Lessons from the Nile

I am glad I did not know in advance all this weekend would hold.
Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 to pack and get ready for our bus to Adrift. It was rainy and stormy and all I could do was try not to hit myself for not going to bed earlier the night before. We all stumbled around, attempting to rub the sleep out of our eyes. Our lovely friend and cook, Grace, made us our usual meal of scrambled eggs and pineapple. I don’t think we were ever happier to see a hot breakfast.

Before long after we were driving through Kampala, some sleeping, a few listening to music, and others talking excitedly about the coming events of the day. We arrived about an hour and a half later, shocked at Adrift’s site, a mixed design of African/western buildings. Very nice. Very clean… Very touristy. There was a group of white, outdoorsy looking people sitting around waiting for us. I realized that maybe they are the reason I felt so out of place… I had not spent time with white people outside my team for almost a month.

The proceeding events included getting life jackets, helmets, paddles, and walking down a billion slanted stone stairs to the river. Sandy and I sat in the front two corners of our raft. Also in our raft was Suz, Soph, Tessa, and Anna. Our guide, Josh, then lead us through instructions for how to sit, what to do when we flip, and then we practiced while floating down to the first rapid.
Finally we arrived at the rapids. It was only a class three, but still exciting since it was the first one. A few people fell out, including Soph, who came up with the most horribly pained expression on her face. Josh took us to shore, since another raft needed to stop, and we had her hand looked at. Turned out they thought it was either broken or sprained, and she needed to go to the hospital. How incredibly unlucky. Poor thing! :(

Soon enough we were off again, paddling down that ancient river. We hit a few class 3 and 4 rapids, and I was beginning to be disappointed. It was fun, sure, but I wasn’t finding much of a thrill in it. Wasn’t it supposed to be frightening? I hadn’t even really been out of the boat yet. I didn’t even flinch when I heard that the next rapid was “Big Brother”, a class 5 and possible the biggest rapid of the full day course. “Maybe this one will be more exciting”. Boy, did I not know what I was in for.

As soon as we went over the first wave I was pulled, as if from a huge living hand, from the raft. All I could feel was rushing water pulling at me every which way. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t know which was up or down. I was spinning in circles. I kept thinking “feet up, remember, you don’t want to hit into anything with your head!” but it was impossible. I couldn’t control my body at all. I felt things like bodies flying into me from the right, the left, the top. I still couldn’t breathe. The waves were more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced. Up, down over, around, I felt like a leaf being sucked up into a hurricane. My insides were beginning to panic… air, air, I needed air. I frantically pulled towards anything, hoping to get even a breath. Every time I thought I was there I’d take a huge gulp, desperate, then realizing it was still water. It was starting to hurt. I started thinking “this isn’t how I want to die. This can’t be it”. I kept flying through the water, choking, and crying if that is even possible under water. Finally, and I mean FINALLY I came up. Caught a breath, went back under. Came up again, gasping uncontrollably. I saw out of the corner of my eye a neon green mass. Then a strong African voice said, “ova here! I’m here, grab this paddle!”. The water was still rushing madly about us. It was almost deafening. I grabbed at anything I could hold, realizing it was one of the kayakers who helped the guides pull us out of the water. Before I knew it he was paddling madly but surely out of the rapids. I have never been more relieved to see anyone in the entirety of my life. It calmed down a little, but I still couldn’t control the choking and gasping and crying. He just kept saying, “it’s okay, you are safe now!” He brought me back to the boat, I was heaved in, in shock. Still shaking. I couldn’t even process what had happened, all I knew was that I was not dead. It turned out that the raft hadn’t flipped, but Sandy, Tessa, and I had been tossed out on the first wave. We’d ridden the rest of the very long rapid on our own, tumbling over each other and hitting each other. That explained the painful things that had hit me. We then stopped for lunch after a bit of paddling… a very lovely lunch of sandwiches and fruit that I enjoyed in a slight daze.
I realized that my underestimation of the river had been a mistake. Who was I to not take a power greater than myself seriously? It was uncontrollable, and it did not care if I was able to breathe or not. The guides were literal lifesavers. I realized that they really were there to make sure that we were okay. They were professional in every aspect. I questioned why we do things like this… messing with forces so far greater than ourselves for a thrill. But more than that, the fact that we pay so much money at rafting companies because us normal people don’t know what we are doing. Tourism, tourism. What did the locals think of it? All over the riverbanks were African people, bathing, washing clothes, watching us… They looked curiously at us. Some waved. My Canadian guide, Josh, said in passing, “Yeah, it’s interesting working here. There’s just naked Africans all over the shores. Ahha!” It seemed so trite to him, he didn’t even seem to give a second thought. I don’t know what to think of the whole touristy part of it. It was a terrific experience, exhilarating, terrifying, and humbling. I am thankful and glad I went, yet it leaves me with lingering questions about the stark difference between the two worlds.

After lunch I was much more fearful of the rapids. I stayed in the front, and bite my lip as we’d descend into the next rapids. I fell in twice more in the afternoon. One of those times our raft flipped right over. I flayed about in the water, gasping and fearful again, but John, one of the other rafters who was in the water grabbed my life jacket and pulled me right towards the flipped over raft, and we all clung to the rope. Josh got on top and yelled the command “UNDER!” for us to put our heads under so he could flip the boat right side up. Soon after we were back in the raft, wet, laughing, relieved, and paddling on to the next rapid. We had a few 40 minute periods of just floating and paddling at times down a completely calm river. This was just what we needed after the stress of the rapids. We were allowed to take off our lifejackets and helmets, eat lollipops, and re-apply sunscreen. There was lots of laughter and pushing each other out of the boats. We lounged on the bubbly sides of the raft, enjoying the warm sun, despite the fact that it was burning us up. The river was very wide. There were many locals on the edges. We saw farms, passed by rickety canoe like boats with African fishermen on them. Josh pointed out lots of monkeys and crazy looking birds. We saw a baby crocodile. I cannot even describe the scenery. The blue sky and billowing white clouds were familiarly beautiful, yet the trees and surrounding greenery were distinctly different. Imagine trees out of the lion king. But more of them, and slightly more jungle like. I was completely at peace. Nothing else in the world seemed to exist at that moment. Sandy and I just looked at each other with understanding eyes… we were on the freaking Nile. Could it really get better?

The second time I fell out was on the last rapid… called 50/50. It was a class 4 rapid. We had the option of a class 5, but it was called the “Bad place”, and you only chose to go there if you wanted to get violently thrown out of your raft. We decided against that since we had experienced enough of that already. 50/50 was still a huge rapid, and there was a high chance of flipping. We set out, the same team, me and sandy in front, Anna, Tessa, Suz paddling hard and Josh steering in the back. He instructed that we had to paddle hard to get over to 50/50, since “the bad place” was just a different route down the river. We tried, but the crashing waves again pulled me and Suz tumbling out of the raft. It was a similar experience to my first one… the twirling and gasping not knowing what was up or down or if you would ever find air again. This time I hit something really hard with my head. A kayaker was there, trying to help me as soon as he could. I got ripped away from him too many times for my liking, the waves were so strong. I was choking, but not as badly as the first time. All I could feel now was my head and jaw throbbing. Then I was pulled back into the raft. It turned out that after we had fallen out, the raft and remaining passengers (and Josh) went over to a very bad place in the river. They were stuck on the other side of the “bad place”, which was called the “other place”-a place that the rafts just don’t go because it is so dangerous and rocky. They got out, thankfully, and even Josh seemed a little shaken up. We all laughed a little, that kind of relieved “holy crap” laughter. I was instructed to take off my helmet and sit in the back since my head hurt so badly. As soon as we were able the paddling towards our end destination began. Stories of the day were relived.
We’d made it. We were alive. And we had white water rafted the Nile.

That night we enjoyed the company of our raft guides and other rafters from around the world, laughed and exchanged stories, ate good food and complained about our sun burnt knees. We met people from Australia, Switzerland, England, Ireland, India, and Canada (yay Canada!). I got a lot of interesting insight into what Europeans and other non-northamericans think of Americans and Canadians. Ask me sometime if you’d like to know. The power went out a few times, but we still had a good time around lanterns. When it came back on we watched the video that was taken of our day of rafting… the entire 30-40 of us that were staying the night at camp that night plus all our guides, enjoyed watching ourselves get thrown from the raft and do stupid things. Then it was bed. All 13 of us girls stayed in one room… there were 4 sets of bunk beds. But they were 6 beds high. Probably one of the funniest things I’ve seen. Sleeping was painful with that terrible burn… but we were so tired it didn’t really matter.

We woke up early because Eli had a time set for bungee jumping. I felt like a 90 year old woman when I tried to climb down the ladder. My incredibly burnt knees hurt to bend and the in and out sleep I got was not adequate for a restful sleep. Suz and I showered, got ready, and headed out to the opened aired restaurant/bar for breakfast. The view was breath taking. We were on a cliff overlooking the Nile. People starting filling in, sleepy eyed, getting breakfast. Eli was getting ready to bungee jump… and Sandy and I were still debating if we wanted to jump. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to, I was so sore already. We decided to stay and watch, since the restaurant had a perfect view of the tall metal structure were the bungee jumping took place. Time passed, and we saw Eli jump. It was absolutely terrifying to watch. You thought that he was diving to his death… Soon after Wes decided he wanted to go. We watched him. Then Ryan and Jordan were like, “heck lets do it”, so they went while Sandy and I hummed and hawed. Finally, I decided I was just going to go pay the 55 dollars, sign the liability form and start walking up to the tower. I did not want to think of any more pros and cons, I just decided to do it. I climbed the tall stairs, and confidently told them I was going to jump. I sat in the “kings” chair as they were tying my feet in. My stomach was starting to turn. My heart was racing faster than I’d ever experienced. I wasn’t going to think about it. Jack, the bungee master, who was from New Zealand and not much older than me, was talking me through the instructions in a think accent. “Just stand up, hop over to me, and whatever you do, don’t look down. You will get to the edge, put your toes over, then push off. Try to fall and dive. But whatever you do it will be okay, this is incredibly safe, we know what we are doing”.

I hesitated. But I got up. I kept talking. I looked out around at the cliffs, and at all my friends standing in the restaurant cheering me on. My knees were about to give. I felt like I was walking the plank. I felt I was about to die. This was the end of my life. I started to freak out. I moved away from the edge, Jack and the other bungee master helping me back and calming me down. I decided to just sit and relax for a minute and they got Sandy all set up to jump in the mean time. She did so good. She was so terrified, but she went to the edge… took a bit of time… came back and sat down for a minute, then went to the edge and jumped. That a girl! Jack looked at me and said kindly “you aren’t getting your money back, Jess, and you will regret it if you don’t go. You can do this!” I took a deep breath and told them to put the harness back on my feet. I did not think about it. I hopped over to Jack. Put my toes over the edge. He counted to three and I fell. I dived. It was perfect. It was so fast. It was unexplainable.


When I was done, untied and brought to shore I climbed up stairs (which were sooo long) with the hugest smile on my face and the happiest I’d been in a long time. I did it. And it was amazing.

I think the reason I was so happy was because I followed through with it. I realized that I could do it, no matter how hard or scary it was. In life I feel like I chicken out of the big decisions and commitments. I say I will, I know I should, but somehow I back out or only “half-ass” do it(excuse the language). But this gave me hope. I threw myself head first over a 200 foot drop. I have never been so scared in my entire life. But I did it. Maybe that saying is true, “courage isn’t lack of fear, but action in spite of it”. God give me strength to carry this out in other areas of my life.

In conclusion, what can I say? I am sitting at home in the guest house in Kampala not wanting to drink water for a week after all the water I swallowed in the rapids. I am incredibly burnt and so sore that every time I move I wince. But I am satisfied. I am happy. I experienced the Nile and faced it head on.