. We did not know that the truck driver was headed to his house to get a second rack for his truck. He did not like the way the pipes were hanging on back of his truck with only one rack. The pipes showed up about two hours after we got to Banjiram. While we were waiting for him we had the people start digging a wider trench for the pipes and explained to the plumber what we were going to do. He was unconvinced that it would work, The pump in the borehole was only a 1-¼ inch pipe so he reasoned that it was too small to push water through a 3 inch pipe. I tried to explain to him. He just shook his head. He was being paid he will make the connections.

We off loaded the pipes by the tower and when the plumber was ready the men, women and kids all grabbed pipes and took them to the trench. On Thursday we connected assembled and buried all the 3 inch pieces and decided on what parts we needed to finish the work on Friday. We also looked at the existing leaks in the system and made a list of repair parts. We rushed back to Yola and started searching for the parts just before sundown. The shops were trying to close and get home before dark. Most of what we needed were found at the third shop we tried.

Friday morning, Yakubu could not come with us so I was the driver. Adams and I located the final parts and were on the road to Banjiram by 9. We arrived and called the plumber to drive down from Guyuk about 15 kilometers further up the road. Everything went smoothly until we started trying to repair the 20 year old valves and coupling that were leaking. I have to give the plumber credit. He was able to hammer and force these old rusted fittings loose. The leaks were because of the misalignment of the pipes as much as the age of the parts. Some of the old buried pipes had to be moved a few inches. We had hoped to be finished by noon so we could pump some water during peak solar power. We were finally able to get the leaks down to a few minor drips at just after 2 pm. 

Everyone stepped back to let me get a picture of the water.

Five hours of pumping had been missed for the day. The sun was past it peak and there was no water in the tank. Usually the tank is half full when the system is opened. At 2:30 we turned on the water to the distribution system. It now had to fill 260 meters of 3 inch pipes. The North Pipe stand that used to have only 2 of the 8 taps working had good flow at all 8 taps after taking 30 minutes to fill the lines. The South tap stand that usually had 5 taps flowing only had two. We had the women at the North Tap Stand singing and dancing and the women at the South Tap Stand looking for a rope to hang me with. Finally, Adams checked a valve that the operator had told us was wide open and found it was closed. A few minutes after he opened it the South Tap Stand had 4 of the 8 working. It was not late in the day and past the peak solar time. Adams explained to the women that the pump had been off all day as we worked on the system and there was not water in the tank. He told them it will be better tomorrow. (When we would be safely back in Yola.)

The next day as I sat in the LCCN Cathedral in Yola at a wedding ceremony for 5 couples a lady came and sat down next to me. She said "I am from Banjiram. You are a brother of Banjiram." She must live near the North Tap Stand.

Line for water at the artesian flow while we worked.

Night Flow Tank: Before the sun get high enough in the sky to start the pump and after it gets to low for the pump to operate the water in the borehole flows out of a 2 inch pipe welded to the casing. This artesian flow it collected by women from early in the morning until the pump starts and after the pump stops they are fetching late into the night. The operator asked me if there was any way to pipe this flow into the distribution system. I tried to explain to him that the forces underground that is forcing the water up to the surface is barely enough to get it to the surface and since the borehole is at the lowest place in Banjiram the force is not enough to move the water up to the taps. He would come back and ask again and again. I told him that since water only flows by gravity down-hill the water would have to flow into a tank and then be pumped out. We did not time the water flow but estimated it to be 10 liters per minute. For the 16 hours of  no solar power the artesian flow will be around 9600 liters. I have asked some of my geologist and engineer friends to calculate what he flow would be if we could lower the outlet by 4 feet. The first estimate is that it could add as much as 50%. The second response was that it would not be significant. Both from geologist. The civil engineers and mechanical engineers who specialize in fluid flow have not responded yet. I think it is somewhere between. I will have to wait to get to my fluid mechanics books at home. My gut feeling is that it is closer to the Neal’s estimate of 50%. If we can achieve 15 liters per minute we could build a 15, 000 liter underground tank. Purchase a small pump than will lift the water up into the elevated tank every morning and we would have nearly twice as much water to feed the distribution system. Currently, the system is opened only once per day at 3PM until the tank is empty and the pump stops pumping. With the addition of the overnight water the system might be able to be opened twice a day. The other option is to have a hand pump on the overnight tank and people could pump the water anytime they want to.

Concept of the Night Flow Tank

Night Flow with lowered inlet.

Back to Banjiram

Goggle Earth Image of Banjiram and the location of the taps. At the end of the blog is a view wider view.

My idea of by-passing the tank and pressurizing the water line to get water to flow at the remote taps was a little off base We went back to Banjiram last week to check out some details. One of the main items was to find the specifics of the pump data from the pump box. The box is gone. Someone had a use for it so it was taken out of the storage room and the paperwork is gone. Another was to check the actual distances the water had to travel. I was told 75 meter to a junction and then 150 meters in two directions to the remote tap stands. Actually it is 160 meters and 200 meters. These lengths make my idea not feasible except if you wanted to take 10 minutes to fill a 20 liter container.

Tank outlet configuration

 The next thing was to see what was buried underground. Once we had finished digging up the connection of the tank outlet to the remote taps Yukubu showed me the picture he took when they buried them. This is the pipe coming down from the tank outlet. The 2 inch pipe has two elbows to get around the foundation and underground it has a Tee. The right side stays at  2 inches and only goes about 6 meters where it goes into the School Tap Stand.

School Tap Stand with school in background

The school does not want the people from the town coming to the school to fetch water. They have allowed their borehole and tank to be used to supply more people in the village but they built two remote tap stands closer to the homes.

The picture on the left is the North Tap Stand and on the right is the South Tap Stand. You can see the school and the tank in the background of the North Tap Stand. Notice there are pots only lined up at the end two taps at the North and a well worn path to the school. The South Tap Stand has  buckets at all of the taps but mostly on the north end where the water comes in. The North Tap Stand is actually up hill from the school and the south is slightly down hill. We did an experiment and turned off all the taps at the School Tap Stand and we opened the tank. All the taps at the South got water. Only a little water on the North. Based on my hand level I am guessing the North Tap Stand is 2.5 meters higher than the borehole.

The two remote taps stands get little flow when the school tap stand is open. Resulting in people walking to the school every afternoon to fetch water when the tank is opened at 3:30.

I spent much of the weekend and Monday doing manual mathematical modeling of the piping system trying to come up with a solution that will work. There are also village politics involved. My best solution would not work because the farmer who owns the field will only allow one trench through his field. He had to be convinced to even allow one. He has a tractor plow his field. The plastic pipe will not withstand a plow hit.

Here is the solution I am currently proposing. We will still use a new pipe to by-pass the tank and pressurize the pipes with the pump. This should add up to 2 more meters of water pressure. But the 2 1/2 inch by-pass pipe will now continue down the trench along side the existing 1 1/2 inch pipe and go all the way to the north end of the North Tap Stand and connect there. In my models this solution started to work at a 2 inch pipe. But there are several unknowns that I could not put into the model. The exact elevations is one and the capabilities of the pump and pump controller. This was the first time since college I have run mathematical models by hand. Fortunately, I found a website that would calculate pressure drops for me. I several liters of fuel in my little generator while doing it. I ran the calculations for around 10 different combinations of pipes. If someone like me shows up in the future and sees the way this is piped, they will wonder "What kinds of drugs was the this guy on, when he decided to run the pipes like this?".

Just tot he south of this Google Earth Image is the dry river bed where much of the town gets its water by digging.

Banjiram Trip -- March 30th

Tank and people waiting in line for water.

We had expected to leave for Banjiram at around 9 AM but it was closer to Noon before we left. Yakubu drove us to Numan and stopped there for a meeting of the Medical Board Staff. A church driver then drove us on to Banjiram. We arrived fairly late in the afternoon and did not have a long time there. Banjiram is town that was relocated when the Kiri Dam was built. It is the only place I have been to in Nigeria with streets laid out in rectangular blocks.

With only one Tap Stand working effectively, the lines are long.

Last year we visited here several times to try to determine how to get the borehole at the school to produce more water. It is a 300 meter deep borehole that is artesian but produces very little water except when pumped. They have gone through two solar powered pumps and one generator powered pump. Our involvement and Yakubu's on-going efforts has lead to having the solar panels tested, the bad ones removed and the total number increased from 12 to 18 and a new high temperature pump with controller installed. This was a collaboration of the town, the Guyuk Local Government, the school, LCCN Medical Board Water Team and Global Health Ministries. The new pump is producing a lot of water. But the new distribution system is not working and the tank is not filling. These are the main complaints. The distribution system sends water to three tap stands. There is one at the water tower with 10 taps (faucets) and two remote tap stands with 8 taps each. The remote tap stands do not get much water so most of the people walk to the tap stand at the tower and join the long lines.

View from the tower of the 10-tap Tap Stand

I am not sure who decided the sizes and locations of the pipes for the distribution system but they got it backwards.The largest and shortest pipes go the 10 taps at the tank and a smaller and much longer pipe run goes to the 16 remote taps that are at a higher elevation. Almost all of the water goes to the tap stand at the tank. The fix is relatively ease but will not be the optimum design because we are stuck with the pipes already buried in the ground. We are proposing to by-pass the tank and pump the water into the distribution system directly. Also we will add to flow control valves to the tap stand at the tank and to the lower of the two remote tap stands. We will let the tap stand at the highest elevation to determine the system pressure. Adjust the two new control valves until we get approximately the same flow from each tap.

When I proposed this the people said "but you have to fill the tank". To this I said "Why? The tank does not need water the people need the water." They argued that the tank provides the pressure for the system and I argued the tank takes pressure away from the system. That if we directly pressurize the distribution system we will give more pressure to the system and may actually fill the tank from the bottom more than it is currently be filled from the top. So far engineering is winning the arguments over "we have always filled the tank first". In many places they turn off the tap stands to let the tank fill and give less water to the people. The priority for me is to give water to the people not fill the tank. My fix may actually fill more water into the tank than the current system. This is a hard concept to understand.

Collection water at leaking joint.

One other costly fix is to replace all of the taps (faucets) with automatic closing valves (spring loaded). The current taps are turned on wide open all the time. Whether there is a bucket under it or not. Some water is wasted. I am sure that this will create complaints. We have a few other minor fixes (sealants on joints to reduce leaks, etc) and so improvements in sanitation but the main fix is the by-pass pipe, the control valves and the spring loaded taps.