Day off...

Six of us spent 5.5 hours on the "road" today to look at the next two villages on our list. They are maybe 1km apart and an hour past the village we visited last week.

The path to these villages is what I was hoping to see over here. Full canopied forests with intact streams and very small confined roads that are still almost smooth in sections because of the low volumn of traffic traveling in these areas. It was great. We got out to look at a stream crossing and heard a bunch of birds that you usually only hear at the zoo.

The lead levels were between 1000ppm and 5000ppm with some areas around the grinding sites near 20000ppm. Five kids died in that one compound alone.

So we have our work cut our for us. The road kicked our butts and we are all very tired.



It's Getting Dusty

Yesterday morning we woke up to this distant haze. It almost looked like fog on the horizon. Someone explained to me that there are three seasons here - wet, hot, and dusty. Now I am noticing a fine layer of dust covering everything. What is odd is that there is no wind.  

Yesterday was my last day in the village I was working in. Today we are headed to a new village most of us haven't seen to site a landfill. This new village is a long way away and could take 3 to 4 hours to get to. We don't know and estimates given by the people helping us are usually off pretty significantly.

Everyone who had left earlier in the week came back last night so it was nice to see everyone again. Work in that far village is underway and should wrap up in two weeks. 

We are expecting some new arrivals this coming week. Whenever someone new arrives it is like Christmas because they bring us new supplies.  

Others are staying in the compound to finish writing the report for the first village which was done in July and August. The results of the remediation work are good in that levels are reduced but some compounds resumed ore processing after we left.

Days in Africa

It sort of hit me again today that I am in Africa. White men are called baturi. White women are called baturia. That is one way I know when the villagers are talking about us or are trying to get our attention.

This village I am working in is really a nice place. The fields are planned for multiple crops growing at the same time. From what I understand, they plant the millet and the guinea corn at the same time. Then the millet is harvested and the beans are planted. Then the beans are harvested and then the guinea corn is last. They grow rice during the wet season in the same fields as other crops like beans during the not-so-wet season. They do apply fertilizer about three or four times a year and I have seen pesticides and herbicides being applied too, but there aren't any tractors around that I have seen, so it is all done manually. I learned today that guinea corn is stored unprocessed in the silos. If it is unprocessed, then the ants can't get it and it can last up to three or four years.

As far as work, I shot a lot of soil in areas where ore processing occurred. One area right outside of a large compound had levels around 60000ppm. The kids were playing in the area and that same grinder which was grinding ore is now grinding food. There isn't a word for lead in Hausa, so we use "guba" which means poison. Unfortunately that one word coming from a baturi does not make a lot of sense to the villagers so I have to call in our interpreter to inform the head of the household.

Our interpreter...he is an amazing man who understands the problem of lead, cares for the people and kids of the village and can see how to fix the problem. We are all thankful for his talents and hopeful for his future.

Anyway, the landfill is complete, the clean soil piles will all be placed tonight, and the road will be built up adequately for the trucks to haul contaminated waste to the landfills. After that the excavator and the tipper will head to a large village on the way to the next two small villages which we will begin work on next week. Both the excavator and tipper driver are very talented. The excavator has a particular fondness for knocking over trees. These landfills at 30m by 10m by 5m deep and so any tree in the vicinity is taken out. It was actually comical on the placement of the previous landfill...we wanted to position the landfill to be able to keep the trees and the Nigerian interpreter was getting frustrated at us because we didn't understand that everybody else wanted the trees knocked down so they could use the wood for fuel or for other things. So down the trees went and in went the landfill right where the trees were.

We will be done with our part at this village tomorrow and heading to another on Sunday to site the landfill. Our commute time will triple on roads that are very rough. I know many people who love the rough muddy roads over here. To be honest I am getting tired of that part of this work but the landscape has its own beauty which makes each trip worth it. I have a favorite tree here but I don't even know what it is called.

We are down to four people in the compound from ten. The others kicked off cleanup in a village to the west and they are staging out at a larger village in that area. By the time we are done there will be about seven villages that will have been cleaned up with hopes of a third phase to clean up a village larger than all seven of these villages combined.

Progress and Setbacks

To continue with last night’s goings on, the guy was indeed stung by a scorpion. He is doing well but feeling nauseas from the painkillers that he was given. The pain from the sting traveled up his leg very quickly and made it to his lower chest before the meds kicked in. He is hoping to get back out in the field tomorrow morning.

It isn't his fault at all, but some things in the village he was assigned to slowed down significantly.  In particular, the truck used for disposal was having mechanical problems later in the afternoon which means that about 200 bags of lead contaminated soil were left in the village instead of being taken to the landfill. Some of the young men on the disposal crew promised to guard the bags overnight to keep the kids from playing on them. The village chief was also notified so hopefully word will spread and the kids will stay off the bags. Another problem was the heat. XRFs don't like the heat over here and our blue ice in padded coolers only stay cool until about lunch time. So getting 260 soil shots in one day is a challenge.

The village I worked in today saw some progress. The exterior maps are fixed and I will shoot soil in those areas to confirm the data we already have and to find the extent of the contaminated soils. The interiors went very well, too. However, many of the compounds in this village are very large and very contaminated, so mapping goes slow in those compounds. All in all, no hiccups.

The first landfill, which turned into a swimming pool, was filled in this morning. The second landfill is in good condition but is not deep enough for all the contaminated soil. So we have a third landfill which is big and dry but the only access to it is not suitable for heavy loads. In fact, the area we have to drive through to get to that landfill is used as a rice paddy. So now we have to build a road.

The drive out to this village is between an hour and an hour and a half. The road is not really a road so much as it is path. In fact, the excavator tracked into the village about 12km and fixed three stream/river crossings so that we wouldn't have to walk 1km from the last river...

One the trip back from that village a man from another village stopped us to say that his village did ore processing and had sick children too. We are planning to stop there tomorrow to do a few shots with the XRF. If it is hot, then it will be another village to add to the list.

Things are great as far as the work. The villagers are very kind and the kids are amazing. Lots of laughter.

Fixing Site Maps

We made it out to the village this morning. There was very little rain in the village compared to where our compound is located. So the landfill we were worried about will work. However that landfill will not hold all of the lead contaminated waste so we will have the excavation crew build another landfill at a different location.

We are still mapping the village and remediation is not expected to start until next Tuesday so we still have some time. Another crew had previously mapped the exterior locations but the sketches on those maps were inadequate so I spent much of my day sketching the areas that need excavation and new soil.  Some of the readings in these exterior areas are pushing 60000ppm.

So it was a day of wandering around trying identify what areas were what and what useful information could be of use in developing new maps. I am pretty sure that most of the villagers thought I was lost or crazy...

Many of the exterior areas are under trees and near wells like the one in this picture.

The excavator started loading piles of dirt from the contaminated pond site into the tipper (dump truck) which promptly got stuck so we called off that operation. This picture shows the tight quarters through which the excavator has to travel.

Really it was a productive day. The female team mapped out about six compounds today so that brings us to over half done with all mapping.

On another subject, someone may have just been stung by a scorpion. We called MSF who is just down the road so he will be in good hands.

Compound Life

There was so much rain last night that we didn't go out in the field
at all today. You can't shoot soil with the XRF when it is wet and you
can't really get to the villages when the roads are wet. So we stayed
in the compound and had a meeting. Everything is on track but our
primary person, the man with the gray beard, is leaving tomorrow. As
far as the stakeholders in Nigeria are concerned, he is the project
and we all work under his direction.

After the meeting we got to work on the data. We have five XRF's and
shoot six days a week. So that means a lot of data to work with. We
have aerials of all the villages which we use to trace maps of each
village and color code the compounds into four categories. Less than
500 is no work. 500 to 1000 is new dirt. 1000 to 5000 is priority
excavate and bring in new soil. Over 5000 is high priority excavate
and bring in new soil. To make things more interesting we have to find
clean areas to dump piles of clean dirt for staging for putting new
dirt in the compounds. The new dirt usually comes from the vicinity or
the landfill which is tested prior to and during excavation to make
sure it is clean.

So part of the data work today is making sure the maps are accurate.
We have managers which we use from the ministry of the environment
locally to head up the excavation crews. They use our maps to direct
the crews of local villagers to actually do the work.

In two weeks time. We will have gone from about 40 workers in one
village to about 200 workers covering three villages.

It is a large project to say the least. Right now we aren't sure what
the weather will do tonight. We will have to wait and see if we can
make it to the villages tomorrow.   The other is the food shelf in the
kitchen.

This is the building with the restrooms and showers and kitchen.

The food shelf in the kitchen.

It's raining

We may be shut down tomorrow if the rain doesn't let up soon. A
trackhoe began digging a landfill pit this morning. When we arrived,
we determined that there was too much water there so we moved the
location to another area. We were going to make the final call on that
location tomorrow morning to see if too much water is seeping in, but
now it is raining and we won't know how much is seeping in. The pits
are about 30 meters long by 10 meters wide by 5 meters deep.

The village is not completely mapped so one team spent time going into
compounds to shoot soil in each area/room in the compound. We had
hoped to shoot the exterior areas but didn't get to that because of
the landfill issues.

There is an area of this village with about 250 cubic yards of
processed or waste which tests at about 7 percent lead.
The people in this village were very nice. Well, everybody is nice
but this place seemed happier and more personable.

The road to this village is about 30 km or so away but it takes an
hour and a half to get there. Luckily none of us get car sick.

Lots of Lead

Apologies are in order. I made it to Nigeria on Wednesday and thought
I was updating this blog via my cell phone but it appears I am doing
something wrong. So I will forward emails to my wife who will transfer
the email into the blog. I'll keep the personal stuff out of it.

So Wednesday in Abuja was interesting. Our driver was great and the
hotel was comfortable. The city however was very loud and busy. The
exhaust from the cars was everywhere. It was really horrible. We
didn't spend hardly any time there so my own judgment is not fully
informed.

The next day we flew into Sokoto where we met our driver who took us
to our staging area. We have a fenced compound with two nice
buildings, flushing toilets and full showers. The water is the same
temperature as outside so a "cooler" shower at the end of a day in the
village is just awesome. We have a kitchen with a cook, security 24
hours a day, launderer, and drivers. As far as nonprofit field work,
this is the Ritz.

My first two days were spent in a small village not far from here.
There are about 90 compoumds in the village with about 2000 people
total. The process for cleanup includes hiring local villagers for the
work and managers from the regional ministry in charge of the cleanup.
An advocacy group goes in first to instruct each compound in what will
happen and what they need to do to make things easier. The
excavation crew goes in and digs the soil. Then a disposal crew picks
up the bags of soil which were just dug up. Then a clean dirt crew
brings in clean soil which is the "topsoil" which is collected and
stored during the digging of the landfill. It was very hot work but
things went well considering the logistics of everything.

Today was sort of a day off for us but there isn't much to do in this
part of Nigeria so we went to a village that was not identified in the
original scope and looked around.

This village is larger than all of the others by quite a bit and it
actually had an area they called the Ore Market. Here we found samples
of ores from seven different mines in the region. We collected samples
and shot them with the XRF back at our compound. One was galena and is
likely 50 percent or more lead. The next lowest was 28000ppm, then
12000, then three around 2000 and two below 300ppm. Basically we can
use this info to help identify the sources.

The sad things today was that all the kids were following us around
playing on the piles of processed ore which looks almost like sand. We
saw a man sluecing in the area even though the govercment shut down
mining operations a couple months ago. We estimated about 10 acres of
land have been impacted and the average concetrations are over
50000ppm in this area with lots of waste piles and other fun things
for the kids to play on. There is no context for them to understand
the severity of the issue although they know about the one family
which has lost 11 kids to lead poisonong in the last year and five
more in the village died two weeks ago. It is heartbreaking.
Despite all, today was a good day for the group in that the village
head was very helpful, supportive, and thankful.

Tomorrow we will continue cleanup in the village I was in earlier this
week. However I get to move to another village to help construct a
landfill. Actually, I am only going because the heavy equipment crew
(which is currently made up of unemployed miners...) basically won't
listen to a woman even though she has the PE. At least I have
experiance with heavy equipment so I can speak that language.

Unknown Names

I read the names of some of the villages that are considered lead contaminated. There are about eight total not including ones that have been cleaned up. There may be others that haven't been identified yet too, so who know how big of an issue this really is. A quick search on Google Earth will pull up only two or three of these villages. Somehow, a place where people live not being identified on something that has become so common as GE is disheartening.

What I haven't heard, and hope to learn, is whether the efforts in the villages that have been cleaned up have proven effective. Hopefully that is that case.

Itinerary and Supplies

It came today. I leave on the 19th and return a month later. It sounds like we will get to Abuja, spend the night, and then fly from there to one of two state capitols in the NW region. From there we will drive to wherever we are staying, which may be some distance from where we are working. So we may not make it to the village until Friday of next week.

As far as supplies, they are mostly gathered for us and I only have to worry about very few items. However, we still don't know whether they want us to bring some things for testing or not. As far as food, it sounds like we will have breakfast and dinner supplies wherever we are staying. We may need to cook for ourselves. The meals during the day will consist of travel foods. That means things like Powerbars, canned tuna, trailmix and other things that don't require cooking. I'm wondering if I will lose a few pounds on this trip...

As far as packing, I am going on the minimalist side of things. Based on information from others who have been over there for this type of work, I am planning on washing my clothes almost everyday. We have been instructed to plan on leaving our clothes over there, but I am having a hard time with that. Since I don't really have clothes for this type of travel, I have picked up a couple items that hopefully will help out with the heat. I don't know...clothing is the big question for me. Do I pick some things up at thrift stores? or do I get outdoor stuff? Guess I will find out soon enough.

It is just a waiting game right now. Most everything is being arranged by others. Except for things being sort of last minute, it has been a pretty easy process.

One more week and I am outta here.

My arm hurts...

Got my shots today. Hep A and B, Yellow Fever, Tdap, MMR, Polio, Influenza/H1N1 plus I have pills for Typhoid and will pick up a perscription for malaria. So things are still happening. Although I am still not sure of our departure date.

I may head over as soon at October 19th, but they still haven't confirmed anything. That's fine. Doesn't matter too much at this point.

The NPO has my passport and is taking care of the visas.

The next step for me is to start worrying about packing. It sounds like the best set up is to take very little and plan on washing my clothes each day. That makes a lot of sense really. I had thought about buying some new boots, but now I am thinking of just wearing what I have. No sense paying a ton of money for things that aren't really necessary.

Again I have heard that I may be helping out in a rather remote village. Not sure what that means except that facilities may be primitive. Hopefully I can at least get a pot of hot water to wash up everyday.

Future posts to this blog will become less specific from here on out. Actually, I may  end up utilizing a different website so that I can update via my Blackberry instead of having to rely on a computer connection which may not exists. Also, the less I take, the better.