My Lake Victoria Swimming Lessons
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- April 14, 2023
I am a good swimmer. I glide like a fish and stay underwater for a while like I have gills for nostrils, well, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the picture; my lungs can hold for a bit.
Occasionally, I hit the pool to take in the thrill and rejuvenation that swimming gives, and from time to time, the memories of how and where I learned to swim flood back. Fond childhood memories were full of the adventures that come with a boy’s formative, explorative years. The period of little daredevils, that’s what we were.
Long before we went splashing into these alluring, glitzy, tame, turquoise blue swimming pool waters in town, we grew our sea legs (lake legs in this case) in Nam Lolwe’s (Lake Victoria for you) free-range, wild waters.
We’d access the world-renowned water body by passing through the Nyanza Golf Club course or the Ministry of Fisheries beachfront plot just next to it. We had the most fun on the fisheries side. There used to be a fisheries department jetty that the colonialists put up decades ago for their lake excursions. We’d use it as our diving board. It’s since been gobbled up by the rising waters over the years.
The jetty had supporting metal rails jutting out of the waters around it; one wrong jump and you’d be in danger of hitting one. But we wanted to learn how to swim so lousy that nothing would deter us, not even rusty bars waiting menacingly in the water or the hippos that we’d see at certain times, primarily evenings, swimming past us from a distance.
Our swimming lesson was the “learn by suicide” kind of lesson.
You’d sit by the lake, marvel at your peers or strangers gliding in and out of the water on a sunny day, and wish you, too, had the know-how to float and boast about your conquest. Bit by bit, courage would drop in your veins, and you’d finally muster the strength to jump in near the shores where it’s safer and splash away, at times with your hands firmly planted in the soft sand beneath the surface. The laughs that’d follow of“ikia goyo abal” (you can’t swim) would make you humbly get out, put in your clothes, and sit down, silently cursing why you can’t float on water as everyone else on the earth does. Never give in; you come back the next day and the next.
With time you’d learn to float and get the hang of it, adding skills daily, over there at the shallow end, near the swishing papyrus reeds and lake weed, then one day, you fire up all ammo in your gut and jump in the deep end. You might as well die swimming in the deep end if you die! Whether that’s consolation or encouragement, it works either way.
Gasping Air
You come up gasping for air, haphazardly paddling both hands and feet, taking in some generous gulps of water (modho adila), and see the heavens open up. God is sitting on his throne, ready to welcome you, his poor child, to the afterlife before they know how’s finally come to your rescue. Seeing how determined you are, they teach you a trick or two to beat the lake and encourage you to keep trying till you hack it and hack it the brave souls always did.
In no time, we’d bob our heads high above the water to avoid any unwanted gulps, taking in the town’s-distant buildings as we swam the farthest we could towards them, retreating in time before our lungs gave in. Legend has it that some accomplished swimmers before we used to swim across the lake, their clothes in a paper bag tied to their waist, get to shore on the harbor side, dress up, and stroll into town, fare saved, and a good swimming exercise had. Fresh as the fabled daisy.
They probably were such tall tales, but they made us want to conquer Nam Lolwe as the legends did.
We never had the stomach for it though; forget it. Too risky; the best we did was to get almost halfway, which was still quite the feat. If life was fair, Kenya Navy or some government agency that appreciates good swimmers should have snapped us up! Or we’d have been drafted into Kenya’s Olympics swim team.
Yes, to the medal haul!
The lake made our growing up super adventurous. Kamikaze is kind of adventurous but beautiful. We learned to swim with hippos; let us swim in these chlorine-laden, small safe spaces for a change.
