Nile Special

I promise I will blog more about my hospital experience in this next week, but I have to recount the amazing last few days I have had. Thursday evening, a few other American students and I were invited over to one of the international directors’ house for a home cooked Ugandan meal. Susan made us one of the best meals I have had in Uganda which consisted of hand squeezed passion fruit/mango juice, the best matoke (a bunch of smashed bananas with seasoning) I have had in Uganda, tilapia, Irish potatoes (normal white potatoes) and salad. The meal was delicious and the company even better. One thing I have learned is that Ugandans are extremely hospitable and Susan was the epitome of that. This week we are having her over for a “traditional” American meal which so far consists of my region famous beer dip, some sort of candy bar salad and either pizza or lasagna for the main dish.

Emily, Becky, Rachel, Susan and Reagan

After our wonderful meal and an eventful Friday at the hospital which I will blog about later, a group of 19 international students, including myself, crowded into a bus early Saturday morning and headed to Jinja, a city 2 hours from Kampala. Here we embarked on an exciting, somewhat crazy and definitely water logged adventure of white water rafting on the River Nile with a company called Adrift. Upon arriving to the Adrift site, we split into groups of  6 or  7 and piled into our respective rafts. Our raft guide was named Tutu, so naturally our team name was Team Tutu. Within 5 minutes, Tutu had us doing safety drills and jumping into the Nile, simulating that we had fallen overboard or flipped our raft (these later would definitely come in handy). 

TEAM TUTU!!!

 After our safety briefing, we headed out to our first rapid. The first rapid was fun, but thankfully uneventful; all paddles, arms, persons and body parts were intact so we headed toward the second rapids. This one was not quite as uneventful. After the first wave, we smashed into a second wave and seconds later I was underwater feeling 6 other bodies kicking and twirling around me with a huge raft on top of the whole mess. I finally was able to surface for air, but as soon as I gasped another wave pummeled me back down. After a few more seconds I popped back up and Emina, the baller extreme kayaking Olympian, came to my rescue and pulled me, along with a few of my friends, back to our raft. After our flip we all were a bit shaken so we took the rest of the rapids a little more easily. The views of the banks of the Nile throughout the entire trip were amazing, and after a few more rapids, 5 hours in the sun, some impromptu back flipping off the raft and a lot of cheering “TEAM TUTU!!!” our day was completed.

Rapid #1

Now begins the sequence of us on our 2nd rapid...here we are heading for our wave of terror.

Just demolished.

And there she went...we all were completely submerged, paddles flying everywhere, feet frantically kicking, and Tutu screaming (and laughing at us) while we tried to grab the boat. 

The rest of the rapids did not result in near drownings but were just as fun. At one point Tutu had us in the "washing machine" where the wave kept pulling us back and forth. : D

Our last rapid...notice me in the front right...not really sure of whether I should laugh, cry or admit that I just peed myself. 

After the trip ended the Adrift staff BBQ’ed meat and served us Nile Specials as we watched our videos and looked at our pictures. We also bought some merchandise from Emina, who will be competing in the summer Olympics for extreme kayaking. All proceeds from her business were helping her buy her plane ticket, so we all bought necklaces that she made out of magazine paper and some headbands.

After our lovely BBQ, we then boarded the bus and headed towards our campsite on the muddiest road I have ever driven on. After less than 2 minutes of driving, we were completely stuck. Knowing that there was little we could do, we all deboarded the bus and began talking to the local villagers and children. I and a couple of friends, along with the Adrift team and some local Ugandans, finally pushed the bus out of the mud, but not before I completely ate it in the mud and had 100 Ugandan children laughing at me. That night our Adrift crew met us at our campsite and we all bonded by climbing into a kayak that hands upside down in the rafters of the local watering hole. Almost our entire group complete the ritual and by the end of the night we all were exhausted and so happy we made it through the day. 

Mid fall as I am trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to get the bus out of the mud

Emily and I...completely covered in mud. 

Our baller savior/olympian, Emina.

As if extreme kayaking wasn't enough...tonight we decided to join an extreme running group. Hash House Harriers is an international "running group with a drinking problem." It is present in most major cities and usually consists of locals, some "in" tourists and expatriates. My running buddy/personal trainer/slave driver and I decided it sounded awesome so we got the "in" information from our friend Adam and convinced our friends Emily and Becky to join. The group meets every Monday in a different location, so you have to know someone in the group who can text you the location of run that night. Luckily Adam is a creepily good stalker and hounded the group enough to let us know the location :). The address took us to the rooftop of a mall where we met 120 other runners, mostly Ugandans, who were drinking beer, stretching, dancing and chatting. At 6 o'clock sharp the run started. Now, the way HHH is set up is that you have "hares" who mark the running route before and "hounds" who follow the route. The hares when they set the route up purposefully put dead ends, loops and "hooks" so that faster runners have to slow down or run farther, thus keeping the group together. After running about a quarter of a mile, our entire caravan stopped suddenly, and realized we were on the wrong route, so we had to completely turn around and join the rest.

Emily, Becky, Katie (my personal trainer) and I at the first checkpoint!

After a couple of miles and a killer hill, we reached our first checkpoint. Again, this is designed to keep the group together. Feeling more confident we pushed up towards the front of the pack and then started again. After getting to the top of another huge hill, and then descending down an even bigger one, a group of about 10 runners stopped in front of us and said, "Ok, you're the first 10 so you make the hook, go back up the hill and come back." I was so astonished I just started laughing and trucked my butt up the HUGE half mile hill we had just descended. After turning around again, descending the hill again and thus meeting up with the rest of the group we hit another check point. This time, it was complete with solo cups of beer. The leader of the group also lead us in a drinking/calisthetic song where we did jumping jacks and some other weird limb motions. Finally, after about 4.5 miles we ended up back in our original location and celebrated with a meal and more Nile Specials (newcomers had to partake even more and embarrass themselves in front of the entire group of course). We met some amazing people along the route, and one named Joseph even gave me the shirt off of his (sweaty) back because I said I liked it so much. At the end of the night the 5 of us were all (sweaty) smiles and became lifelong HHH'ers.