HIV & Swimming

You may remember that last year we tested the first 40 boys for HIV and were astonished (& relieved) to find all of them were negative.  This holiday we organised a local EU funded organisation to come and test a further 62 children.  Again, to our amazement, all the children are HIV negative.  What a huge blessing for them to start out in life with a clean slate.  We hope to build on this great start through education and mentoring, in order to keep them free from AIDS for life.

It would be remiss not to mention the children and swimming.  Without doubt, one of the favourite activities this holiday was going to a local swimming pool for the afternoon.  Other members of the public are less enthusiastic when we arrive at the sight of 40 children jumping into a swimming pool, but the children just jump straight in.  When we last went swimming in December none of them could swim or even float for a few seconds, yet they loved diving underwater and had no fear of the water whatsoever.

After spending five days camping on Lake Victoria and having swimming lessons every day at the camp, many can now swim at least 10 metres.  This is a great achievement and we are hoping to build on it, especially as they are growing up on Lake Victoria and the Nile River.

By the end of the juniors’ swimming session, most were diving into the deep end and swimming all the way to the shallow end –  an amazing achievement of something they wouldn’t have dreamt of doing only months before.