Counting the Cost

Wal-Mart seems a million miles away. The ease of walking into Home Depot and purchasing sheet rock, shingles, or tile fades like a distant memory. Everything in Nigeria is negotiable. There are no set prices except for “supermarkets” (one room dry-goods shops). The bottom line: the Nigerian customer is always judged by what they can pay not the value of the items to be purchased.

The research into the expenditures of drilling a bore hole (well) in northern Nigeria easily explain the lack of bore holes: commercial drillers estimate based on the customer’s pocket not the merit of the service to be rendered. Our first question into the bore hole maze surrounded the options available in pumping water from the depth of the first aquifer: hand-pump, gasoline generator, diesel generator, solar-power, wind-power. At the first committee meeting of the believers interested in a bore hole being drilled at our farm, one thing stood out: the idea of using a hand-pump in Maiduguri was comical. Then, Jen and I had horrifying anticipations of most of our financial resources being siphoned off into gasoline and diesel generators. Therefore, the sight of some solar-powered street lights began to give us hope that this was our best alternative for a bore hole pump.

However, when Jen and I looked into solar power as an option for electrical supply in our home, the cost was an outrageous $40K. An elder in Abuja working with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Water Resources encouraged us to approach the Chad Basin Development Authority. After multiple visits to the offices of Chad Basin, we could merely receive an oral estimate on a solar-powered bore hole for $45K. A brother in Maiduguri thought he had friends in high places with the Borno State Ministry of Water. His visit to the state office of water resources yielded an estimate of $40K.

After these frustrating encounters, the fog was lifted through the intervention of Mac Safley, an agri-engineer from the University of North Carolina consulting with Healing Hands. As he sorted through our labyrinth of bore hole options, he asked a simple question: why not use Schedule 40 PVC pipe instead of stainless steel pipe? As it turned out, Mac further revealed that this would not be “stainless” but galvanized steel pipe anyway. This significantly reduced our cost into the $28K range out of the outrageous $40K zone. Bolstered by Mac’s ability to critique the current bore hole proposals in front of us, we felt confident to finalize our plans.

At our first drip irrigation workshop, one of our Borno State government participants, Ibrahim Ngamdu, vowed to help us with our solar-powered bore hole. Ibrahim offered the name and telephone information for Kunduli Mustapha, a solar engineer at the University of Maiduguri, who had drilled 4 bore holes in the state. We were duly impressed when Kunduli thoroughly read all of the information from Mac Safley and designed a solar well for our needs. In northern Nigeria, the proverb “It’s not what you know, but who you know” applies in a market of little supply and tremendous demand. May our ears be sensitive to the One who grants all wisdom as we interact with the good, the bad, and the underhanded.