Next, the river guides called us over to the rafts lying on the beach and showed us our various positions. The teens lined up three on each side in a raft, and we practiced paddling coordination while still on land. The guide called out steering directions from the back.

“Left paddle!”

I heard paddles clapping together, even on the right side.

“Left back!” This meant for the kids on the left side to paddle backward while the kids on the right side paddled forward. I heard more clanging.

“All paddle forward!” Now I heard the loudest crashes of all.

“Let’s rearrange the order,” I suggested. “Let’s have the blind kids in front. You’ll get the brunt of the waves, and it will be more pressure to get the commands right, but this way, the sighted kids can watch you and paddle on your rhythm.”

When we tried that the banging subsided—a little.

Next they simulated various scenarios, like “high siding,” a situation when a raft hits a rock and gets stuck. All the water pouring against that rock will flip the raft in the blink of an eye, so everyone is supposed to dive to the downriver side of the boat and redistribute the weight.

“High side!” Marieke yelled repeatedly, and eager bodies pitched across the raft, shoulders colliding and bouncing off each other. It all seemed counterintuitive; it would make more sense to dive away from the rock, not toward it. The river seemed like a foreign land, with a foreign language. Like with mountains, I was learning that a river had its own complex vocabulary to decipher, and it was mysterious and overwhelming to me.

We also simulated an accidental swim, in case a person got thrown out of the raft. Each kid would stand thirty feet away from the raft while another threw the rope bag their way. For the sighted swimmers, the bag could land nearby and they were supposed to swim toward it. But for the blind kids, the rope would actually need to make contact so they’d know where to grab. For the next thirty minutes, bags soared through the air, clocking blind kids in the chests, heads, and groins in a human target practice.

As blind boot camp continued, the kids developed their skill, and then, it was finally time to push off.

2

The action began revving up almost immediately with rapids like Badger and Soap Creek, which were considered warm-ups. The next day we did House Rock, one of the biggies, rated a 7 on the 10 scale. Marieke said it was named for a giant rock that you needed to avoid.