Obama and bongo drums

Wednesday July 1, 2009

We had light work today. We turned off the valves at the catchment and aeration chamber. We noticed that the valve at the aeration chamber was also cracked and leaking. However, the water flowing into the aeration chamber was now perfectly clear. In the afternoon we had a meeting and dinner scheduled with Barack Obama himself. I should clarify. One man in Bakassi is known as Obama and he invited us for dinner at 4:00. (see picture at left) We talked to him, his father, and other guests for quite some time. But, no food showed up on the table. At 5:30, we gave up on getting dinner and headed to the chairman’s to discuss the community work scheduled for tomorrow.

Thursday July 2, 2009

The end is in sight. All but two quarters completed their backfilling. Bakassi quarter helped Mark fill sandbags at the catchment instead of backfilling. Melima quarter didn’t show up at all for some reason. Nobody seemed to want to work today. I did my fair share of backfilling along the line. We also helped dig a trench for the overflow pipe at the aeration chamber. Workers were trying to leave for home as early as 8:00 AM. I almost had to pull teeth to get Carrefour quarter to fill sandbags for the stream crossing. I probably carried hundreds of pounds of gravel 100 m in order to fill the bags. It took some time, but the bags eventually spanned the stream and will protect the pipe from damage.

Josephat the hardware man stopped by the house to tell us he would be getting all new valves to lessen the chance that any others crack. Tomorrow the plumber will replace them and finish all his work at the storage tanks so we can turn on the flow for the full line. TK came by to take me to my first bongo drum lesson. It was at the huge Presbyterian Church in the village. I learned a few basic beats, but it was much more difficult than I expected. TK and I hope that with a couple more sessions, I’ll be able to play with his singing group at the going away celebration.

Friday July 3, 2009

Our project is essentially finished. We followed the plumber along the line and replaced all the valves. On our way back to town, we taught four villagers how to maintain the system and operate all the components. The four men have worked with us consistently for many days. Mr. Linus, Mr. Peter, Mr. Moses, and T.O. were excellent choices for maintaining the line. We also measured the flowrate at the aeration chamber. With a flow of about 0.6 L/s the tanks will take about 30 hours to fill completely. We turned on the water at the storage tanks and heard the sweet sound of water splashing to the bottom. It was very satisfying to realize our mission was accomplished. We managed to bring water to the tanks in less than five weeks. However, today was also bittersweet as I recognized that our time in Boa is now very short.

The interquarter football cup begins on Sunday. We were asked to play for our quarter’s squad, Dibamba FC. Tonight we attended the organizational meeting across the street. The team is very well organized with about eight different management positions within the club. After quite a few speeches, Mark was asked to speak. We had decided to give Dibamba one set of Wheeling Jesuit jerseys (called mayos in Pidgin, thanks K-Man). When Mark made the announcement, the whole place went crazy. Everyone was jumping up and down and shouting the team’s chant, “Dibamba…show dem!” Brian and I were also required to make an inspirational speech each. After looking at the schedule, it doesn’t appear that we will be able to play any matches with Dibamba. We’ll try to find another way into the tournament.

Left: A large pile of ripe cocoa pods. Most villagers make a living selling cocoa beans.