Happy Birthday Jason

To celebrate the birth of my darling husband, we had a small get together of around a dozen people. On the menu we had fried chicken, rice, salad and a variety of dips which included guacamole and Velveeta cheese with Rotell mix. It was delicious. To drink we had everything that you could have wanted from water to wine. The drinks were flowing as well as the conversation and the fun. We partied well into the evening in anticipation of the next day’s activities.

On Jason’s birthday we had been invited to go sailing at the Lilongwe Sailing Club. I didn’t even know that there was a body of water in Lilongwe (other than the river) let alone a place to go sailing. The body of water was at a damn, a 40 minute drive out of the city. The water was clear and so was the skiy. Peter and Mina are experienced in sailing and they rigged up the boats and took Jason out on the water for the first sail of the day. Tyler, Trina and I stayed back to get the BBQ ready for lunch. Lunch was delicious as all BBQ lunches tend to be and we were all ready to set out on the “high seas”. The skies started to become overcast but we figured that we could all manage to go out at least one time before the rains start. The boats were very small and could only hold a maximum of 3 people. Jason decided that it would be fun to set out in a canoe with one of the local fisherman to spear some catfish. Jason’s guide striped down to his underwear (which turned out to be a burgundy silk pair of panties) and then Jason followed (luckily Jason left his silk panties at home and wore boxers instead). They both got in the canoe while the guide paddled the entire way in a standing position. Trina and Peter headed out in their boat while Mina, Tyler and I put our boat into the water. As we were launching the boat we started to hear the grunting of a hippo that was lurking about in the water. Apparently there is only one hippo at the damn, and this hippo killed a local woman 2 days ago. I was a little nervous about the presence of the hippo as we put the boat in the water. GRUNT, GRUNT, GRUNT, was all I could hear as we set sail. The wind started to pick up as we were set off around the damn. Now that the wind had picked up it was causing a lot of waves and the boat was listing a lot to one side. I gave Mina a nervous smile and she said, “It’s very common for boats to lean while we are sailing. Don’t worry, it is rare for boats to tip over.” As she said this, I looked over my shoulder and saw another boat that was in the water tip over. As it tipped over I saw some lightning off in the distance. I asked Mina if we could go back to shore and wait for the lightning to stop. Mina agreed and turned the boat around. As we were sailing back I saw the same boat that had capsized, turn back over again, start sailing for the shore and then capsize again. This happened a total of 5 times to the same boat! The wind was pushing us along and we couldn’t steer the boat towards the “dock”. We were being pushed towards the damn. The wind tilted our boat so much that we started taking on water, and the waves started crashing into the boat making me even more nervous. As I was trying to bail the boat of water, I heard the hippo again, but this time it sounded like he was saying, “Food, food, food,” instead of , “grunt, grunt, grunt.” Mina was unable to turn the boat towards the dock and we were being pushed towards the edge of the damn. She decided to drive the boat into the rocks at the edge of the water, it was either that or go over the damn. I held onto a tree while Tyler jumped out and tried to keep us on the shore. We were past the safety buoys which indicate the falls to the damn. We weren’t sure if we should try to sail back or walk along the edge of the shore. Mina thought that we could sail back so Tyler jumped in the boat, Mina turned us around and I kept trying to bail out the water that had almost filled the boat.

We only got about 50 meters from the shore and that’s when the cold rains started to pound down on top of us. The wind picked up with such a force that it eventually capsized our boat. It seemed as if we were being turned over in slow motion. As if Mother Nature was saying, “I am just going to gently give you a nudge so that you can enjoy a nice swim (with the hippo).” The 3 of us were in the water swimming and making sure that everyone was safe. I was so glad that I was wearing a life jacket. The wind was strong and so were the waves. The three of us and our boat were just bobbing about in the water getting closer and closer to the damn. The 3 of us grabbed onto the boat and tried to turn it over. A rescue boat came out to help us but it had capsized as well. There were a total of capsized boats being tossed around on the waves. Peter and one of the locals came out in a paddle boat to help us. We managed to turn our boat back over but we were getting closer to the damn by the second. Peter jumped into the sail boat with Mina to try to get it back to shore. Tyler jumped into the row boat to help paddle it back to shore…now it was just me in the water, with a hippo lurking about, I started to swim. In my head I was singing a song from Finding Nemo, to try to keep calm, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, la la la la la.” That was all I could think of. I swam to the rescue boat that had been over turned and helped the man turn his boat back over. It seemed the further away I swam from the damn the closer I got to the damn. I wasn’t able to make it to the safe side of the safety buoy. I saw a canoe coming towards me. It was the canoe that Jason had been in, but no Jason. I started getting really worried. I was yelling at the man, “Where is Jason? Where is Jason?!” I thought maybe they had flipped over and the hippo got Jason. The man never answered me. I could see that the canoe was completely full of water and one gigantic catfish, but no Jason. The man didn’t seem the least interested in answering me. Finally, I got his attention and he just pointed towards the damn. I had no idea what this meant. Did it mean that Jason had gone over the edge? We were getting closer to the shore at this point and the small storm had passed. I was getting a sick feeling in my stomach over Jason, but I looked up and saw him safely standing on the shore. At this point I was ready to kill him. It turns out that his canoe was completely full of water and the guide dropped him off at the other side of the damn and told him to walk across the damn and back to the club, while he would sail the canoe back. When all of us were safely back on shore, Trina came over to me to give me a big. As we hugged it seemed as though we were both saying, “I’m glad you made it alive.”

We were all high on adrenaline by the time everything was over. We all started recounting the events and adding to other people’s versions of the story. The entire event only lasted about 30 minutes but it seemed like an eternity at the time. I don’t know if I’ll make it back out to the sailing club again, but one thing is for sure, I’ll always wear a life jacket and avoid going on the water if it looks like there will be a storm. Oh yea, Happy Birthday Jason!