Wednesday Evening 2/18/10

Wednesday Evening 2/18/10 - One day in Lagos and I have burned through almost a half million Naira. I flew from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Lagos. As I waited for Pastor Hossana Yohanna, the Lagos District Pastor to pick me up at the Lagos international airport, I exchanged $100 at 148 Naira to the dollar and then purchased a SIM card and recharge card for my phone. When Pastor Hossana arrived we went to the domestic airport and exchanged more cash at 150N per dollar. I am staying at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral, Vining Guest House. It is near the airport and near to the Lagos Church. They have nice rooms on the top floor of their conference building. Carrying a 50 pound bag up four flights of stairs is tough. Lagos is warm (90’s) and humid. Their rates are very good at 5,500N ($36.33) per night for a large clean room with hot water and an air conditioner that gets the room down into the 80’s. I get 3G on my modem but at 0.15N per kilobyte it is more expensive than the Yola Internet Café. Even with 3G the network was too busy I was able to read and send email but could not connect to facebook or to my blog.


After checking in at the guesthouse we called Unipump to arrange for tomorrow’s visit. Unipump is the only pump manufacturer in Nigeria that I have been able to contact. They are owned by a manufacturer from India and all the senior staff are from India. Since, they were still working we drove 40 minutes to the factory and reviewed prices. I am not a great negotiator, I talked them into a 5% discount off the prices they had emailed me. When Engr. Hygi was entering the discount into his computer he made an error in the equation and it increased the prices. I wanted to spend around 300,000 Naira ($2000) for tool and parts to repair pumps. I had thought I could buy 3 full tool kits and parts to repair 50 pumps. When we put that into the spreadsheet it came to over 500,000N. My sleep deprived brain did not find the error. I did ask him if he was sure and I looked at the spreadsheet. We ended up purchasing 2 tool kits and enough parts for 25 pump repairs at 403,484N. We arranged to come back the next day at pick up the parts.

Engr. Hygi asked us why we were buying parts for the India Mark II and told us that the Nigerian Water Supply Authority and UNICEF has specified that the RUWASU 1 (R1)or RUWASU 2 (R2) should be used in Nigeria. The R1 is basically an India Mark III and the R2 is basically the AFRIDEV pump. They have been modified with PVC riser pipe, stainless steel couplings and a PVC cylinder with brass liner. The main difference is that a local villager can be trained to repair the R1 or R2 pumps with simple tools. The Mark II requires a specially trained mechanic with special tools and two helpers. I agreed with him that the R1 & R2 are better fro rural villages but that only the India Mark II was available on the open market in Adamawa State and therefore we have assumed than most broken pumps were India Mark II’s. Above the ground you cannot tell the Mark II from the RUWASU 1 without lifting off the head and tank. Also, since the RUWASU 1 is more expensive than the Mark II we assumed that the contractors were charging the government for R1’s and installing Mark II’s.

On the way back to the guest house we stopped for fast food. Chicken and rice with a salad at Real Meal Deals near the guest house.