My Friday

Friday is swimming day for standard 5, always an interesting endeavour. Particularly so this week as I nearly drowned. One of the older girls swam out too far and grabbed onto a volunteer in panic, dragging her under the water. I went over to help and held out a float, but she grabbed me instead and pushed me under. She had her hands on my head, I couldn't breathe, move or see. The other volunteer was still trying to get her breath back and pull the kid off me, but she wasn't strong enough. I kept trying to resurface but I couldn't get up from beneath her.
It was terrifying. I genuinely thought I was going to die in a pool full of people who just hadn't noticed because we weren't making any noise. Eventually I managed to push the child off and find the wall. I hauled myself up and wheezed like a beached whale for about 10 minutes, much to the consternation of everyone else who had no idea what had happened. I thought I was going to have an asthma attack, I was shaking and my chest felt like someone was punching it from the inside. I managed to reassure the kids before sneaking into the loo to hyperventilate and reassure myself that I was actually alive.

So not a great start to the weekend, but I was so thrilled to be still breathing that I made the most of our night out. We started dancing around midnight and I was still on the dance floor at 5am after only 3 Fanta breaks. It was one of those nights when you forget theres other people on the dancefloor and just dance and dance like the music's in your veins, like you'll die if you stop, regardless of how cheesy or repetitive the music actually is. We stopped at 5.30 for cheeseburgers and I convinced everyone to come to the beach to watch the sunrise.
We got there at 6am and there were already people swimming and running, setting up stalls, getting ready for the day. We found a quiet spot and snuggled up for warmth listening to the blues on someones phone. A couple of people got tired and left, but 3 of us stuck it out and got to see the sun blaze into the sky and across the water. It's funny to think that sunrise is something thats happened every single day of my life yet I've rarely seen it. I went for a walk along the water's edge as the sun began to fill the sky and the water turned orange. Drowning, dancing and sunsets on the beach: my Friday in Mombasa. :)