Should've thought twice before I let it all go

This past weekend, most of our group (26 total) went on our rafting trip. It was overall, an awesome weekend. Friday began with two classes, my two favorite classes. One because I like it and the other which is usually interesting, and rarely boring. Our bus to drive us to Jinja was supposed to get to UCU at 3, but arrived at about 5 instead. The driver had waited 45 minutes at another university before we called and redirected him. The drive was only about an hour and a half and I spent most of it quiet, not reading or listening to music or talking, mostly just looking out the window and being sleepy. Since our bus was so late, they gave us dinner for free. It was pretty delicious. I played Ultimate Spoons (like normal spoons but you put the spoons at a different table or on the ground far away-ish, in our case. Then you race to the spoons.) It was really fun. I wasn’t even the first one out. We talked and relaxed for the rest of the evening and I went to bed…at some point. Not too late, but not really early either.
I woke up spontaneously at about 7:45, got up and did some Bible reading. One of the guys was up playing an acoustic guitar that we’d brought and it was…really cool. A couple other people were up also and we were just sitting, mostly reading. No one was really talking. I was a really good time. We had breakfast at 9:30 or so, had a quick safety meeting in which none of us followed the suggested dress code guidelines, we got our lifejackets and helmets, got on the truck and left. It was about a 10-minute drive to the start of our journey. Then we split up into groups, were assigned a guide, and got into our rafts and on the Nile! Our group ended up in 4 groups and 4 of the guys came, so we made them split up. My group was me, Rochelle (my roommate), Joy, Naomi, Julianna, and Dave and our guide’s name was Peter. It was an excellent group.
The trip was an all day thing. We had lunch on the raft at a long, calm section and there were 12 major rapids, 8 before lunch and 4 after. The whole trip was grade 5. I don’t know the technicalities or qualifications, but rapids are given a grade. 1 is the easiest. 5 is pretty intense, with a good chance of raft tipping. 6, I think, is more dangerous and basically means there’s no chance of staying in. My group may have accidentally hit a grade 6, but I’ll get to that later. Our rapids ranged from 2-5. At least ½ of them were 4 or 5. After our training, we had a grade 3 waterfall. Our group went first on almost all of them, which was really cool because then we got to sit and watch everyone else come down. The first one was Bujagali Falls. The second one was called the 50/50 (chances of staying in the boat). We decided it should be the 80/20, because almost everyone flipped, including us. The waterfalls all had excellent names, which our guide shared with us. There’s the dead Dutchman and the dead French, named for people who’ve died on them. We didn’t do those; they’re grade 6. We went past one feeding into the Nile called the Ugly Sister. Some others were the Ribcage (I don’t remember which this one was or where the name came from) , the Flying Squirrel (good chance of falling/flying out of the raft), Silverback (most rafts flipped; not sure the significance of the name), and the Washing Machine (like a whirlpool, likely you’d lose your shorts).
There were more rapids before lunch, but only one was a grade 5. They were mostly calm and we only flipped on one of them. Flipping was not my favorite part, especially since my eyes were usually closed so I didn’t know when it was coming. One second I was holding tightly to my paddle and to the rope around the boat and the next I couldn’t breathe and water was pulling 5 different directions, none of which I wanted to go. I didn’t want to lose my contacts, so I kept my eyes closed underwater too. I always panicked at least a little and I think I tried to come up under the raft every time. Once I got to the surface, I was fine.
Lunch was Glucose Biscuits and pineapple. Delicious pineapple. After lunch were 4 intense rapids, 2 were class 4 and 4 were class 5. We made it through the first one okay, although we missed the cool, legit waterfall part. It was okay though. One group went down the waterfall backwards. However, we flipped on all of our last 3 waterfalls. The first one I got pulled under for a little bit, but got up pretty quickly and stayed close to the raft. Julianna put her paddle out and I grabbed it and came back in. When the guide flipped the boat back over, he would get on top of it and we would all hold on and stay close on one side. He flipped it over our heads as w ducked underwater. Us getting back on was, I’m sure, a very humorous experience for him every time. You had to hoist yourself up with the rope and straighten your arms. I could not do it. Someone helped me every time. The next one, our penultimate rapids, our raft flipped really slowly. I opened my eyes at one point and saw the raft flipping over. It was surreal. I managed to keep holding onto the rope, but I was upstream from the raft and the current was really strong and pulling me under, so I just let go of the raft and got swept pretty far out. They had kayakers who went down each set of rapids before us and rescued anyone who needed it. I got rescued by one of the guys and got into one of the other rafts for a couple minutes because mine was far away. To get back in, ours came up right next to the other one and I jumped/slid in. I jumped in, but the ground was wet, so I slid and fell on my butt. It was very graceful, I assure you. 2 other girls had gotten swept away, but not as far so they were back in our boat already.
There was a grade 6 rapid, but it’s really dangerous, so we, our guide, and our raft got out and walked around it. There was a calmer portion and then our last rapid began. It was a really long section of rapids and I think it’s so dangerous because there’s basically no chance of staying in for the first section and then you’d be stuck under for a long time because of the continuing rapids and current. We got back in and we were supposed to paddle past and go around one section of rapids (the Washing Machine, which our guide also called The Bad Place) and through a different section that was grade 3. We all thought we were paddling as hard as we could, but we got swept into The Bad Place. In the rapids, we all crouched in the raft, holding onto out paddle and the rope. We were crouched and my eyes were closed, but water was over me and all around me and I wasn’t really capable of thinking. I opened my eyes and saw that we were still surprisingly in the boat, but spinning crazily. hit myself in the chin with my paddle a couple times so I just let it go. Then all of a sudden I wasn’t in the raft and the current was pulling me under. I curled up to protect my appendages and prayed that I would reach the surface. I was under for a while but then I came up and got a couple breaths and ran into my guide, but then I was pulled down again. I opened my eyes and I couldn’t see light, but then I rose or got turned and I could see the sunlight through the water, but I couldn’t reach it. Everything was…suspended. It felt like a long time, but so short at the same time. It’s really hard to remember my thoughts, mostly because there weren’t many of them and they were very disjointed. I did consider for a couple seconds the possibility that I could not make it up. I fought to keep my mouth closed and not to inhale the water. I finally got past the strong current and got up to the surface and got a couple good breaths. I came up a few feet away from a kayaker who’d rescued Julianna too. I grabbed onto the back of his kayak and he took us to shore. We saw and met up with the rest of our group and clarified with our guide that we were not supposed to hit those rapids, that we had gone to The Bad Place that he’d warned us about. He told us that we had in fact.
We had to walk up a hill to get to the trucks, so by the time we got up there I was even more out of breath and really shaky. They had juice for us and water. I talked with a couple people from other boats and tried to keep from crying. It was just so intense and overwhelming. I wasn’t badly hurt, just shaken. I was one of the first ones to climb into the truck and I just sat, holding a water bottle to my chin or my jaw joints. I think hitting myself wrenched the muscles or tendons or whatever holding my lower jaw to the rest of my face. Whatever happened, it hurt. I also discovered later that I’d bruised my chin. One below my bottom lip and another on the underside of my chin. They look gnarly. We went to one of the campsites and had dinner and then were driven back to our hostel/campsite. Everyone was a lot quieter. We shared and compared stories and experiences and talked with the 3 girls who came for the weekend but didn’t come rafting. Some people walked to the Chinese restaurant down the road.
There was a guy who filmed the more intense rapids and made a video for us. I stayed up sitting and reading to watch it. It was awesome. It was cool to see what our boat actually did on a lot of the rapids and how it compared to my experience. It was also cool to see everyone else. Our boat flipped 4 times, which the most of any others in our group. The other flipped once, twice, and thrice. So we obviously won. I stayed up for a little while longer and then went to sleep.
I got up and red and prayed and journaled again on Sunday, then had breakfast, and then we were driven to another place for bungee jumping. To clarify, I did not bungee jump nor did I ever really have any intention of doing so. I watched everyone and took pictures for a few people. I was undecided initially but decided not to because it’s expensive and I didn’t really want to anyways. If I hadn’t done it today, I don’t think I will. More than half of us did though and it was cool. We jumped over a calm section of the river and most people asked to be dipped in. The guy could adjust the tension on the ropes so you didn’t hit it, so only your hands or face did, or so you went in to your waist. Then we went back to our campsite, had lunch, paid, and came back.
I don’t feel like I should be going back to class. The weekend was such a different experience from anything – so intense and overwhelming and awesome. I can’t imagine being stuck in history for 2 hours tomorrow morning. Or doing homework. I still don’t quite know what to say or how to describe it. I bought the DVD and I’m really glad that I did. If I remember, I’ll show people once I’m home. It’s great, especially the last rapid. Even watching the footage makes me a little nervous and frightened. I can still remember the rocking of our raft, the strain from paddling, the anxiety holding on and hoping we didn’t flip, the terror when I was sucked under. It's weird watching. Our raft went basically vertical but then back down. Joy managed to stay in and he filmed her for a while. It's weird watching and knowing that I was under the water. And watching the next group that went and knowing that I was somewhere in that river struggling for breath.
That last rapid, when I was sucked under, is the most terrifying experience I can remember ever having. I’m not usually big on using superlatives, but I think this one is true. I definitely prayed and thanked God after I got to the surface, when I got back on land, and many times that night and since then. It was amazing. I don’t think I’ll be too quick to go rafting again, but I wouldn’t trade the experience. It was an insane adrenaline rush, both when we paddled through a rapid and when we flipped – although I definitely preferred the former.
It’s strange that all of this is such a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I doubt that I’ll ever be back here and I don’t know anyone, besides other USP students, who have gone white water rafting on the Nile River. How awesome it that? Vaya con Dios.