Swimming Lessons for
Children in Indigenous Territories
A request by the Bribri, Cabecar and Ngäbe women who took part on the Seminar last June in Cahuita called on the divers of the Centro Comunitario de Buceo Embajadores y Embajadoras del Mar (CCBEM) to teach their children how to swim.
The Seminar had placed the relevancy of the ocean in the lives of the Talamanca peoples – coast and mountain alike – because it is both a source of livelihood, health and recreation for the tribal fishing Afro descendant and Bribri community who established in coastal areas of Cahuita, Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo, as well as a source of its deepest mythologies, source of inspiration, source of salt and health for the Bribri and the mixed Afro-indigenous communities in the highlands of the County of Talamanca.
The women expressed that learning to swim would allow their children to respect the ocean without fear and to learn to enjoy the deepest connections with the source of life on the planet.
First Pilot Project to Provide Swimming Lessons
The first swimming and diving lesson for Bribri children took place on November 26 – 27, 2024 in Cahuita’s Round Rock Beach when Bribri leaders Layali Moreno and Heidy Mayorga brought their children to Casa Marina of INMAR Caribe for lessons.
One young 9 year old boy is Amir Quesada Moreno – Layli nephew – had stated to me in a interview a few months before in Finca Loroco, that his dream was to be able to dive.
He knew how to swim but wanted to be able to see snorkel in order to relate to the animal life in the bottom of the ocean. So he came alongside his sister 5 year old sister and 3 year old Nabil, son of Layli.
“When I went to the bottom of the ocean I felt very happy and I saw many fish, they had many colors and of different sizes. I had to swim to the reef with mask, fins and snorkels. My dream now that I did that, is to do the same but scuba diving with air tank do that I can stay in the bottom in the Cahuita National Park because a friend of the family who lives near it told me that it has a lot of nature” he explained
“My message to the rest of the children in my community in Talamanca who want to learn to dive it to never believe that they cannot fulfill their dreams because some day they can be met.”
Pablo Namú´s First Swimming Lessons
Another young Bribri boy in the swimming lessons was the son of Heidy Mayorga, chief-president of the Talamanca Bribri Territory.
His mother had not been able to take part in the Seminar because she was with the Sammy native peoples in Norway the week of the event, but she had announced it in the territory and now wanted to be a part of its resolutions.
She brought Pablo Namú to learn to swing which was also a dream of his. Namú is being raised by his father in the clan’s family life so that his mother can guide the Bribri people and the territory through its life in the Talamanca region.
Namú’s first lesson with me was difficult because he was afraid of putting his head in the water.
Recognizing his fear – oftentimes strange for a boy his age – I asked him to go swing with his mother for his first lesson, explaining to him that he has swam in his mother´s womb when he first came to life in her ocean.
A deep pattern of symbiotic inter-connectedness surfaces in the waters when, as humans, we are able to tap into our own primordial nature and that of the whole Planet as having been born, nurtured and guided by the energy of the WATERS of the universe in our Planet, first in our mother’s womb.
We ourselves are 75% water; our mother´s wombs where early on we swam and saw only the light of her waters during our first nine months of life before we even saw the first light of day from the Sun; and the life giving and sustaining waters of the Ocean and all the waters in the Planet – also 75% water on its surface – where all of life was born, it continues to nurture all of life, cleansing it and equalizing the temperature for life to continue regenerating itself in the Planet. We live in an ocean planet.¿
He swam for pure enjoyment with his mother that day, it becoming a pleasant experience for him and for her. That was the first lesson – or rather the second one she shared with him. Thus, they left with no doubt that eventually the next lesson will be a fear-less experience.
A few weeks after that experience, on the weekend of December 14 – 15, 2024 he returned to Casa Marina with his mother who came to participate in a gathering of women who were designing a research project about ancestral roots that can be seen in the JADE Museum where many indigenous female figurines are on display with very little or no information.
One activity during the meeting was a reading the Tarot Mother Peace. Upon seeing the reading, he asked for his cards to be read.
He did and pulled out the Five of Wands. He looked at the card and explained that he saw women in a circle getting ready to fight.
Why did get that? he asked me.
Yes, I responded, you are becoming a warrior for life under the guidance of the women warriors for life like your mother.
That is how the weaving of our experiences happens and keeps expanding the tapestry of our lives.
