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| after a great and relaxing couple of weeks with parents on both sides (charlotte and colorado), we decided to hit the road. we're doing a loop out west, from colorado, through utah, south to arizona, over to cali, and on up the west coast. we're hitting some famous U.S. attractions as well as visiting some beloved friends and family who we haven't seen in a long time. we started with a visit and overnight with the dangers' in colorado springs (thanks for letting us crash there!), though we neglected to take any pictures!!! why?? well we enjoyed catching up with josiah, autum, and jamie, good college friends of ours, and meeting josiah and autum's 1-year-old son malakai for the first time. if you don't know them, you are missing out...  we're currently in the southwest and loving it! we've seen some AMAZING sights and have been awed by canyons, arches, and overall breathtaking landscapes! here are just a few of our favorite things so far: camping at fisher towers, utah. what a view to wake up to! 
hikes and views:  
arches national park (our very favorite so far): 
canyonlands national park: 
and the grandest canyon of them all, the Grand Canyon: 
it's so hard to narrow down what to post and share, because seriously, we have seen some beautiful stuff these last few days. but here's a taste. we're having a blast and are enjoying the adventure and sponteneity we're getting to experience right now! more to come! | | |
| we had quite a number of comments on our picture of my henna'd feet, thanks to it ending up on the xanga home page! who knew? anyway, popular vote says the henna is generally nice except for the "ugly toes" so i thought i'd explain those black toes. where we lived in nuba, the normal henna is nowhere near that beautiful or decorative. they do the flowery stuff for special occasions (such as weddings, or in this case, the dedication of the bible college). the normal, everyday henna, done on married women only, consists of them globbing the stuff on the ends of the toes and the fingertips and coating the bottoms of the feet, turning them black. this is considered beautiful to the nuban people, and is not unlike western women getting pedicures with their girlfriends. on this special occasion, i got the decorative henna done, but the tips of the toes had to be included, of course. and it was free. as the only white woman in the village, the ladies took me to get it done as a favor and because we're friends. | | |
| so much for updating within the first 2 days. anyway, the last couple weeks in nuba were good ones. we DID get the bible college completed, so that felt good. we also had the dedication/hand-over ceremony and celebration near the end there, which was a fun day as well. we'll try to encompass some of our last moments in this post and share with you a few pictures. in the life of work:
the biggest and most complex building was completed right in the nick of time - the open cafeteria and kitchen for the school. i think the women were moving their kitchen stuff in on the day of the celebration. 
and this ended up being our guard shack (or mansion). with our trusty old guard. and i do mean old. 
i think we've previously posted most or all of the other completed buildings, and so won't repeat that. but next time you see us and the time is right, we can show you a video walk-through tour of the college, if you're interested. the dedication:
this was a special day for us. it ended up being kind of a long program, as most events like this usually are. but it wasn't too outrageous. we each had a chance to speak and there were some songs in there to mix things up a bit. but instead of going through the details, here are a few snapshots of the event. pre-celebration, kari's henna - decorative especially for such an occasion.  
jason handing over the keys to moujahed. all the keys for all the buildings (plus a few for emphasis ). 
the students singing. 
us. 
and the dancing, post-program. by far the most fun part of this dedication. 
(the white guys giving it a try): 
and a little dance video (i hope it works):
friends and final impressions:
in our last days we just wanted to capture a few last pictures with people we care about and just a few everyday things that we don't want to forget were once a part of our lives. jason and francis. francis worked for us from day one and stuck with it through the completion of the college. 
kari and sisra. we met her and her family early on, even before we moved from kauda to heiban. 
us with joseph. joseph is one of our kenyan teammates doing an appropriate technology program. he has been in nuba a year longer than we have. the oldest on the team, he is a wonderful example of a godly man and someone we have learned a lot from and will really miss. 
jason and moujahed, and kari and margaret. our community. our teachers. our fellowship. our forever friends.  
a small corner of heiban souk. 
the lovely desert rose. a characteristic bright spot during dry season. 
a view from the top. we wanted to climb one of the nearby hills to try and get a view of all the zinc roofs of the college. this was as good as we got from where we climbed, but it sure was fun to see this many sparkles and remember when we couldn't see any at all. 
nuba from the airplane. on the ground and flying away.  
the end of two years, full of memories, ups and downs, and new relationships. in order to not get too sappy, we'll end this here, but wanted to at least try to share a few of these things with you before we move on.... thanks to those of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers over these last couple years. we'll continue using this website to share with you the next adventures and endeavors that life brings our way. | | |
| we're out. we said goodbye to sudan for now. we have a lot of pictures and even some video clips to share from our last couple weeks - some fun stuff. it's on the list of things to do within the first two days of arriving in america. we're in kenya right now wrapping up and spending these last few days with the teammates who are also here. and repacking and reorganizing all our junk, of course. for those who have been keeping up on the unrest going on here, be assured, we're lying pretty low in the parts of nairobi that we're most familiar with and we haven't seen or felt anything too out of the ordinary. it's quiet where we are. we leave here tomorrow (sunday) night - in about 24 hours from now - and arrive in charlotte first. but we'll post more about all that later. in the meantime, we have a lot of mental and emotional adjustment going on... more about that later as well. all for now. | | |
| friends and family,----------------------------------------------------------
we only have 9 days left in sudan. jason is especially busy trying to complete the finishing touches on the physical bible college before the dedication ceremony coming up this saturday, the 26th. i am busy trying to stay on top of my regular administrative tasks as well as prepare some written material and detailed instructions for the guy coming behind me to take my job. meanwhile, we're both trying to comprehend and process the magnitude of the change that is about to hit us. we're trying to make a list of the things we want to make sure and do before we can't anymore. like climbing a nearby hill - one we haven't climbed yet - which everyone says gives a great view of all of heiban and the bible college. or walking to the souk and spending the better part of a day there, drinking tea, eating in the little restaurants, and chatting with local people we usually only wave at in a hurried rush as we buy materials or food stuffs throughout the week. we're also trying to spend some time dwelling on the things we love and will miss about this place as well as the things we are seriously looking forward to about living in the U.S. again for a time. this is one of the most unique places on earth, and whether we've fully realized it or not, it has worked its way into our hearts in many ways. one of our teammates put it well the other day when he said, "most people, when they land here and come for the first time, they look around and say 'man, there is NOTHING here!! this is the middle of nowhere!! there is just absolutely nothing around!' and they're right! but once they spend some time here and it comes time to move on, they suddenly realize that they've made friends, that they've grown to love some things about this place, and it's not so easy to leave..." it's not an obscure little corner of the world anymore, at least not to us.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here are some things we love about nuba and will miss:
the neverending hospitality of the people, the friendly smiling happy faces, the way a community comes together to celebrate a birth or mourn a death or help the sick or prepare a feast!!, the way you have to greet every single person when you enter a room, the quietness, the slow pace of life, no cell phones, the lack of commercialism, zalabia (local fried doughnut things with sugar on top. mmmmm...), the arabic, the kiddos who holler out our names every single time we drive or walk or bike by without losing their excitement over catching a glimpse of the "khawajas", the mountains right next to our house, the neverending summer, the singing of the college students in the mornings and evenings, moujahed and margaret and the other handful of people we've really grown to know and love.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i won't go into the things we WON'T miss about nuba, although there are those as well. rather, on the flip side, there are lots of things we are looking forward to about being at home again! here are just a few:
our families and friends, hot showers, the availability of food stuffs for anything we want to cook, paved roads, having our own kitchen again, good restaurants, free refills, hiking trails, national parks, having english-speaking girl friends (kari), calories (jason), ice cream, climate control.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- it's amazing how the last 2 years have gone, somehow in a blur, and yet things happened. somehow we went through the process of putting up our tent, living in it, starting from scratch, watching things grow and change, then taking down our tent, and now packing up our little house, giving things away, and saying our goodbyes. we will celebrate the completion of the bible college and hand it over this saturday. that's a huge day for us personally. we'll take tons of pictures and share it with you as best we can.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all for now. until next time.... kari, for the herrmans
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