Childhood fun turned tragedy

An event that happened in my early days in life have always haunted me. Now, as young boys our main duty was to go and graze and take care of the livestock. These were always fan moments as the activities we would indulge during a single day, have always remained in my mind. Some of the activities included hunting of squirrels, fishing and swimming. Naughty boys will always be naughty, some of us lured girls to join us, and when it came the moment for hide and seek, those with girls would never be found!

One day we went on our usual routine up to noon. This was usually a perfect time to go swimming since the sun would usually be very hot. This day we decided to go swim in a nearby pool, this was a pool that was as a result of murram mining. At some points, it was very deep due to irregular excavation. In swimming, we had a challenge where competitors would go under water and the spectators would count for the one who stayed longest under water.

The competitors got in the water and us, the spectators, started counting. Those unable to hold their breaths would resurface after about five seconds and the die hards would go up to twenty seconds. All the competitors were out except for one, Kinyua. We continued to count. We counted and counted. For two hours, we still counted until a man working in a nearby rice field asked why the counting was so long. The truth hit us that our friend Kinyua had drowned, when the man started running helter skelter and shouting for help.

Villagers assembled at the pool and the search began, Kinyua's body was retrieved from the water at around six in the evening. It was all wailing for loosing such a young and energetic child who had big dreams.