White-water rafting on the Nile

Since last Thursday, Ben, Holly, and I have taken matters into our own hands and have made our own fun.

But before I go into that, Thursday, Holly and I went to a program with Winnie sponsored by the British Council. It’s called the Management Forum, and this month’s topic was on Saving the Environment through Effective Leadership. It was interesting to hear the people talk of environmental concerns and brainstorm solutions to alleviate them. We met a phenomenal woman who uses public health to do conservation of the mountain gorillas. We exchanged contact information and told her about Lauren Bernstein, and I believe they will be meet up in DC when the woman goes there in May.

Friday morning, we received a call from Parliament saying to wait until Monday to come back in and pick up our badges and Tuesday to start out internships. Frustrated that we had sat around all week waiting on them to get organized and plug us into their programs, we unanimously decided to pack our bags and get out of town.

So, we did.
We all took showers and grabbed a weekend’s worth of clothes and headed to the popular hostel in town, Red Chile. We hoped that from there we could join a tour or find out where hostels are around the country and call to book one.

After much deliberation, we decided that whitewater rafting was exactly what we needed. We called a company called Adrift that operates out of Jinja, and they had room for us on Saturday’s excursion. I did some research on them from Red Chile’s free internet and they seemed to be professional and legitimate, so we booked for the day trip.

We ate lunch at the hostel and ventured back home for the night. On the way, we stopped at Nakawa market and got an idea of market prices for things like fabrics and shoes.

That night, we went out in Ntinda with Vincent. It was pretty dead for Friday night, but that didn’t stop us from dancing until after midnight. We took boda bodas back to Kisaasi and got a few hours of sleep before having to wake up at 6AM to go back to the Red Chile.



A bus full of mzungus picked us up and we headed to Jinja. It took us about 2 hours to get there, but it went by really quickly because I talked to a group of students that are studying here through Feed the Hungry’s “Go Ed” program. They are in Kampala and Kigali until May. Hearing them talk of all of the rules and restrictions that they have here makes me so happy that we’re independent of any abroad program. They have a curfew and aren’t even allowed to travel to the North. They’re taking all of these culture classes, but their focus is on Buganda culture, which isn’t representative of the country as a whole. It just seems like they’re missing out on so much.

While talking to some of them in my raft about what Knoxville Jazz for Justice is doing in the North, one girl whispered to another, “What is an IDP camp?” I wanted to kick her out of the boat.

More about rafting on the Nile River, it was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I rode on the mild boat instead of the wild one, but after getting in, I realized that there isn’t a difference in the two groups. Both go down the same rapids and stay together.

We crossed 10 rapids in total. 4 of them were class 5. The last rapid we went down in the morning was called “Big Brother,” a class 5.5 (I was told before going down it that it was a class 5, but afterward heard from another guide that is was actually a 5.5 because a dam nearby has increased the volume of water.) My guide said we have a 50/50 chance of flipping on it, but that we would be fine and not to worry. We were the first boat to go down and we flipped as soon as we hit the first wave. I was flung out of the boat and fought my way out from under the raft to the surface. I then was washed through wave after wave and gasped for breath every time I popped back up to the surface. By the end of the heaviest part of the rapid, my chest was so tight from panicking that I had a hard time catching my breath. Then, right when I thought I was in the clear, the current slammed the side of my left foot into a rock. The first thing I thought was, “Oh no, my insurance won’t cover this. I probably just broke my foot.” I started wiggling my toes, and was relieved to find that I could still move them. I was rescued by one of the safety kayakers (about 7 of them wait at the bottom of the rapids and rescue “swimmers”). He asked me if I was okay and I told him about the rock. He inspected it and kept asking me if I was okay. I told him I was, but that I had seen another girl hit a rock too. She had floated away from me saying “Ow. Ow. Ow.” He left me in the river and paddled away to find her. I swam downstream with 2 paddles in the direction that my raft had washed and another safety kayak picked me up and took me the rest of the way.

After that, we stopped for lunch and I realized that my foot was bleeding. I disinfected it, but it was swelling and hurt to walk on it. I got back into my boat, but the next rapid was another 5, and I decided that I had had enough of class 5’s for that day. A woman from Australia and I decided to go into the safety raft. In the safety raft, instead of being part of a team and paddling through the rapids, you just sit in the front floor of a raft during the rapids and hold on for dear life. Only one man with big oars guides the boat, and he’s able to better control it than a raft of paddling tourists. I was so relieved I switched because on that upcoming 5 Holly and Ben’s raft went the less desired route and down a waterfall. No one fell out, but it was nerve-wracking just watching. We threw them a line and had to pull them out of the current because their raft was being sucked into the waterfall.

At the very end, we reached a point where everyone had to get out of the rafts and walk around a series of class 6 rapids. Our guide said there’s no way anyone would survive going down those in a raft. It would capsize and get caught in the dips. Ben’s boat went down the optional class 5 at the end called “The Bad Place.” Their boat surfed for a good 15 seconds before capsizing.

In the end, we all survived. A lot of the group had bumps and bruises from hitting rocks, but there were no serious injuries. On the road home we almost got into an accident, but our driver had quick reflexes and maneuvered around the truck and the people in the road.



Looking back on it, I don’t think any whitewater rafting in the US can top rafting down the Nile. It was exhilarating and terrifying, but I’m so glad that I can say I’ve done it. Although Ben and I both don’t know that we’ll ever whitewater raft again…



Yesterday, I woke up and my foot felt so much better. There are still a few cuts and bruises, but the swelling had gone down entirely. It doesn’t hurt to touch it or walk on it. And my sunburn has faded into a nice dark tan. The only burn I still have is on my lips.

Ben, Holly, and I went to Garden City today. It’s a large shopping center that is the closest thing to America you can get here. We saw the movie 27 Dresses, and I got so caught up in the plot that I forgot I was in Africa. When I walked out of the theater I was so disoriented. I didn’t particularly like the feeling, and I don’t think I’ll go to see movies very often for that reason. It made me a little homesick for a while and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to find our way back home in the dark. It would have been nice to walk out of the theater to my car and then to come home to electricity. Ours was on and off all night.