So most of the fun to be had in Uganda is of the adventurous sort. In particular, I spent a lot of time in the little town of Jinja, a little town about 87 km (over a three hour drive, in Uganda) to the east of the capital Kampala. It is built at the source of the White Nile on Lake Victoria, and it's famous for many things, including rafting.
We stayed at a river camp with an adventure company called "Adrift." We could stay there for about 30 bucks a day, or so, and the food and beer were very cheap. The campgrounds were set up at the top of a steep cliff with a good view of the river, there was free wireless, and as long as you were in the shade of the open-air bar it was very cool and pleasant.
Rafting itself is an interesting experience. The sheer volume of the water going through the rapids at Jinja is some of the craziest in the world. I forget what the exact numbers are, but it's intense. Many of the rapids are class four or five and some are not even navigable on a raft.
Now, going over these rapids is pretty fun, you get bounced and splashed and whatever, but the really interesting part is when you fall out of the boat. This is pretty safe, since you're wearing a lifejacket, and since the water is so deep it is very unlikely you will hit a rock (unlike, say, the Ottawa river, where if you fall out you might get banged up).
I am what I would describe as a pretty nervous traveller. I am not panicky by any means, but my friends and families who have been on trips with me (especially to developing countries) will know that I don't really like riding without a helmet on a scooter or when the driver does some blind-passing on hairpin turns. However, I was not really bothered about the rapids. Maybe this is because I'm very comfortable swimming (since I played varisty waterpolo for 5 years) or maybe it's just because I didn't think it through very well. Anyway, I was rafting aggressively and not really looking too hard to stay in the boat.
The first time I fell out of the boat, our driver had actively attempted to flip us during a "safer" moment. The only person who fell out was me. Only I didn't really fall out, I was more pulled out. Once I hit the water, so that it splashed on my arm and over my chest, it was moving so rapidly that I felt like I was sucked right out of the boat.
When that happened, I gripped my paddle tightly and curled into a ball as I had been taught. You aren't supposed to struggle, because it will just exhaust your muscles, you're supposed to let your lifejacket do the work. So I stayed under the surface, not being able to see anything but being vaguely conscious of some sort of rapid movement, like I was driving in a convertable and being buffeted by the wind. After a few seconds (I forgot to count, as I was supposed to) I popped up to the surface and then I was sucked back down. When I bobbed back up again, I saw that I had been blasted 50 yards away from the boat in just a few seconds. It had been like being fired out of a cannon.
The boat flipped two times later that day. The first time we were taking an aggressive line across a rapid. Everything seemed fine, then suddenly the left side of the boat smashed upwards and it flipped. Once everyone surfaced (it took some people a while) we swam over to the boat on the river bank, in amidst the rocks, some of which were a little jagged. We all got back into the boat and started adjusting our gear when the boat was suddenly sucked backwards into the rapid. The rear end of the boat (the stern?) was sucked underwater, and most of the passengers were pulled back into the water.
The first time the boat flipped I hadn't been under for too long. But for whatever reason, the second time, I was pulled very deeply under. The water turned brown and silty and it seemed to me I could see chunks of dirt or seaweed floating around. I had no idea where my paddle was. I just gripped my knees tight and waited. I forgot to count again, so I'm not sure how long I was under, but it felt like a while. When I bobbed back up to the surface I was very far from the boat, and I was travelling very quickly. I saw a helmet floating by and grabbed it. It turned out to belong to my sister, who was also caught up in the grip of the water and not far from me.
As I've alluded to, I'm a strong swimmer. Not fast, necessarily, but physically strong. I was a powerful defender in waterpolo. I would play full games with few breaks, treading water the whole time, and rarely got shoved around by anyone. As I said, I think that had something to do with my level of comfort. But when I got into the water, I realized it made absolutely no difference how strong a swimmer you were. If the current was against you, it had the force of a train. You just went where it went, period. In my lifejacket I was just as helpless as anyone else, no matter how much work I tried to put in. My sister and I just had to wait for the "safety kayakers" to come over and pick us up.
After the day's adventures we went to a fancy luxury lodge, built specifically next to certain aesthetically appealing rapids, and ate dinner in the sound of their constant roar. I felt really, really good. Better than I'd felt in a long time. And I spent a lot of time wondering why that was. Adrenaline rush, or something? Just excitement?
Maybe. But what I've come to believe is that there is a certain honest exhileration in the loss of control. We live in one of the most tightly controlled, perfectly regulated eras in human history. Our health care is amazing. The lack of war and crime and public violence is remarkable. Travelling (as bad as traffic is) is smooth and predictable. And we also search for that level of control in our private lives, as we try to find safe investments for our retirement, jobs that won't fire us, diets that won't kill us, lovers who won't leave us.
To a large degree we're successful. But two things. First, no matter how hard we work, there is an element of pure randomness in our life. The kid with cancer. The healthy young man who dies of a heart attack. The drunk driver. The investment advisor who steals our money. The bolt of lighting. Nothing can protect us from the unconscious malice of the universe.
Second, to strive continually to control the world around us is an exhausting task. It requires our constant attention as we perpetually balance of risks. We are afraid, and rightly so, what will happen to us if we surrender control of our lives and subject ourselves to randomness. But in order to do so, we always have to be flexing a muscle, carrying a burden, as we work to impose our will on the world around us.
Being in the river isn't like that. You go where the river takes you. And in the scary moments you don't feel fear. You feel an instant of gratification, as some part of your mind realizes that the constant struggle to preserve itself is now futile, and it sets down its burden. In those instants you only feel a sense of relief. Remember, when the boat flipped the second time, we were in amongst the rocks and could have been hurt, but I was not afraid. I didn't think to be. It was all happening very fast, and I was calm.
And then, when you get back to your life, you can't help but notice the difference, at least for a little while. How many of our worries occur because we want to eliminate risk, like a gardiner pulling weeds out of the earth? All of them? You don't worry about control when you're underwater, hoping that the current will carry you back up.
If something really bad happened, if a plane started to crash or a car flipped over, would you feel the same way? Without any time to reflect or worry, there would only be an instant of calm empty whiteness in your mind, as it gave up the struggle, and finally just accepted whatever was to come? I'm sure if it took your plane ten minutes to crash, you'd have time to get panicked, but in those first few instants (and, perhaps, in the last few) you might feel better than you ever had before.
And so, although I'm not a brave guy, or one for extreme sports or bungee jumping, I think there is something to be said for risk-taking beyond just a cheap hit of adrenalin. It teaches you, I think, how much of your happiness and unhappiness has nothing to do with the real things in your life, and is just bound up inside your own head. I think that's a lesson we all could benefit from learning long before the last few moments of our life.
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