Rafting the Nile

I spent my Saturday rafting the White Nile with Courtney, Christy, Tiffany, and Kevin, four other Amani volunteers. It was insane! The volume of the river is tremendous (Paddle Georgia people--it was more water than we could have ever hoped for!) and the rapids are huge. We could choose to go "wild" or "mild" on the river (although really, I don't think it was possible to go mild) and while half of my boat wanted a more moderate ride, the other half wanted "wild." So, to start off and give us a little taste of what "wild" would be, our guide made us swim the first small rapid after doing some safety training. Then, on our first class III our guide intentionally flipped us. Ridiculous! I've never fallen out or flipped while rafting before but luckily I've heard a lot of stories about it from an experienced raft guide (thanks Jeff!), so I just tried to remember to stay calm. The first few seconds underwater felt like an eternity while I waited for my lifejacket to find it's way, along with my body, up to the surface. Gulping for sweet air in the midst of swallowing half the Nile, I finally made it through the tumbling waves. Our second flip came at the top of our second Class V. Our guide had prepped us before for what to do at each point in the rapid in case we flipped. Well, we were quite the spectacle and I think only one of the two of the total of nine boats that flipped. I can't tell you the horrible feeling you get in your stomach when the boat keels dangerously over and falls out from under you. We flipped at the top of this rapid where our instructions were to not hold on to the boat, just swim through. I managed to hold on to my paddle but when I surfaced at the end, my helmet was gone and my pants were nearly around my knees. Tiffany had also lost her helmet and we swam near each other to the rescue kayak (each raft had two rescue kayaks). She held on to the front and I held on to the back. In a mess of disorientation, we were pulled up on the trip leader's boat while the rest of our the people from our boat were dragged out of the water like drowned rats into various other boats. A guy from our boat seriously banged up his knee and went in the safety boat the rest of the time. From that point on, I had had enough flipping. The rest of the day proved to be just as much of an adrenaline rush and luckily we stayed in our boat. If you want to watch a random youtube video of some of the highlights, follow the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LsJBI7jfxY

Finishing 18 miles downriver in a very rural part of Uganda and seeing the villages there rivaled the ride itself for my favorite part of the day. It's easy to forget that I'm in Africa when I spend too much time on the grounds of the orphange. It's cushy--more so than I was expecting, or even what I would have liked (although I'm not complaining for the little luxuries we have, like internet for example!). There are still very African things that happen to us--the power goes out and we run on a generator, or if the generator blows, we have complete power loss and use our headlamps. The water goes out daily so you have to check for a strong flow of water before you get in the shower and get all soapy. This also means we can't flush the toilet sometimes, or use water to cook. Jinja itself is a large town with many banks, supermarkets, restaurants and shops. So finally getting to see a bona fide African village tonight gave me a little thrill. There was so much to take in it was sensory overload and I know I'm not going to do justice to all the things I saw. First of all, the roads were unpaved and had deep grooves in the mud. Riding the matatu (bus) along those ruts gave me the feeling that I had never left the raft as the bus would careen to the side (and frankly, I was done with that feeling!). As we drove we passed mud huts with corrugated iron roofs or some huts with thatched roofs, all complete with a little farm plot. Occasionally there were small buildings made with brick. Usually a gaggle or children would rush out to wave to us from each little household. We passed women tending fires and cooking, men walking along the road, goats and cows eating grass in the little fields. Little by little the huts became closer in proximity and gave way to more of the crude brick buildings as we came into the one small main street of a tiny town. I couldn't distinguish what building was what since most of them weren't painted adn looked the same, but there was a building housing the local cell phone company store. Crazy how technology has infiltrated even the more remote places of the world. This town led into a larger small town where a gigantic outdoor market was occuring. Everyone in the town and their brother was out on the streets, perusing the wares of the vendors. There was so much clothing--both traditional African designs and also a lot of western styles--jeans, t-shirts donning European football stars, brightly colored blouses. We had to slow down to almost a crawl to make it through the packed streets. This was the Africa I had come to see! I tried to savor it and take it all in. I'm trying to get out into Jinja as much as I can now to experience daily life and see people going about their lives in order to get more of that authentic African experience.