
Credit: slodive.com
It was a lovely Saturday afternoon on a summer vacation in the late 90’s… Lol, it feels good that I can say that! We were in Lagos on our annual holiday. My uncle took my cousins, sister and me to Ikoyi Club. We joined my cousin when she went in for a swim! I mean, who actually needs to know how to swim, right? The pool was packed! My cousin was a rather good swimmer. She swam off to the deep end, flapping her wings and enjoying herself! My sister, Ore and I, thought, ‘hmm, why get squashed with all these other kids? If our cousin could swim, we could too!’ With no inhibition, Ore and I flapped, kicked, paddled, and at the very least, swam our way to the ‘freer side’ AKA deep end!
When we got there, we noticed that our feet were no longer touching the ground! AH (insert Nigerian screams)!! In the midst of all the excitement, no one seemed to have seen two little girls struggling! When Ore would manage to stick her head out to scream out for our cousin, or the life guard, I would drag her down! In my mind, I thought, ‘if I go down, baby girl, you’re coming with me!’ lol! Oh the selfishness!