On Friday afternoon, I walked out of the classroom I’ve been
teaching in and breathed in a giant sigh of satisfaction. It was one of those
moments that I remember experiencing as a kid…the first minutes of Spring
Break! It’s a feeling of relief, relaxation and excitement all tied up
together. And although I knew my World Race Spring Break would only last 2.5
days with a ministry day in the middle of it, I was ready to step away for that
amount of time and just refresh myself.
We left our contact’s house early that afternoon and boarded
a bus for Kampala. We arrived and quickly began to catch up with the rest of
the “Q.” I spent the evening dancing around to random music, eating chocolate,
and having fun with my old Hephzibah girls. We crowded around a small table in
our hostel and joked around till almost 1 in the morning. When I finally got to
bed, I knew that I’d have to get up early at 6 am to prepare for the day…white
water rafting on class 5 rapids down the Nile River!
So the alarm woke me up and I dragged myself out of bed. We
ate a quick breakfast and boarded the bus that would take us to the river. 3
hours later, we arrived at Adrift Rafting. All of the girls made a quick
bathroom break along the side of the road…which has become quite normal…we’ve gotten
over bashfulness since the beginning of the trip. When you gotta go, you gotta
go!
They handed us our helmets and our lifejackets. After we
took our raft team picture, we headed down this massively steep hill towards
the river. Several people slipped down the mud and fell…I shortly realized that
the muddy hill would be the least of our worries.
We boarded our boats and took our positions to row out into
the river. Our raft guide, Ollo, took us through several drills to train us for
what was to come throughout the day. At one point, he tipped us over in the
boat and I ended up under the boat. After panicking for a minute, I popped out
and questioned why in the world I agreed to do this in the first place…and we
were just in the training portion of the day!
Ollo decided that our raft was ready to start down the
river, so he commanded us “forward, hard.” We rowed ourselves to the first
rapid which consisted of a lot of rocks and a 16 ft. waterfall! As we watched 2
rafts go down and flip over, leaving all of the participants floating in the
rapids, I once again questioned my judgment and wondered why in heck I had
agreed to this…and paid for it!
But Ollo was ready to go, so he gave the next command to our
team and we started toward the rapids. As we rafted down the first part, we
stopped at a few rocks where we could look down and see the drop we were about
to take. The next command was given and we inched forward over the waterfall
and suddenly plummeted down. With a massive wall in front of us, Ollo yelled to
get down. Our raft literally went vertical and I held on for dear life. I could
see the waves and the rapids everywhere below me. At one point, I must have
closed my eyes because I expected to hit water and be stuck under the waves.
But, suddenly, everything went bright and I realized that we had made it down
the 16 ft. drop and had somehow turned the raft horizontal again!
So we floated through the rest of the rapid and approached
calm waters. I was ready for more! Ollo told us a story of some Australian
women floating on his raft naked through the rapids, so we decided that our
team name would be “Team Naked.”
So we floated down to the next rapid as Team Naked and
conquered it as well. On the third rapid of the day, we lost 4 of our people
who ended up down the river and in the rescue boat. I still hadn’t fallen out
and I was praying to God that we would make it through the day without
flipping.
We finally made it to lunch and rowed out to an island with
this amazing view of the Nile Valley. We ate American sandwiches with guacamole
which may have been the best meal I’ve had in a really long time!
As we got back into the raft, Ollo warned us that the
morning had been easy compared to the class 4 and 5’s we’d experience coming
up. I prayed again as we rowed towards the next set of rapids, a class 5. Ollo
began to yell out his commands, “forward, forward hard, hard, harder, harder,
HARDER!” But this time, we weren’t able to conquer the rapid. The raft went
vertical and continued to flip over, throwing us all in different directions. I
ended up under the raft, hitting the top 4 different times and panicking for
air until I popped out on the side. I took one massive gasp for air and was hit
from behind with a massive rapid. As I came up again, I was hit, once again,
with a rapid from behind. It pushed me around under the water for a few seconds
and I finally made it back to the top again. Katie yelled my name, grabbed my
hand and pulled me to the kayak…heaven-sent just for us!
I had swallowed so much water and been under for such a long
period of time that it took me awhile to breathe normal again. We finally made
it from the kayak to a princess raft and back to our raft. We prepared, again,
for the next rapid…a class 4. I was so nervous that I’d end up under the raft
fighting for air again, but I didn’t have any other choice but to continue on.
So I grabbed my oar and began “forward!”
We approached the rapid and I knew we were in for another
fight. As soon as we went down the first fall, our raft went vertical again and
we held on for dear life. As I looked up, I realized that the daylight was
closing in and we were flipping into the water. I was stuck under the raft
again, but for a brief second before I popped out on the side. I looked behind
me and prepared for the on-coming waves. I decided to relax and just float
through, so I raised my nose and my toes out of the water and floated on my
back. As I looked forward, I realized that the rapids ahead of me were much
bigger than I had first anticipated. I looked behind for help and a kayaker was
coming full-speed ahead to rescue me before the next set of rapids. I grabbed a
hold of his kayak as he asked me if I was ok. I responded yes and he quickly
yelled back, “keep your feet up, do not
kick and hold on!!”
I was like “crap, there’s more!” and braced for the worst. I
rode through the rapids being dragged forward by a small one-man kayak! It was
pretty intense but they brought us back to our raft and our team joined
together again to fight the next rapids.
We made it through the last 2 rapids successfully and didn’t
lose any of the team. After the last rapid, Ollo threw a few of us into the
water and the rest proceeded to jump in after us all. We swam the last bit of
the Nile before we headed to the shore to end out the day.
I had several last thoughts of the day before I hit my
pillow that night:
1.
I’m glad I rafted the Nile, but I probably won’t do it again.
2.
I definitely don’t want to die by drowning.
3.
Rowing 33 km after not working out for months is killer to your body!
4.
I FREAKIN’ LOVE MY LIFE!!!!
Stay tuned…my Spring Break stories are nowhere near over!
More stories of casting out demons and bungee jumping into the Nile to come…
