Solar Cooker, Canned Hot Dogs and Tomorrow to Dumne

 Hot dogs come in a can here. Refrigeration is not reliable except if you live where you have a good supply of electricity. Those places are few and far between. Since I do not have a regular kitchen I eat a lot of stuff from cans. They sell small cans of baked beans. I cut up a couple of the hotdogs and have beans and winnies. They sell a canned vegetable salad that I mix with a can of tuna fish and make a tuna fish salad sandwiches. It make about three sandwiches. The vegetables include potatoes, carrots, peas and other things. It is a different kind of tuna salad sandwich.

This year I took one box that large water bottles came in and opened it up and taped on some aluminum foil to make my solar cooker. In 2009 I took couple  boxes and cut out an intricate design from the internet for a solar cooker, carefully glued on the foil and it work pretty good. This year I took the simple route and about 15 minutes and made a cooker that may actually work better. The sunniest days have been when we were out somewhere cooking ourselves. Today the sun came out and I decided to move the cooker outside at 2 pm with some Ramon noodle like stuff in it. When I checked it at 3 the noodles were fully cooked and the water was gone I added more water and the spices. Adams showed up and it was time to drive to the shop that was making riser pipes for us to use tomorrow. I brought the cooker inside and later in the evening I had warm noodles.

Tomorrow we head back to Dumne with two vehicles and two pump teams. We are going to try to fix two pumps. The Danish pump that we worked on two weeks ago and did not get it done and the pump that is hard to pump and has little flow. It we are lucky we will get both pumps fixed and will be able to go see the third pump that has been recommended to be replaced.

We spent much of today trying to buy parts for the repair. There are few parts available. Most of the dealers had access to pumps and rods but the riser pipe was hard to find. The dealer we used most often has raised his price to 3000 naira per pipe ($20). Adams is not used to paying this much. His pipe appears to be schedule 40 and is actually 3 meters long. He did not have 10 pipes; Adams made a deal with another dealer and we saved around 20,000 naira. The problem is that he was making his rising main by cutting some lighter weight 6 meter pipe in half and adding threads. When I looked at the pipe I figured out why we have been having trouble with the 3 meter rod joint not matching the 3 meter pipe joints. The 6 meter pipe they are cutting in half to make 3 meter riser pipes are actually 5.8 meters long. So each section of pipe is about 2 inches shorter than the rods. When you get to 10 pipes the rod joint is more than 20 inches up into the pipe. We plan of putting in 14 pipes at the Danish borehole at Dumne. This means the last rod will be misaligned by over 2 feet.. We have a rod that has had about a foot cut off of it that we will use as we reinstall the pipes. We may have to cut the end off of another rod and cut new threads onto the rod. This will make the job a lot harder. in the future we should not use this substandard pipe. We the extra couple bucks to get the right stuff and make the work easier for us and for future repair people.

It is after 8 pm and they just shut down the generator. all the bugs that were flying around the light are on on my laptop screen, in my hair and otherwise being pests. I will not review this post. Until later this weekend, I have 8 days left before I return to Minnesota.

New Google Earth Aerial Photo of the Jimeta Compound

The new aerial photograph on the LCCN Jimeta Compound was taken Sunday December 26, 2010. Church is being held. Click on the picture to enlarge it. The Cathedral Church and primary school is on the west side (left). The LCCN Compound is on the east side. They park their cars on the LCCN Compound during church services.

I am living in the building called Jimeta House. If you want to explore on Google Earth the coordinates are N9.280456, E012.448382. The aerial view is much different than the view on the ground. The trees are tall and most have no branches for the first 10 to 15 feet. When you are on the ground the place looks more open. I can easily see the Deaf Centre from my bedroom window. These trees are called Neem Trees. They are also known as the medicine tree. Almost all parts of the tree is used for some kind of medicine. They are evergreens but with leaves not needles. As one of the few evergreens they are a major shade tree for Africa. They are currently dropping their fruit and seeds. Two women come by every day or two and collect the seeds. They will make Neem Oil from the seeds to sell in the market.

The only open gate is by the church. The LCCN Compound gate is locked except on Sunday. The people I buy water from are on the north side of the compound. They actually get their water from the borehole on the compound. The fill a push cart with12 to 14 20-liter jerry cans (528 to 618 pounds of water) push it around the east side of the compound. Up the hill to the entrance by the church and back down to the house. I try to order water on Sunday when the other gate is open and save them 1/2 of the uphill push. I pay them the going price of 77 cents for 240 liters. Which is much more than we pay in Minnesota.