Braver Than You Think by Maggie Downs

Author:Maggie Downs
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640092938
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2020-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

You Can Survive the Bad Place

AFTER MBALE, I RETURN TO KAMPALA FOR A FEW DAYS BEFORE the city begins to wear on me and I hop on a bus for my next adventure.

It takes more than two hours to fully escape the frenetic crowds and wild streets of Kampala. Finally we reach a point where the asphalt is exhausted, becoming firmly packed roads of red clay. Dense, shoulder-to-shoulder buildings disappear, replaced by green trees and modest houses. Each time the bus shudders to a stop, hawkers run to the windows selling skewers of meat, bags of fruit, or warm chapati bread rolled around a thin egg omelet, what they call a “Rolex.”

Men zip through the streets on motorbikes, bare-chested, not slowed at all by the long yellow kayaks that balance perpendicularly across the backs of their bikes. When I see them, that’s how I know we’ve reached Jinja, a bucolic town that has become East Africa’s hub for adventure sports. People from all over the world travel here for the world-class kayaking, the all-terrain vehicle safaris, and the epic bungee jumping. I’m here to go whitewater rafting at the source of the Nile River.

My backpacker hostel is situated on a hill that overlooks sinuous curves of water. This is where the tour company will pick us up in the morning. I’m staying in a dorm room with several other adventure seekers, all more experienced than I am. I’ve never been whitewater rafting, but my favorite amusement park ride as a kid was White Water Canyon at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, and for some reason, I imagine this real-life experience will be essentially the same thing: a refreshing float on some burbling water through woodland scenery, a height requirement of at least forty-six inches, possibly a funnel cake afterward.

As the sun sets, I open a cold Tusker lager and carefully read the waiver for the next day’s rafting trip. The paper says the rapids in Jinja are “grade five on a scale that runs from one to six.” Grade one means mild rocking and rolling, suitable for beginners. Grade six presents extreme danger and barely navigable rapids, even for professionals.

So. Grade five? Holy mother of paddling. This requires skillful maneuvering of choppy water, huge hazards, steep drops, and crashing waves. It also means that as a first-timer, I am terrified. The chapati bread I ate on arrival now churns uncomfortably in my stomach. My throat burns and tastes acidic. I knew the rapids were a five before I signed up—I just thought the scale ran from one to ten.

That night I call Jason via Skype. When he answers, I tell him what I’m about to do. I expect him to be proud of me.

“So this might be goodbye,” I laugh.

“Then why are you doing this?” he snaps. He’s angry, so different from the man who held my hand on a skydiving aircraft during the ride to altitude and told me to relax in the sky. “Nobody’s forcing you to go rafting.

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