The Bad Place

I'm a bit behind in my blogging, so things are a bit out of order here, but I realized that I never wrote about our experience rafting the Nile last weekend.

I guess the story really starts a week ago Friday, Sister Claris' last day at Rubaga. She came over to my room after work because I'd told her I had something to give her. I handed her a paper bag with a little token of my appreciation of the friendship and companionship God had given us over the previous 7 weeks (it was a scarf/wrap of sorts for her to wear around her white head covering because it's always getting dirty when she travels and gets in and out of dusty matatus, etc. And she was glad to point out that it matches her gray and blue/white striped dressses. I was glad to point out that I planned it that way :) Then she handed me a package and told me that she didn't get this in Kampala. That a good friend from India had brought it and she had been waiting to give it to someone who she was close to and meant a lot to her and that she thought would like it, and that she had decided I was that one. I was really honored, and asked her if she was sure she wanted to give it to me...she assured me she was sure. I gingerly opened the wrapping paper and inside found nothing less than a Barbie towel! Yep, a Barbie bath towel! "A barbie towel!" I exclaimed. "Thank you!" I told her with a little chuckle :) I think I'll need to take a picture of it just so you can see it in all of it's glorious pinkness. Really, though, I'll ALWAYS remember her when I take it off the shelf after a shower. It was the perfect ending to the 7 weeks :) he he he

Anyways, Sarah and Ashley were present for the gift exchange and personally witnessed the hilariousness of Sister Claris. I finished throwing the last few things into my backpack for the weekend and Sister walked Sarah and Ashley and I out to meet our taxi who was driving us to Jinja. It's normally a drive of about an hour and a half, but took about 3 hours because it was Friday evening rush hour...except I'm not sure the term rush hour quite applies...there's really no rushing about it..."crawl hour" might be more accurate.

Rafting was booked for the next morning, pick up at 8:30am.

The biggest (maybe the only) disappointment is that I don't really have pictures to show for the experience, but for obvious reasons taking a camera in the raft was not an option. Therefore you'll have to come do it for yourself if you really want to see it for yourself :)

First of all, it was a bee-u-ti-ful day. Blue sky, just a few white puffy clouds around the edges of the blue expanse. In them morning, as we waited for the rafting company to pick us up, I was concerned that it was going to be a bit cool for being in/on the water all day, but clearly my Kampala experience has been long enough that I'd forgotten just how hot the African sun is...needless to say it was warm enough :)

When gathered at the rafting company's office/hostel, Sarah and Ashley and I were 3 of a group of about 25 , we were briefed by Juba, the trip leader for the day, on the overall way the day was going to look. We were all fitted with life vests and helmets and then loaded into a cattle truck of sorts and driven to the put in site.

In what was a slightly disconcerting/confusing sequence of events, the three of us actually ended up in the raft of another rafting company that is somehow connected with the one we had booked with, but it was all part of God's provision for the day we realized in the end. Our guide for the day was Charles, who told us his nickname on the river was "Prince of the Nile" (we asked if we could just call him "Prince" :) Our raft-mates were two British oil traders about my age or so - the woman currently living in Singapore and apparently dating the man living in Dubai, and then an Australian business woman about my age who was traveling in Africa for 3 months after finishing an assignment in London, and then an American man about my dad's age (not sure what his story was). And I think once we were on the river we all shared about the same risk desire level...the same "need for speed"...the same degree of "daredevilishness" which proved to work out really well.

We were the last boat, of the 4 in the group, into the water and spent about a half hour being educated on how this rafting thing really works, what to do if you ended up being flipped, ended up under the boat under the water, ended up away from the boat...how to try to haul yourself back into the boat, or more realistically, how to be hauled back into the boat or haul your friend back into the boat, etc. Then we took off. If I remember right there were a few grade 2 and 3 rapids to begin with, then a 4, and then the first of 4 grade 5 rapids for the day...

Now, I need to do some research on the prevalence of grade 5 rapids in the white water rafting world, but everyone kept talking about how the Nile is known for its grade 5's. We even went around/avoided a few grade 6's along the trip, for which I'm thankful, but the grade 5's are super fun (when you stay in the boat).

The reason we were glad for the raft placement we ended up with was that after the first grade 5 we hauled a girl into our boat who was in tears. The guide asked her if she was okay and she yelled "no, I'm not okay!" Her guide had flipped them on the rapid intentionally, and she was pretty shaken by it all. She wanted off the river ASAP. Kudos to "Prince" Charles though because he was really kind to her and talked her into staying in our boat for the rest of the day, except for the grade 5's, we would paddle to shore, drop her off, do the grade 5's and then pick her up at the bottom. It was a lot more work for us in the boat, the river didn't always wanna let us get over to shore very easily when so close to a grade 5, but we were all glad to help get her to the end of the day. A lot of the guides are wise a** hot shots who get a kick out of flipping people, and try to do it at every chance they get. And some people think that's fun, but I personally think it's way more fun to ride the rapid in the boat...the ride itself and the satisfaction at the end are incredible! The girl we hauled into our boat was a Dutch medical student who kept saying "I've done c-sections by myself since I've been here in Uganda, and that's nothing compared to how scary this is!"

So, we stayed in the boat the whole day, and then we dropped our Dutch friend off before the last grade 5, and Charles took the opportunity to brief us on the plan for this rapid. It's called "The Bad Place" he told us. He explained the reason for the name is the whirlpool effect caused by the direction of several currents coming together at a certain place in the rapid. He briefed us on how if/when we were flipped out of the boat, we should resist the urge to fight the water, and remember to try to swim to the right, that it was there we would best be picked up by the rescue kayakers and then the safety raft...we discussed whether we wanted to flip intentionally or not, and the girls were pretty sure we didn't want to and the guys did, but the guys ended up giving in and we agreed we were going to take the 50/50 chance of flipping route as opposed to the 75% chance of flipping route...we got out and walked around the grade 6 that preceeds the Bad Place, we all took deep breaths, and got back into the raft. Off we went, and despite our guide's efforts and our furious paddling, we flipped in no time.

The boat flipped towards my side of the boat, which meant I went under the boat for a moment and then ended up in the open water, quickly to be sucked down into aforementioned whirlpool action, 4-5 times, with not enough time between to get my breath....I was officially terrified! I was sure I was going to drown. I remembered our instructions to swim to the right and not to fight the water, but the two seemed mutually exclusive...swimming to the right would for sure be fighting the water...the river was not allowing for any swimming to the right I can tell you that much for sure. The Nile was for sure doing whatever it pleased with me. Trying not to fight it seemed the only do-able option, so that's what I stuck with. Perhaps equally as terrifying was that when I would very briefly pop up, I couldn't ever see anyone else...not a kayaker, not a raft-mate, no one...and I was being hurdled down the river at what seemed like a pretty swift speed. but then I got turned around in one of my pulls under and when I came up I saw the beautiful face of miss Ashley Wood bobbing up and down upstream a bit...PRAISE THE LORD! I thought to myself. Hallelujah. At least she'll be able to tell everyone where I met my demise, I thought. She was coughing and sputtering a bit too, and later told me that my face was all red, and that I had a wide-eyed terrified look on my face, but that there wasn't really anything she could do to help. I knew that was the case, but I wanted to make sure she was okay and yelled "Ash-ley"...then down under I went again...but then when I came up a few waves later, I saw a rescue kayaker coming towards me. Now, harkening back to the briefing that Juba gave us at the beginning of the day before we left for the river, I remembered him saying that when you were in the water and saw one of the rescue kayakers, they would appear to be Jesus to you at the moment! Never a truer statement has ever been made! I tried to move in his direction, relatively futilely (sounds more and more like Jesus, eh?)...Ashley held on to the back of his kayak and when i got close, the kayaker (whose name I never managed to find out) told me to hand him my paddle which I hadn't realized until that moment was still hand in my hand, then I managed somehow to wrap my legs around the front of the kayak like they taught us, and held on with a death grip to the handle positioned for just a time as this. I coughed and sputtered and tried to get my breath as the kayaker rowed us over to the safety raft, Andrew the safety raft guide hauled Ashley in, and then picked me up by the straps on the shoulders of my vest and hauled me head first into the raft next to Ashley...I scrambled to sit on the edge and put my hand on Ashley's leg just to know that she was really there...and then I looked up and Sarah was in the boat too! "Sah-lah!" I exclaimed. "you okay?" "yep, are you?" she replied with a chuckle as she looked at me! Then we were rowed to shore and climbed out back onto dry land where our other 4 raft-mates were waiting. Andrew kind of smiled and chuckled as I was belching like a sailor from all of the air I had swallowed while gasping between being pulled under and trying to tell Ashley how glad I was to see her head bobbing in the water...

So, we climbed up the hill to the trucks, handed over our paddles and gear and got a snack and settled into the cattle truck for the ride through the nearby villages to the camp where dinner awaited us. Now, you all know I detest beer, but my brother's always trying to get me to taste different kinds hoping that it's going to grow on me, that I'll acquire the taste as I mature or something...not the case so far...but with dinner we had two tickets for drinks which included the choice of a Ugandan beer called Nile Special. I figured I had to try it at least once while I was here, just to say I for sure don't like it, and what better a time/place than looking over the Nile after rafting it...So, I made myself drink about a 3rd of it, and then Sarah sacrificially offered to finish it for me :) Yuck.

When we made it back to the hotel that night we were all in bed by 9pm! What a great feeling though, to be that exhausted after a day like that. Zzzzzzzzzz