- The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling
Contrary to popular belief, I was not swallowed by the dust storm mentioned in my last blog about two months ago. I am alive and well, just so busy that I haven't had time to blog. I've barely been getting an hour of volleyball in each day. Life is rough, huh?
Here are pics and a quick synopsis of my last weeks - in reverse order (because that's how I arranged the pictures and I'm too tired to fix it.
R&R - On my first break I took it pretty light, and spent a few days on the Kenyan Coast, before hanging out closer to Nairobi. Below are Chris and Jeremy, coworkers and R&R buddies. We took the overnight train, which worked out swimmingly. Shades of Darjeeling Limited, though of course our train ride only lasted about 14 hours each way. This is the dining car, but we had a sleeper car to ourselves as well.
The Kenyan Coast, Diani Beach. Not the greatest beach ever, but they had camels. Can't complain if there are camels.
The Harrison Group - One of our big supporters brought out a group of 15 people from his church. I was one of our staff who helped to host. Which meant I pretty much made coffee and helped to drive them around. I think they had a good trip, and I got to spend a couple extra weeks in the Nuba Mountains, my favorite place in the world. Below is dancing after we had a big service in one of the churches that SP built.
And here is cameraman Eric filming my buddy Steve. Steve is awesome, not least because he also has a plan of buying and living on a sailboat. Which is my current life goal. I'm shooting for the stars. Also Eric was from Michigan and wore his Tigers Hat. This allowed me to tell my Sudanese friends that our hats were our tribal markings. Beats cutting lines across your face, right?
Below is my Dinka holiday. I spent three weeks in Dinka-Land doing research. Not the easiest place to work, but we have some cool staff there and some other perks. I had to drive my four-wheeler through hundreds of cows like this one. Praying all the while that none of them stick me with their giant horns. The Dinka love cows.
Below is something that passes for a road. This was after only one rain. I think if a truck had passed along the road before me, it would have been impassable. Trucks often tear up the road and leave huge ruts, which make life hard if you are on a smaller vehicle that becomes stuck in those ruts.
At one point I wanted to reach a church across a river. So I stripped to my boxers (thank goodness it wasn't a briefs day) and swam across. When we came back I wanted to dry out before replacing my pants. So I drove along to the next church in my boxers expecting the church to be empty. Unfortunately there were about 20 women and children there to greet me. I sheepishly put clothes on as they sang some songs. (Caution: man thigh below)
Before that time I was killing time in Nuba, because as you know a dust storm delayed me for a week. These are photos from the Bible School we have helped to construct. On the right is a woman carrying water in the local manner. Some women walk hours each day to bring back that amount of water (about 5 gallons). On the left are some guys pretending to work. They are digging a trench to lay pipe. Our water guys were installing a water tower with a pump, that would then pump water all over the compound, instead of needing to be carried. All those workers were fired the next day because they were only pretending to work in an attempt to draw out the job and make more money. Sudan rocks.
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