My inability to swim had long separated me from my brothers. My father would take the boys off on excursions to swimming holes and I would be left behind, silently pouting because I wasn’t included. But after weeks with my mother at the small pool at the Pousada de Coloane, a former manor house that was recently converted to a hotel, I have finally learned to swim. She patiently showed me how to kick and paddle in the shallow end. I appreciated it. My father would have just thrown me in the deep end and yelled, “Paddle!” like he did with my brothers.
The next time my father calls the boys for a swim at the reservoir, he agrees to let me join them.
Yes! I finally get to go with the big boys!
I’m excited but scared. Really scared. Unlike the hotel swimming pool, the reservoir has no place to put your feet down for even a moment. Not that you’d want to. Even though the reservoir is much clearer than the muddy brown ocean, who knows what’s in the murky, greenish water?
The mud squishes under my feet and sharp bits of sticks poke me as we make our way down the steep bank into the water. What if there are snail larvae here?
We’ve been warned by Mommy Esther, “Stay out of still pools of water. The snails lay their larvae and they will burrow into the soles of your bare feet and nest there.”
I lift my feet as quick as I can, trying to make as little contact as possible with the mud and not slide off the edge.
The boys sail past me, leaping in. I lose my balance and land on my butt, sliding down into the water. I kick out to the middle, away from the mud and worms, and relax a bit. I can tread in place, touching nothing, just kicking my legs and doing a dog paddle. I’m doing it. I’m okay!
I beam as my father says, “Good job, Faithy.”
Aaron grins at me, and Hobo gives me a wink.
“Let’s jump off the dam!” Caleb shouts.
I look up. There is a concrete wall fifty feet to my left with a big “No Swimming” sign. Occasionally, a local dies out here. They get drunk or don’t check for rocks under the waterline before they jump off the dam wall.
It’s terrifying, but I clamber up the muddy bank behind my brothers. Hobo reaches a hand back to help me up the slippery slope, before the boys run to the top.
“Go carefully, boys,” my father cautions.
The boys patter out onto the hot gray concrete wall. There’s a sixty-foot drop to the rocks on one side and a thirty-foot drop to the water on the other.
This is madness.
I hesitate. The top of the dam wall is perhaps two feet wide, with a metal pipe railing at chest height down the center. I must walk on one side of the pipe with barely enough space to put my feet.
“Come on, Faithy!” the boys call.
I’ve waited for years to go with the boys to the reservoir. This is my chance to show I belong in the special adventure club that my father has with my brothers. If I show any weakness, whine or cry, or can’t keep up, I won’t be invited back.
“Make sure you don’t dive. A belly flop from that height could kill you. Go feet first,” my father instructs.
No worries there. I don’t know how to dive; I can barely swim. I’m certainly not going headfirst. With my wet arm wrapped around the sun-steaming steel pipe, I inch my way along the wall out to the middle. Never, never give in.
“You have to go all the way out to the middle of the dam, and make sure to jump as far out as you can, otherwise you’ll hit tree branches hidden under the water,” my father warns. “They can rip you right open.” Now you tell me.
I look back down the wall to the land. Josh is already making his way down the wall toward me. I must jump to make room for him.
“Just do it!”
“Jump!”
“I’ll count, one, two, three!”
I won’t be a coward. I’ll never live it down.
I refuse to seem weak in front of the boys or my father. He admires toughness. One, two—deep breath—three. I can. I can. Though every instinct is screaming not to, I jump.
Falling. Takes. Forever.
Bang! The water slams me, and the shock carries me down, down, down. It’s dark. I’m gagging. Water shoots into my nose. Madly, I kick my legs as hard and fast as I can. My arms pull. I’ve heard that sometimes when you are underwater you don’t know which way is up and you can swim down and drown instead of up to air. I see a faint glow. Keep swimming. Don’t pass out.
I explode up, into the sunlight, sputtering and gulping grateful breaths. My father swims over and plucks me up. I’m rubbing my eyes and shaking. And very happy to be safe in his arms. For once, the pride in his eyes is shining on me.
The boys cheer.
I did it!
Josh’s head bounces up in the water next to me. “Let’s do it again!”
I jump three more times that day. The fear is just as sharp each time, but I go home a hero and, best of all, accepted.
10
Burn After Reading
In the six years since we arrived in Hac Sa, our renovation projects have transformed our once barely livable residence. What started as a collection of small, traditional Chinese farmhouses or shacks for my immediate family and a few others has grown into a Family community of roughly fifty people, as Family members come and go. We are now considered a Combo, which is a large Family Home with a resident population of fifty to two hundred people.
My parents are still the Home Shepherds, but now we also have department heads, adults who oversee certain areas of responsibility like childcare, the cooking and cleaning schedule, and fundraising. Life in a Combo is more regimented, run much like a kibbutz.
We no longer live in family units; children are in their groups full time, like boarding school. The little kids have fully equipped classrooms with handmade teaching aids and are often taught by the teens. They spend one hour in the evening with their parents for dinner and family time, but if their parents are busy, they can stay with their teachers. My father never does family time, but I see him at Devotions or on the Farm.