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From now henceforth, I plan to live a safe, boring life
I plan to live a safe, boring life.
During the Easter holiday, I did something I will never do again. I jumped off a ledge and dropped several feet into a raging river. Before that jump of faith, or foolishness, a couple of us had been taken through step by step regarding how to make the jump to avoid getting hurt.
We were to jump in feet-first, our hands holding our life jackets. If we made the mistake of parting our legs during the jump, we were warned, our sehemu nyeti, (especially for the men), would be slapped hard by the water and there would be lots of gnashing of teeth later, and if we folded our legs, we would land on our bottoms, the result being the inability to sit properly for days. The instructor made us do several mock jumps, which I passed with flying colours. At this point, though, I must disclose that the practice jumps were being made on the spot, where we all stood in a circle, listening keenly to the instructor. It sounded so easy, I could not wait for him to finish so that I could jump.
Besides, I had a life jacket, and had been assured that as long as I had it on, drowning was not my portion. I also had a helmet. To back up my life jacket and helmet, there was a muscular man waiting for me below in a rescue raft, should I need help getting off the water. As I said, how hard could it be?
We were a group of about 15, and of that number were my eldest two children, who were the first to jump. They did not even think about it, as the adults put their affairs in order in their heads, my children simply walked to the ledge and stepped into nothingness. My intention had been to follow them, be the third to jump to make it a family affair, but then I made the mistake of looking down when I got to the edge. I almost had a heart attack. The fall was so long, I could barely see the face of the man in the rescue raft. My mind told me that it would be foolish of me to jump, after all, whom was I trying to impress?
And so I retreated and sheepishly walked to the back of the queue. To cut a long story short, I finally jumped. About 30 minutes later after giving myself a pep talk, which included the fact that as a parent, it was my duty to inspire my children, never mind that they had already inspired themselves and taken the plunge. The minute I jumped though, I forgot everything I had been told by the instructor regarding how to make a safe jump. I let go of the life jacket in a panic and all my four limbs flew all over the place. My children would later laugh at me and tell me that I looked like a flying starfish. Fortunately, my right hand sliced through the water first, and I landed on my side, so I didn’t get any injury, apart from some slight bump on the side of my right eyebrow, which took the water’s impact. I also swallowed a mouthful of the Tana River, because I also forgot to close my mouth when I landed.
As you can imagine, I listened in horror when later, my excited children relieved their “epic” jump and concluded that the next thing they planned to do was a bungee jump…
Many weeks later, I still recall that jump and a cold shiver goes through my body, because it is the scariest and most distressing thing I’ve ever done, yet I had a choice not to do it.
From now henceforth, I plan to live a safe, boring life. While the rest of you tick off your bucket list, which includes visiting the world’s remaining cannibal tribe, volcano surfing in Nicaragua, scaling Mt Everest and backpacking around the world, I will be seated in the shed of a verandah somewhere sipping hot tea. Life need not be more stressful than it already is.