White Water Rafting The Nile, Baby!

October 15th – October 18th
This week has been a relaxing week. We have been just hanging out and going shopping for things we need at practicum. I have enjoyed this time a lot. I feel like it was needed. The highlight of this week was definitely yesterday.
I could feel the butterflies in my stomach and the dread/excitement as I stared at the upcoming rapids. “I’m gonna die,” was the thought that frequented my mind. I was sitting on the left side in the front of a huge blue raft with a white paddle in my hand, a light pink helmet on my head, and a blue and yellow life jacket on my torso. There were 6 other people in the raft with me. One was the male Ugandan guide named Tutu, one was an aging man name Burt from the Netherlands and the other 4 were girls from my group. They were Kate, Camille, Charith, and Anna. Kate and I shared the front row. Tutu kept yelling things like, “Wicked Sweet” in his Ugandan accent, which I’m sure he learned from many American rafters that have come through.
Another thought that frequented my thoughts was that I was on the Nile, baby! So cool. The raft that I had chosen to ride was the mild raft because we didn’t want our raft to flip. I knew I would panic if I had a bunch of water in my mouth and nose and a raft on top of me. So I figured mild would work best. The guide started out with teaching us how to paddle, how to get back in the boat if we fell out, what commands he would use, and how we were to brace ourselves as we went through rapids. The first rapid that we encountered was a level 3 which is fun, but not very dangerous if you have a good guide. And we did. He had been doing this for 11 years. Later we encountered level 4s and 5s which looked really scary when you are just to raft them. But they were also the most fun. We never flipped because our guide was so good. He was able to steer us to the places in the rapid that made it so we wouldn’t flip. We greatly appreciated it. Every time we went on a rapid, Kate and I, since we were in the front row, got a bunch of water in the face, nose, and mouth. Fun stuff. We felt like we had swallowed half of the Nile by the time we were through.
As we watched other teams go down some of the higher level rapids, some of the guides would jump into the air and twirl as they went down them. They would often have to throw themselves forward too so they could land in the raft which had moved out from underneath them. It was pretty crazy, but cool. If I had to do this everyday, I would also figure out a way to make it more interesting. One of the guides was out of the raft and so our guide told his crew to paddle away from him, so they did. It was pretty funny. Many of times, especially toward the end, there was plenty of time to just float down the river and relax. So we would take off our helmets and jump out of the water so we could swim. It felt really good because the sun was beating upon our bodies when we sat on the raft. The scenery was very beautiful and the sky was beautiful. It was a perfect day for rafting.
Some of the other rafts flipped, but ours didn’t. I felt like we had just as much fun as everyone else, but we didn’t have to swallow as much water. The second to last rapid we went on was a level 5 and it had a 2 meter drop and then a bunch of other rapids along it, so it was super scary looking down for me as I sat in the front. My eyes widened and I yelled, “oh my gosh!” The girls in the other boat were yelling for us as they watched (because they had just gone down it before us). When we hit the bottom they cheered for us and I could tell they had seen my face. They were laughing at me. I didn’t mind.
Half way through we got to stop on a little island for a delicious lunch with nice wheat bread sandwiches, potato salad, and pineapple. It was a nice break for our tired bodies. Our group got especially tired because we only had 7 people to row and all the other ones had 11. Consequently, we were probably the slowest boat. It was still fun. After we were done with the sweet rafting trip I could tell that the top of my thighs were burnt from the sun. I thought I would be burnt other places too, but today, I can see that that is the only place I am burnt. I think that is because we don’t ever wear shorts here because it is inappropriate, so when we were able to on the rafting trip, they hadn’t seen sun in a long time! This morning I also woke up a little sore from paddling for hours and hours. The whole trip lasted seven or eight hours, plus there was a two hour drive there and a two hour drive back. It was a long day, so I ended up going to bed at 9 last night! Crazy.
So this might be my last blog for a while since I don’t know what the internet will be like in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the least developed country in the world. I still don’t know much about my practicum there, so I’m a little nervous, but I think I will survive. I’ve got my peanut butter, crackers, and cookies just in case I need to sustain myself while I’m there. For some reason I’m not excited about the food. Hmmm...I can’t imagine why. Hah. I do know that I’ll be teaching a classroom with Kate of about 85 students! Aaaaah! We will be teaching English. They said that they only have like 3 books for all of those students! I can tell that it will be very interesting. Then in the evening we will be able to help with CDP (Child Development Program) or other things that Food for the Hungry needs help with. Anyway, I’ll write as soon as I can. Later ya’ll.