Mariya A.; Age 13
Tribe of Zebulun

rafting 2I’ve never been whitewater rafting ever before, but this year was my best experience of it. At first, I was really nervous and shaking. According to all the instructions given from my raft’s guide, it seemed like I was definitely going to fall in the water from the boat. Our guide led us through the whole trip on water.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think that our guide was the best. There was this one moment where this other group’s boat got stuck on a rock and with Alex’s (that’s our guide) brave attitude he got out of the boat and went through the woods and got the other group out of their trouble. Besides, my group was rafting 3the lead group for the day, and all the other groups followed us.

The fact that I can’t swim was really frightening to me. I really didn’t want to fall out of the boat because then I would be in really big trouble, which seems even scarier. The best thing was that my group’s guide was able to keep every person in my group safe. When we were halfway over the trip, Alex made sure everyone in my group had comfortable seating and let us relax. Therefore, he did the rest of the paddling all by himself. I am not sure if it is true, but Alex told us that it was his first time doing this kind of thing, which was actually making everyone so look forward to our water trip. I had the best experience of whitewater rafting ever. Not only did I have a bunch of fun, but I had a growth in my courage and felt more brave.