August 27, 2019

The Ogooue River

"Hey Mate, it is number 26. Can you bring it down for me please."

The words are coming from an Australian kayaker. He is pointing to a rack full of kayaks. He wants to have a practice run and thinks I am a Brazilian volunteer. I give him the thumbs up and drag down the kayak to the Olympic basin. He tells me I am doing a great job. I smile and give him the thumbs up again. I don't tell him that I will be one of his competitors.

My name is N'domo Bongo Ondimo. I am representing the African country of Gabon in the 500 meters K1 event in the 2016 Rio Games. K stands for Kayak and the number 1 means there is only one person in the boat. 500 meters is the shortest distance for Olympic kayakers. It is a sprint. I am one of the fastest sprinters in the world.

I would like to tell you I am here, an Olympic athlete, an unlikely medal hope for my tiny country, because of hours and hours of dedicated practice and work. But I cannot.

It is true, I have trained for hours on both water and land. It has made me strong and powerful. I have been coached in technique by the finest kayak coaches in the world.

But that is not why I am here.

I am here because a crocodile ate my best friend.

So I will tell you the story of how a crocodile ate my best friend and why it resulted in me becoming an Olympic kayaker. But, before I can tell you the story of how a crocodile ate my best friend, I must first tell you the story about how a crocodile ate my English teacher, John Wesley Smith. Because, without the first crocodile, the second would have been inconsequential.

I am from the small town of Booue in central western Gabon. Our town is only a few miles south of the equator. Our people, the Shiwe tribe, call it Mbooue but it has somehow been changed to just Booue over the years and that is what it is now called.

The town is situated along the Ogooue river. The Ogooue is the longest river in Gabon. It is 750 miles long. It runs all the way to the sea. It is the home to three different species of crocodiles. The Nile crocodile, the dwarf crocodile, and the slender-snouted crocodile.

Actually, the crocodiles in the Ogooue river are not the most famous crocodiles in Gabon. Those would be the orange crocodiles who live in the Abanda caves. But they have nothing to do with my journey to Rio and will have to be a story for another day.

I now know a lot more about the Ogooue River than I did when I lived in Booue. Back then, there was only one thing we needed to know about the Ogooue. That was, don't swim in it.

My English teacher, in the UNESCO school in Booue, was not an englishman. He was an Irishman. It is not clear how he ended up in Gabon. Some say he escaped from the IRA. Others say he had 3 wives back in Dublin and ran away when he was discovered. Both seem like plausible reasons why someone would leave Ireland. But none come close to explaining why someone would ever come to Gabon.

My best friend, the one who was later eaten by a crocodile, would urge me to go to our English teacher and ask him why he was in Gabon. But, I never had the courage. Besides, he was drunk on Regab beer most of the time. In truth, he was drunk on Regab beer all of the time. He was not a very good English teacher, drunk or sober, and few of us could even understand what he was saying half of the time. He kept mostly to himself. His only activities were drinking beer and going to the Libreville to have sex with the whores.

And then, one day, the men at the Booue port unloaded a kayak which had arrived via the transport barge after a 800 mile trip along the Ogooue.

He had, it seemed, ordered it from a company in Capetown and its arrival, it was a gleaming yellow, brought him a joy that even the whores in Libreville could not elicit.

At the time, we had no way of knowing that there was really no long standing tradition of kayaking amongst the Irish. For all we knew, it was the Irish national sport. It was only years later that I realized that an Irishman in a kayak was just about as unusual as an Irishman in Gabon.

So he kayaked on the Ogooue River nearly every day. Mostly, as you have probably guessed, while drunk. In the late afternoon and early evening. When, to be truthful, it was not really even cooler. Only just a little bit less excruciating hot. He would paddle hard against the current and then, spent and drunk, he would coast back to our village. He would ask me to carry the kayak down from the tool shed in the school to the bank of the Ogooue. "Hey boy," he would bellow, for he did not know my name even though he was my teacher. "Hey boy, fetch me down the kayak." And so, it became my job to carry the kayak down to the water, where I would watch him kayak until the bend of the river took him out of sight. I would wait at the bank until he returned. And I would then carry the kayak back. He would then hand me a bottle of Regab beer and we would drink it wordlessly.

One day, the kayak came back empty.

I ran up and fetched the schoolmaster. He then put together a search party who went out onto the Ogooue in their fishing boats. It did not take them long to find what remained of my English teacher. He had been eaten by a crocodile. We don't know what happened. But the combination of Regab beer, the river, the kayak, and the crocodiles proved to be too much.

As I had been the only one to ever touch the kayak, it became mine by default.

It turned out I was a natural on the kayak. I had powerful arms and a powerful upper body, which only became more powerful over time, which propelled me up and down the river.

I would see many crocodiles. But they never bothered me. Besides, my grandfather was a tribal witch doctor, and he had safeguarded me against crocodiles and snakes, so I was not afraid.

I was on the river every day for a year. I was training by accident. I had no idea, and why would I, that kayaking was an actual sport. That it was an Olympic sport. But, I became a minor celebrity. Now most of the children in the school would gather at the riverbank to watch me kayak. Like my english teacher before me, I never offered the kayak to anyone to try. Even if I had, I'm not sure anyone would have taken me up on the offer. And that is where the story would have ended were it not for the contest by the Ministry of Education which awarded the winner a scholarship for study in the United States.

Besides, I have already told you there is one more crocodile eating story to come.

The scholarship would go to the student in Gabon who wrote the best essay on why they should be chosen to study in the America.

I did not enter the contest. As you can see, I am not a very good writer. And I was even worse back then.

But, my best friend entered the contest. And, to the astonishment of everyone in Booue, he was the winner.

We had a big celebration. We drank a lot of Regab beer. My best friend and I decided the best way to toast his victory would be to go to Libreville and have sex with the whores. Then he would go to the Ministry of Education and claim his prize.

But somehow, my best friend decided that before going to Libreville, having sex with the whores, and claiming his prize, he was going to kayak on the Ogooue. I told him i did not think it was a very good idea. But he was determined so I fetched him the kayak and showed him how to get in. He wore a Boston Red Sox baseball cap someone had bought him from Libreville. I stood on the bank as he paddled effortlessly against the current. I watched him go around the bend in the river. I stood on the bank and waited.

Once again the kayak came back without a passenger. The search party only found the baseball hat.

After the funeral, I took the bus to Libreville. I did not have sex with the whores. But I did go to the Ministry of Education. My best friend and I, like many people in Booue, shared the exact same name N'domo Bongo Ondimo.

I claimed his scholarship. I took a plane from Libreville to Nairobi. From Nairobi to London. And from London to New York. I then took a bus to Boston. To Boston University where I had a scholarship. At Boston University they asked me if I had any hobbies. Did I play any sports. I told them I could kayak.

Our team trained on the Charles River. The Charles River has no crocodiles.

One day my coach handed me a piece of paper. It was from the Gabon Olympic Committee. My times in the 500 meter sprint qualified me for the 2016 Rio Games. My coach had contacted both the IOC and the Gabon government and made the application for me.

When I got to Rio the first thing I did was check out the Olympic Basin. I went in my Boston Red Sox tee shirt, shorts and flip flops. I could not believe I had made it from the Ogooue all the way to Brazil. I stood there for a long time - listening to all the languages and watching the flags flap in the breeze. Until a voice interrupted my peace.

"Hey buddy. Can you help me bring down my kayak. It is number 48."

Yes man. I will help you with your kayak. I am N'domo Bongo Nodimo from Gabon. I am happy to help.

The end.