Here in our corner of southern Sudan transportation by bicycle is quite popular. Hardly anybody has a car, and the roads are dirt and in quite poor condition, especially during rainy season. Thus, in order to get between villages people normally either go by foot or by bicycle. Knowing that the use of bikes is very handy out here, Justin, the water project manager started a bike hire scheme a few months ago. Some generous friends of his back in the UK donated some money to get the scheme started, and with the money he purchased four nice mountain bikes in Nairobi as well as a supply of parts for repairing and maintaining bikes. These bikes are now stored in the water project office building, and anyone in the community can use them for a small fee of 2 Sudanese Pounds per day (less than a dollar in US currency). Over the past few weeks the scheme has really been taking off. We’ve had well over fifty hires in the last month, and we typically get several people over the course of a day coming for a bike. The bikes are good sturdy bikes, so they work well on the rough roads in this region. It has turned out to be a good way to help people in the community, as well as bring in a small amount of money so that the scheme can support itself to some degree. Managing the scheme has been one of my (Stephen’s) main jobs here, but one of our Sudanese workers is also heavily involved in keeping it running.
In other news, life in Sudan continues to go very well. Work with the water project is steadily progressing, and we are continuing to learn a lot. Many of the local men are working in their fields pretty much every day, and some crops are just coming into harvest. The corn is ripe, and it seems that every time we go to visit a village these days we receive a gift of many ears of corn. It is really tasty, especially when roasted, which is the most popular way of eating it around here. Will leave you with a few pictures of the bike hire and other happenings!
Bike hire! On the left is Abel, who works for the water project.
This cat loves popcorn. For real.
We had a meal on the compound for a group of (adult) students, and pretty much everyone helped prepare it.
It's rainy season!
On the road to Nalgan, where we went for church last Sunday.
The church at Nalgan.
Lots of birds! This picture is for my (Ginny's) dad and Uncle Bob.
We share a desire to see God's name known across the globe, as well as a love of science and the outdoors. Our goal is to bring these elements together to find our place to serve. From June until December 2010, this means going to southern Sudan and working on a water project with SIM (Serving in Mission). We don't know what it means next, but we'll keep you updated here on the adventures life takes us on!
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