Penfield's Greatest Swimmer

🌊~1

Cape Coast, Ghana.

It has occurred to me that I've grown used to my insecurities.

Gone are the days I used to hate my black oily skin, my tall, lanky body, and the tiny scrapes and scars littering my long bony legs.

I no longer cared about any of that shit. Because my wretched life stopped giving me the time to care about that shit.

"Herh Akwasi!"

The deep threatening tone of my boss' voice quickly yanked me out of my thoughts and I swam deeper into the cold seawater. The fishing net I spent all of last week dutifully fixing had caught on to a sharp rock. Before we could lose more of our third catch for the day, I dived down and unhooked the net, careful not to create any more holes for the fishes to escape.

Once I'd completed my task, I swam back up. Kojo and Manu sat at the rear end of the canoe, holding the other end of the fishing net. When my head poked out of the water, they began to pull, straining muscle upon muscle. Compared to my lanky body, the two of them were more suited for the job. I climbed back into the canoe to catch my breath, then a sudden smack landed on the back of my head. "Ajei!"

"Ma nnkakyerɛ wo dɛ menyɛ damaa mboadze ɛyɛ dabiara?" Pinto, my boss, looked down on me with a frown. "Kɔyi adze no, ɛda ho ridzi agor. Ɔnnyɛ wo maame, anka meyi wo dzi, dadaada. Foolish boy." [Didn't I tell you not to do that stupid thing you've been doing all the time? Just go and unhook the net, you were down there playing. If it wasn't for your mother, I would have fired you a long time ago.]

I let out a sigh and brushed away the insult; another thing I've grown used to. Asking Pinto to hire me was one of the biggest mistakes my mother had made concerning my life. I understood that she did it out of good intentions, but this man was just too short-tempered.

Kojo and Manu had successfully hauled in our catch, which was mostly*mpatoa--a sign that we weren't going to earn much money today. I helped them collect the baby fishes into the blue and white medium-sized barrel we kept for storage and proceeded to inspect the net for damages.

The canoe moved steadily against the waves with occasional bumps. Growing up on the coast of Ghana, the sea had always been my friend. I found solace in its warmth and the ripples it gave my skin. It was probably why I lost myself in it, anytime I entered the water. That, unfortunately, did not sit well with my boss.

Pinto always complained that I was costing him a lot with my childish attitude. But being the most experienced swimmer out of the three boys he had hired, I had to do the job, whether he liked it or not, and he mostly didn't like it. He displayed it all the time with bucket loads of insults topped with frequent knocks and smacks on my head.

As the canoe drifted closer to shore, the usual fishmongers loitered around, wrapped in a variety of African cloths and holding their wicker baskets. They waited impatiently to buy the fish from us, then take them to the various markets to sell. My eyes scanned the sea of women in search of my mother, but it seemed she had already bought fish from other fishermen and had headed out to the market.

The boys and I climbed out of the canoe to push it further onto land. The fishmongers wasted no time hounding my boss for our catch. A greedy smile crawled up Pinto's face when he saw the crumpled cedi notes the women held. Our third catch today only filled one barrel out of the three that we had and *mpatoa didn't cost much. But Pinto had a very cunning way of making people pay more than they should. He was a certified master when it came to cheating.