{"id":12581,"date":"2017-05-03T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=12581"},"modified":"2017-05-01T11:58:59","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T18:58:59","slug":"beat-by-my-own-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2017\/05\/03\/beat-by-my-own-boat\/","title":{"rendered":"Beat By My Own Boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u2019t heard about Amina Tayona, you should read up. Amina is from Bujagali Falls, a small fishing village in southeast Uganda<\/a> where the White Nile once flowed from its beginnings in Lake Victoria. She began kayaking in 2009. Her talent was quickly noticed and today she\u2019s a safety kayaker for Nalubale Rafting on the Nile River. One of only a few women who make money by kayaking, and in a village where women tend to raise children rather than get an education or a career, this 23-year-old is an anomaly.<\/p>\n

In 2015 she was the only female Ugandan paddler to compete at the 2015 Freestyle World Championships on the Ottawa River in Ontario. Today, she\u2019s still a member of the Ugandan Freestyle Kayaking Team. And it was she and her teammate, also named Amina, who would ultimately beat me at this year\u2019s Nile River Festival Endurance Race.<\/p>\n

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The start gun fires and 60 playboats leave the bank at once, charging downstream toward what seems like endless lengths of flatwater broken up by a few giant rapids. The start is chaotic, with paddles bumping boats and boats bumping paddles, everyone trying to nudge away from the pack. Athletes scream out to their race partner, \u201cCome on! We\u2019ve got this!\u201d as they charge through the crowd. My heart is pounding as I try to find a pace I can maintain for the next 35 kilometers. I take a quick look around to size up the competition.<\/p>\n

Right on my tail, threatening to pass me is Amina Nakirya, and just to my left is Amina Tayona. The pair is infamous for winning the Nile River Festival endurance race year after year. Both girls work as safety kayakers for rafting companies on the Nile, and thus paddle the river every day, building strength and speed like you wouldn\u2019t believe. The amount of time they spend on the water is very apparent as they increase their paddling pace and slowly but surely leave my race partner and me in their wake. As these ladies are leaving me in the dust, I take a quick glance at Amina Tayona\u2019s boat. The stickers look familiar. Really familiar. Perhaps it\u2019s just that my old boat was stickered up in a similar fashion. But no, I recognize those exact stickers. I\u2019m shocked. Everything about this boat looks like my old boat that I used in college.<\/p>\n