Be Not Afraid…

As a Christian traditional chorus "Be not afraid… I go before you always…" echoed in the near distant, I traced the awful out of rhythm noise to a man walking along the white sandy beaches of Watamu. The man was singing loudly, wildly and totally out of tune without any inhibitions entranced with the spiritual meanings of the lyrics. Sadly enough he was my classmate, a stubborn man, a man of no shame and a man that I will call Jimmy. Jimmy was from a small Tanzanian town called Arusha. He like many of my other classmates who ventured out here in the eastern coast of Kenya to immerse ourselves in the study of marine life. Although Jimmy could not swim, he believed that he could. Despite the teacher and many others who have politely mentioned about his inability to float, he continually tried prove that he could.

One hot afternoon, the class was scheduled to do a snorkeling lab a few miles off the reef. Despite his lack of bouyancy, he had the self-confidence of a whale he could swim. As the outboard engines of our boats died, one by one we entered the water. Luckily for Jimmy he decided to go swimming with a floatation device. As the afternoon wore on, we decided to practice our diving techniques from the boat's bow. Like penguins, we lined up plunged into the deep blue waters. Jimmy tried to hold off the temptation of leaping with acrobatic gusto, but stupidity got the best of him. As he stood up and walked toward the boat's diving platform, he snuggly tucked a life-saver floatation device around him. "Jimmy! What are you doing?!" yelled our teacher floating effortless in the sea. "Don't …" as the words could not fly fast enough; he took a deep breath and took the leap of faith. While in mid-air he placed is left hand over his nose and raised his right arm as high as he could. SPLASH!

The large surface area of the floatation device caused a gigantic displacement of water. Unfortunately the device was designed to float and Jimmy was not. The impact of the Jimmy's fall was so hard that he went right through the device and into the depth of the Indian Ocean. As his fingers, went under, we immediately knew that he was in trouble. Divers jumped from all sides of the boat hoping to capture Jimmy's location, but fortunately his head bobbed for air. He tried to inhale, but instead he gulped a mouthful of water. After a few head bobs and a couple of gallons of salt water, we finally rescued him from the perils of the deep. As he sat quietly on the way back to camp, he spoke to thank everyone that assisted his rescue. Finally he ended this momentous day "Man, I was afraid!".