Mr Fear of Water… Oh, what an annoying partner on my journey through life you used to be!
But last year I dumped you, Mr Fear, and the magic happened at the most beautiful lake in the world! To escape you I had to go through … you. Like Dale Carnegie said “If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
To be honest, at that very moment it did not feel like something that was going to be part of my epic biopic. It was closer to a thriller or even a horror movie entitled “The End of Masozera”, “Isaberrrrrrr” or “The Dugout Coffin”.
I was standing on the edge of Lake Bunyonyi, watching a canoe approaching. It wasn’t for me. It couldn’t have been for me. I don’t do canoes. This was not going to work.
It was for us.
I cursed my friend’s car, for it was the car that was the problem… It was too low. Couldn’t deal with rural roads. Got parked at a hotel. While we had to make it to the village on a peninsula…
We were four of us. Three non-swimmers. And the sole swimmer was laughing at us as he jumped into the shaky thing on the water. Yeah, he was the man with the key. The car key. So we had no option really.
The canoe ride was to take about 5 hours. The longest minutes of my life… Did I say 5 hours? Oh, sorry, it was 5 minutes in fact.
The ninja in me was brave as expected, but the haunting sound of reminders yelling “you really can’t swim!!!!” was hard to ignore… The only available means to my destination was a floating tree, with one paddler who couldn’t swim, and no life jacket on a lake some 40 metres deep… I was taking deep breaths, visibly shaking, sweating from unimaginable places… Actually, it was just like a badly scripted Nigerian movie!
I recorded my last message for my daughter, allocated my few belongings and forth I glided on the dark surface, ready to meet my maker… The first and the longest canoe ride of my life.
When I got to the other side in one piece, with my heart trembling, I almost wetted myself.
And do you think that was all?! Not at alllllllllll. Next day we had a much bigger badder item on our program: an overnight at Tom’s Homestay (oh yes, the very place I am now taking you to for Love in the Wild!). Whatever his predecessors were thinking, Nyabingi bless them, they chose to live on an island. The island we had to reach by … a canoe again!
This ride was 45 minutes. How’s your primary school math? 45 divided by 5 is __?
It’s 9.
It was 9 times longer than my first time in the dugout! 9 times! You think they’d let you get used to the thing step by step but NO. Instead of a step, a dozen of them…
This time, however, we had life jackets! Ha! Take this, Mr Death!
In no time my most reliable friend Mr Phone came out to play… Selfies, and more selfies… (I see you, stop rolling your eyes, you know it works very time!) The photos were cute, the views so unbelievable, the breeze so soothing… priceless in fact!!!!
And then Tom’s island, the real prize for the daring ones! I loved the place.
The following morning I actually took my third chance with the canoe! We went to see Punishment Island, the infamous place where pregnant but unmarried girls used to be dumped. I kinda …. enjoyed it.
No, I’m not saying I will be swimming with Sea Snakes, Stingrays, Tiger Sharks, Great White Sharks, Stonefish, Crocodiles and Chironex Box Jellyfish any time soon, however, I can say water and I now have a pleasantly open relationship…
It took so much faith jumping over my own shadow to do something I won’t forget for the rest of my life… But in doing so I discovered a world I had missed out on.
Now it’s your turn, try it out! I promise there will be plenty of life jackets, life guards and an incredible team waiting to help you conquer your fears right there in the Gorilla Highlands, this very Saturday…
text: Isabelle Lydia Masozera