Hail and Headwinds at the Headwaters: A Ugandan Easter Story

Uganda. Before coming on this trip, all the information that I knew about Kenya’s neighbor to the west came from the movie The Last King of Scotland. That movie is a biopic about Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin during his rule of the country during the 1970s. He ruled with a reign of terror, oppressed and killed many Ugandans, destroyed Uganda’s economy, and practiced negligence in the health sector, which later caused Uganda to be extremely afflicted with AIDS during the 1980s and early 1990s. This is the description of Uganda that as an American I grew up with. Having just spent my Easter Holiday there, in actuality that is not the Uganda I saw.

Before coming here to study abroad, I had all these grand ambitious plans for traveling around and seeing things. Once the life here really started and I realized how busy it would be with four classes and two full days of internships a week, as well as no long weekends off and how big these African countries take and how long transportation takes, I began to realize that Easter Weekend with five days off would be my best opportunity to see and do something new and different. First I was kicking around ideas of a safari in one of the many Kenyan National Parks, but I am content with my one safari I went on (see earlier blog). The other major option early on was to go to Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro. That would have been fun as well, however a third option presented itself that sounded like the most fun, different, and exciting: to whitewater raft the Nile in Uganda. The Nile, the world’s longest river, begins near Lake Victoria in Jinja, Uganda, and whitewater rafting it sounded like an amazing way to spend my Easter Weekend. So four of us from my program: Alberto, Alicen, Nikki and I, as well as one Kenyan, Alex (a colleague of Alberto and Nikki’s with their internships), took the fourteen hour bus-ride to Jinja.

Uganda is an anomaly to me. Everywhere in Uganda has these extremely green, lush fields and vegetation is very abundant, and the topography has rolling hills. The scenery actually reminded me a lot of Northern Thailand with the mountains and forest/jungle setting everywhere. The people are very nice, friendly, and comforting, the land definitely receives plenty of rainfall (Uganda has never had a drought in its recorded history, whereas Kenya, in comparison is currently in the midst of a twelve year drought in some places and some places have not seen any rain in many years.) So with the climate and land ripe for agriculture and the people so nice, it seems very odd to me that Uganda’s economy is much weaker than Kenya’s economy. A few theories that I have as to this is that while organized fields grow everywhere, it appears as if the main crops that I saw were sugarcane, banana, and matoke (Uganda’s national dish, it is a root crop that looks exactly like a green banana but tastes more like a potato). If these are the main crops, it does not offer subsistence and cash crops for very much profit, and thus is difficult for the agriculture economy to grow strong. My other idea is the political history of Uganda. The country has been stable for the last twenty years (well, except in the far north, but that is a completely other story I have no first-hand experience with), with the same President during that time. But before that Uganda fell victim to many coups, and two dictators, Idi Amin, and Obote, who ruled with terror and raped the coffers of the state. The third thing Uganda has going against it is that it is landlocked, and must completely depend on trade through Kenya or Tanzania to get to a coast. Other than these three developmental challenges, Uganda should be far better off than it is, and I wish I had more than four days there to spend more time figuring this out and how to make it better.

Ok back to my weekend.

For this trip, we used this company called Nile River Explorers. They run both a campsite and the rafting company there. As we walked into the campsite, the first thing we saw is the Nile. The company built a bar/restaurant/ common area at the top of this hill, with a spectacular view of the Nile. I was surprised at how big the Nile was at this point already. The very source and beginning is only a few kilometers away from where we were camping, but it was already a few hundred yards across here. You could see and hear the rapids and that made me excited for the next day and rafting. We set our tent up down the hill closer to the water. We had a great view of the Nile from our tent, and sleeping at nite we could hear the roar of the rapids as they went over nearby Bujagali Falls (one of the class 5 rapids that we would do while rafting.) After getting the tent set up, we decided to go for a swim in the Nile. At this point of the Nile, it is the headwaters, so it is completely safe and relatively clean to swim in. This is the first experience in my life I have had with very strong current. We had to stay relatively close to shore, because swimming out far meant a strong current and a waterfall not to far away. I would consider myself a pretty strong swimmer, and I have to admit it was a fight and took a bit of a fight and an effort to swim. It was a lot of fun though and it was just amazing to be able to swim in the Nile and be in Uganda for this weekend.

Thursday nite we had a last Supper of sorts. For people doing rafting all day, they get a barbeque for dinner, however, since we were not rafting that day we decided to go to one of the “Mamas” in the hut style restaurants across the street for some real Ugandan food that a Ugandan mother makes. It really was a feast and reminded me of the Last Supper, especially as my nervous excitement built for the following day. The mama and her children kept bringing out plates of food for us, which was matoke, a very good avocado peanut sauce, sweet potatoes, steamed cabbage, beans, chapatti, and a few more dishes that I can’t remember. We went to sleep early that nite for the next day of rafting. On a day of rafting, they provide a breakfast, lite lunch on the river, and a bbq dinner, so that morning we took the truck to the rafting office/headquarters where we got breakfast. As we were eating, they had videos playing of other peoples raft adventures. We got in the truck and drove to the raft put in site and all got in groups for our adventure. Rafting the Nile is not like rafting in the United States. Having said that I had never whitewater rafting before, but it was much different than what I have heard. The Nile is much wider than most of the rivers in the US and other places, and the rafting company take many safety precautions. Along with the rafts there are about 5 safety kayakers for rescuing people who fall off, as well as a safety oar boat with a medical kit and other supplies. Nearly the entire Ugandan national kayak team works for the company as well, and they practice everyday so they are extremely experienced and really know the river well. For a full day of rafting we rafted 30 km. The first few were flat-water, where we went over different maneuvers for going through the current, as well as what to do if we flipped, etc. The guide that we had (a spirited Australian woman), let us swim through the first small rapids during our training tutorial (these were about grade 1 rapids I think, the mildest ones.) The first rapid that we took following the tutorial was a grade 3, and in retrospect, it was very easy. Somehow, on our first day rafting, we all fell out while going over it. I got my wake up right there to white water rafting and ended up in a whirlpool in the river upside down spinning under water. After a few seconds of that I got tired of it so I just hard kicked to the surface and had a safety kayak take me back to my boat. That was the only time all day that we fell, and we did not even flip once. Rafting this part of the Nile is considered the best class 5 rapid rafting in the world. The way the Class system works is that class 5 is the most extreme commercial rafting rapids in the world. There is a class 6 but only professional kayakers do these, and there is class 7 now that means un-navigable (or death as our guide said). There are about 4 class 5 rapids that we did and a handful more class 4. These rapids were everything from Bujagali Falls which was a huge wave and a small minor waterfall, to Silverback, which was where all the water from that point squeezed into a small stretch so it was major waves from the sides all coming together to meet at different points, making for very extreme, choppy water, to an 8 foot drop on Overtime. All of these rapids we took in stride over the course of the day, and did not flip the raft. Along with hitting all the rapids and getting knocked around, we also had long stretches where we were aloud to float in the current for 10 min or so each time and swim around. We got pineapple and cookie biscuits on the rafts for lunch and hung out for awhile and talked. This was the first half of the day. The second half of the rafting had 6 or so more rapids, and much more unexpected excitement.

As we were rafting in a few km stretch between 2 of the rapids, the sky turned black and very ominous, and the wind picked up. We faced a major headwind that began to push us backwards even with six people paddling as hard as they could. Lightning started to strike overhead (never bolts just flashes), and thunder. Then the hail came. The visibility became next to nothing, and it was so thick that we all had to look down in order to get through. The helmets that we all had to wear while rafting got their best use of the day during this storm. For about an hour-hour and a half we battled this storm, which was blowing us backwards or causing us not to move at all in the middle of the Nile, with visibility bad enough not to see the shore, and no where to dock even if we did see the shore. We just stroked on, sang songs, and Alex even led us in a Kenyan war cry for a while. During this time I think we all went through about all emotions from deliriousness, helplessness, fear, fun, exhilaration etc. We experienced this together though. It was a group strengthening exercise that we all went through together and came out stronger afterwards. Once the hail stopped in this rough patch the visibility became more and eventually we made it to the final rapid of the day, which was a class 6. This rapid (called the bad place), is the most extreme and as part of the day we even walked around the first part of it and put the boats back in at the very back part of the rapid, where it is still a class 5. The water was just rushing here and so fast and loud and I can now understand why class 6 is un-raftable. We made it through without flipping, and then paddled to our endpoint for the day. We had a bbq that nite and the movie from the day was played. (One of the kayakers on the river also operates a video camera for every run and films every group going over the rapids). It was a good recap of the extreme adventure of the day.

Our original Saturday plans were to do a repeat performance, but those had to change because we did not book the second day rafting in enough time and it filled up. So we went to Kampala instead. On the hour and a half matatu ride (or taxi as they are called in Uganda), I was excited because I was going to get to see another World Capital. I was not disappointed, and Kampala is absolutely gorgeous. Driving into the city, I thought Kampala looked more like it belonged in Italy than in Uganda. The city is situated mainly on six or seven hills, with big, beautiful buildings that were red roofed that looked like a Mediterranean city. Alex has a friend who is a professional tour guide, so he walked around for a couple hours and showed us the government buildings, and a few more sites. Kampala is absolutely beautiful! The thing that struck me most is how clean and orderly it is. There are trashcans on every corner (something Nairobi needs), and people actually use them. There is trash almost nowhere in the streets, the people are orderly and nice, and the city is so safe too. It reminds me a lot of Washington DC. We even went to an informal settlement, and they are more advanced than in Nairobi. There are initiatives in these settlements to clean up, build modernized housing for people, and we walked through a very large, centralized market in the settlements that is the largest market in East Africa, employing a hundred thousand people. From the roughly four hours I spent in Kampala, I think it is one of the best places I have been in Africa.

Back at our campsite in Jinja, it was time for dinner. Across the street from the campsite there is a guy who makes chapatti all day long. All of the restaurants around were already closed (except the one at the campsite but we wanted African food and this one catered towards wazungu). So we went to him for dinner. I ended up getting a chapatti with egg, tomato, onion, and avocado, and it was I think the best thing I have eaten in East Africa. It reminded me of getting crepes on the street in Paris, or of one of my favourite restaurants in Washington DC Café Bonaparte in Georgetown. Easter Morning a torrential rainstorm woke me up (it is the rainy season now so that is expected) and it left all of our things soaked. Once the storm stopped about 8am it was still very overcast and chilly, perfect conditions for another half day of whitewater rafting.

What a difference a couple days is with whitewater rafting. All of the mystique was gone, all of the surprise, I felt an air of confidence bordering on cockiness. Our guide on Sunday was likewise cocky, he knew we were out two days before because we made friends that day, and thus instead of getting the training tutorial for the first few km we just watched everyone else and talked and had fun. We also were in a different formation today. (The first day I had one of the front sides, today I was in the middle). The river is never the same though two days in a row and we had no reason to be as confident as we were, and I was expectation us to flip very soon. Going over Bujagali falls, we flipped and I got launched a good 10 feet off the raft and into the water. That was the first time I hit the water today, and it was still overcast and chilly, but the water felt good as it was warmer than the air. Over the very next rapid we very nearly flipped again. Alicen, who was in front of me, went in except her feet and we pulled her back up. My head and half my body was in the water but I was fighting and pulling the raft back to the other side to not flipped and stayed in. At this point, we realized we were really unequal with our weight distribution, and once things went in different formations it made things easier. On Silverback, the last class 5 that we would get for only a half day, I lost my balance while trying to paddle from a crouched position and fell out. I ended up under the raft and was fighting to grab part of the raft to hold on to get pulled up again, and was finally able to. What a difference one run to the next is. The first day we had the only woman raft instructor, who always gets playfully made fun of by the guy raft instructors, so I think she felt like she had something to prove and was very technical with her instruction. We also had not done it before so we did not know what to expect. The second day we had seen and conquered all the big rapids and we had a cocky male instructor who did not give us much instruction because we had minor experience. Shifting weight and formation I think also played into flipping and falling as much as we did. It really makes a difference how weight is distributed to not flip and conquer the rapids. This really was an amazing opportunity. To whitewater raft the Nile, to spend Easter Morning going over some of the most extreme rapids in the world on the world’s longest river. It was just all too surreal, and made for one incredibly memorable Easter.