My first swimming experience as a pre-teen

When I was eleven, my best friend and I decided to visit a classmate who promised to lend us his video game console if we could locate his house with just his description alone. Now during that time the Play station was one of the hottest things a boy could have and so the thought of having one close by pushed us on a crazy adventure.

It was a Sunday afternoon, a time we were sure he must be at home and so after rounding up our chores we left for Chaza - a previously underdeveloped area in Suleja Niger state. Chaza was pretty far from where we lived but we were both pretty desperate for the prize. On our way to his place, we saw a river close to the roadside with children within our age bracket playing in it but because we were in a hurry, we decided we would both go for a swim on our way back even though both of us had zero knowledge on her to actually swim.

We got to our classmates house by pass 1 and after spending over 30 minutes at his place, we realized he was lying all along because they did not even own a television yet he bragged about having a play station 2. Angered by this low budget deceit, I told my friend that we should just go for that swim to calm our nerves. We got to the river around 4 PM and saw that there was nobody splashing or having fun so we had the whole place to ourselves.

Immediately we were done inspecting the surroundings, I took off my clothes, walked into the river and beckoned on my friend to join in on the fun. Everything was going smoothly until we both got the middle of the river and I lost my footing. What started as an escape from the disappoint we experienced earlier turned into a nightmare that was almost impossible to wake up from because it was real.

The way I slipped also knock my from off balance and the both of us started struggling to survive drowning. Since there was no one around, we had two options : learn to swim that day or drown. Luckily for us a miracle happened and we moved our legs and arms like our lives depended on it ( which it did) until we found out rhythm and we found our way back to shore.

To test if we can still recreate that shocking display, we went back into the river and we came out unscathed. That was the day I learnt how to swim all on my own. This is a story I'll never forget as it was my first real near death experience. That Sunday marked the begining of my swimming journey and ever since then I have been to different bodies to experiment and hone this ability that saved me from an unfortunate accident caused by bad decisions.....
Thank you all for stopping by