Personal Story: How I Learnt to Swim

Swimming in a swimming pool always takes me down the memory lane.
When I was about 7 years old, one night my mom blamed me and that upset me. Then I found a place to cry. It was a full moon day, I remember. I found a little spot near our family’s pond. There were small wooden stairs into the pond, and I knew sitting there with my feet soaked in water would hide me from other family members of mine and eventually make me feel better. An apparently dead trunk of a tree thickly covered with pumpkin vines and other types of vines was within my reach where I sat.
While I was crying, I slipped off the stairs into the water. I didn’t scream for help but desperately moved my arms and legs as I had earlier seen my brother and sisters do so in the pond. A firm pumpkin vine saved me, and that vine “taught” me how to swim in the pond after I reached out to it and grabbed the hold of it.
Suddenly I realized I was swimming and was able to move to the stairs.
I didn’t even tell my parents how I got my first swimming lesson or who taught me. Later that year, I followed my elder siblings to a big lake behind the house. They were equipped with a banana trunk each to help them swim and to display pride because our parents would not allow if they didn’t trust us with that.
I asked my brother to cut out a banana trunk for me. I earned it.
When did you first learn to swim and who taught you? 🙂