One of the coolest things I've ever done

Last week Julie and I were able to tag along on a trip with some Harding students passing through town. These students have been studying in Zambia this semester. They’ve been and are travelling around Uganda and to Rwanda before they return to the States. On Monday they were scheduled to raft the River Nile. Julie and I thought this was a great time for us to go rafting, so we tagged along. We found out about it on Saturday and scrambled to get everything worked out to leave with them on Sunday. We had to get a private hire (taxi) to take us to Jinja because plans changed with the transport situation and we had to find our own way there. We tried to call the guest house where these students were staying to find out if there was room for us, but MTN (cell network) wasn’t working in Jinja. So we arrived at the guest house to find they were full. Since it was dark by this time, Phillip generously drove us around the neighborhood to find a place to stay. We went to a couple of different places only to find out they were also full. Why there were so many people in Jinja on a Sunday night, I have no idea. As Phillip drove by the Daniel Guest House the first time he said, “Thousand shillings says I’ll be bringing you back here.” Of course, he was right. This hotel was a bit…sketchy, but it was a place to sleep. We had one mosquito net to somehow fit over our two twin beds, so we slept with our heads close together trying not to get tangled in the net. We got up the next day and joined the Harding students for the rafting trip. Julie and I ended up in a raft with 3 guys and our guide, Peter. I think we went through 12 rapids and only flipped twice. I had never been rafting before, and my first trip we went through class 5 rapids. Rapids are classed 1-6. Class 6 can only be done by well-trained kayakers. The class 5 rapids here are “probably the best class 5 rapids in the world,” according to the Jinja rafting people. For the last rapid we had to get out and walk around while the guides carried the boats further up the river. That part of the river was a class 6 rapid. I was pretty much terrified looking at the water we were about to get back into and raft through, and really thought about not doing the last rapid. Of course, I hopped back in the boat anyway. We made it through the final rapid, “The Bad Place,” without flipping, though Julie almost fell out but pulled through by hanging on for dear life. So my first rafting trip ever was on class 1-5 rapids in the River Nile… I don’t think I can ever raft in the States now; nothing will be quite as thrilling. I felt very accomplished at the end of the trip and very proud of myself for making it through flipping only twice. Floating down the Nile between rapids was awesome. I wish I could accurately describe the feeling of being on the Nile mesmerized by the beauty of God’s creation and the excitement of playing in it. Rafting 30 kilometers of the Nile is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.