Open Swim

Beach at low-tide near our house

I’ve always loved the water. We never had a pool, but my childhood summers were filled with multiple weeks of swim lessons. I loved it, but I can’t say I was ever in love with the chlorine pool. As a kid my family camped several summers in the Sierra Nevadas, usually alone with our friends by a high mountain lake. It was usually very cold, but swimming in nature added a peaceful and relaxing quality not found in the pool. As a teen, our youth group had an annual summer tradition of living on houseboats for a week on a lake in northern California. I remember waking up when the water was still completely smooth and cutting through the water with my arms, swimming across to the other shore and soaking in the stillness around me. In college, I worked my summers at a camp on a small lake in Maine where my love of water quickly led to me teaching almost all water-based activities— swim lessons, kayaking, water-skiing. Camp could be exhausting, but anytime spent swimming in the lake was restorative. Even after camp, the water was part of my life. Camp had trained me as a lifeguard and I ended up working as a part-time lifeguard right up until leaving for Africa in 2007.

So I love the water. Swimming is my favorite form of exercise. Our island has no maintained swimming pools, but I love swimming in nature, so you would think I would be all set. In 2010 I wrote a blog about the disappointment of coming to the islands and finding that there wasn’t a good way for a woman to swim regularly at the ocean. Naked men often bathe among the ocean rocks and trash clogs the beaches and sometimes the water (depending on the tide). Islanders will descend on the nicer beaches on the weekend afternoons, but usually the beaches are pretty quiet except for the always present small group of naked boys who gather around any foreigner as if magnetically attracted, as well as the often sketchy man who is lingering on the beach, making you wonder if he is a little crazy or just up to something.

So even though I love the water, I’ve always had to admit (with a sigh of regret) that I wasn’t comfortable swimming regularly on the islands.

Megan heading out on swim

Then a couple months ago, I had a new idea. It was a bit of an epiphany. What about point-to-point swimming! I’ve always imagined swimming for exercise to be staying at one of the local beaches and swimming back and forth, doing laps in the ocean. The problem is that trash collects at the beaches and if (as a foreign woman) I stay at a single beach I risk catching the attention of lots of naked boys and strange men who can just watch and wait for me to get out of the water. Point-to-point swimming means that I start at one beach and swim away, away from people, away from the trash and end up getting out at another beach. I can swim along the coast faster than someone can scramble along the rocks so no one should be ready to bombard me as I get out. In one flash of an idea, I’d canceled out the objections to swimming for exercise on the islands that I’d carried for years.

Point-to-point swimming has its own complications. What about safety? Oceans can be dangerous and people can overestimate their swimming stamina. Thankfully the islands are surrounded by coral reefs that make the ocean near the coast calm and safe (outside of storms we don’t usually even have waves of any size).  But still, what if I got into trouble? Inspired by tow-floats you can buy abroad, Tom drilled a whole in a kick board and we attached it to a flag-football belt. Now I’d be able to rest if I got into trouble and I’d have increased visibility. In addition, we’d start with swims only on really calm days and shorter distances, and I’d hug the shore.

The other complication of point-to-point swim is clothing. I can’t walk around the neighborhood without at least flip-flops and the traditional toga-like wrap over my swimwear. That means someone has to both see me off for my swim and meet me at the other beach. But part of the epiphany was that we live near a beach (a very trashy one) and every Saturday my family goes to lunch at the hotel near the nice beach down the way. It would be convenient and easy!

So for five different Saturdays so far, I’ve swam to Saturday lunch instead of walking! My family says goodbye near our house and carries a towel and change of clothes to the hotel. There they pick me up and I head into the bathroom, change and eat lunch! It’s working!

I think I’ll always prefer the glass-like stillness of a freshwater lake on a summer morning, but getting to exercise with tropical fish flitting amongst the coral under me and the green hills of our island home rising above me is pretty awesome too. 

Tom & kids at beach for his birthday

PRAYERS ANSWERED

The consultant checking has been going well, it continues this week. Keep praying!  During a training this week, an islander on our island accepted the good news! We are so thankful! Megan is happy to have the chance to swim each week. Now the kids are asking if they can join her someday! Tom had his birthday on Friday, we are continually thankful for him and that we are blessed with such a wonderful husband, father, friend and team leader!


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tom has been frustrated to learn that the man he has studied with for two years is still not ready to commit. He knows and understands so much, but is still afraid to apply it. Tom isn’t sure how to proceed, pray for wisdom and discernment. Ma Imani is still in Madagascar for medical treatment but we’ve had word that she is doing much better and is waiting for final follow-ups so she can be cleared to come home. Pray that she would not have any lingering health complications. Pray also for her two daughters who are missing her. We continue to pray for those islanders who have recently accepted and for more! This coming week Tom and our teammate will head to the big island for the annual English Teacher Conference, pray for all the logistics of that weekend and that our English teaching would continue to open doors to deepen relationships.