By Jessie Stone
Photos: Jessie Stone
and Eli Reichman
Friday March 16th was a cloudy cool morning. The weather looked ominous, but nothing like the day before when it had torrentially poured for 10 hours. That much rain anywhere else in the world would mean high flows and flooding rivers, but not on the Nile.
Dr Jessie Stone
Jessie is a regular contributor to the Paddler magazine. She has been a two-time member of the US women’s freestyle kayak team and founded a non-profit organization called Soft Power Health to provide health education and medical treatment in Uganda.
Converts to the Nile in its final year
The CFS heading downstream from the Nile’s source in Jinja, Uganda are only impacted by how much power is being demanded from the hydro electric turbines on a given day. The Nile has been one of, if not, the most precious resource that land-locked Uganda has. As Africa’s main artery, it impacts the survival of millions of people over its 3,000 mile course. Uganda has been providing hydro power to its neighbours since the first dam was built at Owen Falls in the 1950s, but the Nile’s flow concerns its northern neighbours of Sudan and Egypt as well, since all the agriculture in those northern countries relies on the Nile.
On this particular morning, the entire staff of Soft Power Health, the healthcare non-profit I founded and have run since 2004, are gathering at Nile River Explorers campsite for breakfast before heading across the river to put in below Kalagala Falls for a rafting trip that will end at the Hairy Lemon Island. This is a momentous occasion for a number of reasons. First, its our staff Christmas party and yes, it’s now March, so we are seriously running on Ugandan time to make this happen, but better late than never.
Second, this year is the very last year that the Nile will flow in its natural and wild state through this section unimpeded by dams. The ongoing construction of the Isimba Dam, 15 kilometres downstream from Kalagala and Itanda Falls will be completed by the end of 2018. Unfortunately, despite local community efforts as well as the help of international river conservation organizations such as International Rivers, the formerly protected Kalagala Offset Area will be flooded and this biologically diverse and unique section of the Nile will be under water for the forseeable future!
The third and perhaps most important reason that this trip is happening despite some serious trepidation by most Soft Power Health staff – almost none of them have ever been down the Nile before! Most Ugandans do not swim and are afraid of water and the cost of going rafting is far out of reach for the vast majority of local people. For all of these reasons, most have no idea what they are about to lose in the coming months.
I have always found it a strange contradiction that the very people who the Nile belongs too, if it belongs to anyone, have the least idea of how incredible it is and have a very limited ability to find out! Rafting and kayaking are for the most part available to foreign visitors who can afford these activities. Though there are local safety kayakers, kayak instructors and raft guides, they are in small minority compared to the rest of the population. Since the Isimba Dam construction marches on daily, time is running out for the possibility of getting more local people like our Soft Power Health staff to see and experience the river.
Behind schedule
One silver lining to Isimba’s construction is that the builders, Chinese Water and Electric Company, are behind schedule. The latest news from the Ministry of Energy is that Isimba will not be completed before the end of 2018. While this may sound like a small consolation for losing this incredible section of the Nile, it sounds pretty good to those of us that have spent a long time in and around the river for the better part of the last 15 years. We will have some of the world’s best surf waves and play spots a little longer, which sure beats having them disappear by May 23rd, 2018 – the original flooding date.
While it’s very depressing for us river lovers to lose this section of the Nile – home to endangered species and a unique biodiverse environment found no where else on earth – it is actually devastating for hundreds of locals whose livelihoods and lives depends on the Nile in its natural state. The World Bank had an opportunity to help protect the designated Kalagala Offset Area (KOA) back in January 2018 when Uganda was renegotiating its loans with the World Bank. Instead, the World Bank caved and agreed to move the KOA upstream of its currently designated site. The KOA had originally been created between the World Bank and the government of Uganda to protect this unique biodiverse section of the Nile and its environment and for Ugandans and the rest of the world to enjoy when the Bujagali Dam was constructed in 2007.
In February 2018, the World Bank publicly announced that it would, ‘Offset the Kalagala Offset’ while concurrently having the World Bank’s Inspection Panel Chief, Gonzalo Carlo De La Mata visit Uganda and meet with affected persons and businesses. Gonzalo has the power to stop any World Bank related projects that violate the mandate of the World Bank, however, the inside word is that he will not. If he doesn’t see anything wrong with offsetting a protected offset area, then it is unlikely he will find anything wrong with what the World Bank is doing in Uganda. This hugely disappointing news is not entirely unexpected.
The World Bank, under the guise of undertaking development projects that benefit local communities and help, ‘End poverty’ as their motto states in countries like Uganda, has been doing the exact opposite with projects like large hydro dams since its inception. These dams keep countries that build them heavily in debt and rarely if ever, do the countries pay the debt off. The World Bank and other investors end up extracting whatever they want from the countries as a means of payment instead. Additionally, it has been well documented that large hydro dams have the largest negative impact on the poorest segment of society, who cannot afford the power the dam produces and end up being displaced by the massive reservoirs.
Alternatives
Projects that could work as alternatives to large hydro power such as solar have not been the priority on the World Bank’s to do list. Solar is cheap and affordable in Uganda as well as being perfectly located at the equator. As things stand now, the World Bank has not compensated people living along the Nile whose homes, land and livelihoods are in the KOA will be flooded by Isimba’s reservoir. Once the land is flooded and they have nothing, what will happen? It will be too late for these people. There is no doubt that before this happens, people must be properly and effectively compensated for their land at the very least,
Shouts of joy
Meanwhile, the initial trepidation by our Soft Power family of getting into the rafts and doing the needed safety drills, which include swimming, rescuing each other from the raft and even flip drills, has given way to the excitement and pure thrill of riding through the rapids! After the first waves of Vengeance crash over the line of seven rafts, shouts of joy and exuberance can be heard at the bottom. Once through Hair of the Dog and Kula Shaker, people even begin to jump out of the rafts and float in the large pool below.
Even some of the most frightened are smiling and enjoying their surroundings. All are beginning to understand what has drawn so many of us back year after year to this magic corner of the planet. The final rapid, Nile Special, delivers its special embrace to all. Elated choruses of rafters making it right side up echo up and down the river. Once on shore at the Hairy Lemon, the big grins and nearly speechless crews apart from, “Aah-Hah!” are all that needs to be said. Seventy Ugandans who never imagined they would see and experience the Nile first hand are learning why so many of us have loved the Nile for years! They have a new perspective on their ‘home’ river that they never had before and a window into an world they would never otherwise see! If I had to guess, I think they have all become converts to the Nile!
