Benumbed

First, thank you: When I reached out last week in this blog, seeking advice on helping a Ghanaian swimmer help others learn to swim, I imagined I was casting a message in a virtual bottle, letting come what may. But it reached you directly and you reached back quickly, with heartfelt help and mindful advice.

Many of you pointed me to the same person, co-founder Dan Graham of Nile Swimmers, a United Kingdom charity based in Sudan. Dan gave me a frank and thorough background on the scope of lifesaving efforts in Africa, successful but woefully underfunded against pandemic drowning. He advised me of the challenges and pitfalls of providing help remotely. Dan, in turn, pointed me to three organizations already doing similar work in Ghana, with whom my Ghanaian acquaintance might harness his efforts.

I'm hoping the next steps bring a good result soon …

It is no longer cold in my beloved Lake Natoma. At nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the water is far warmer than I can remember over the four years I've swum here.

The current is strong, though. Water officials said they would slow releases from Folsom Lake into Lake Natoma in this drought, but it doesn't feel like they have. I have learned to swim against the current by hugging the north edge of the rocky ravine, a weather eye out for the canyon edges, which jut out over my head at times.

I'm finding eddies, some strong enough to swirl around and push me forward, then fighting against the rush of water as I round a rocky point, until the water relaxes and lets me into the next eddy. It's sneaking to the edge of Folsom Prison by the long route, but I'll take it. I have no choice.

Once up to the prison chain, I plow sideways into the middle of the channel, and feel my body fly back down the ravine where moments ago I had been climbing half-foot by half-foot.

I've been taking this for granted, I realize. The numbness I feel in in my hands in the winter water has this summer reached my head and heart.

Each morning this week, I have been swimming past a body, somewhere below in the green water.

A 22-year old man drowned in this water last Thursday. He and some friends tried either to swim across the lake or into the middle, and got tired. Kayakers rescued two, one swam back to safety on his own. The 22-year-old man disappeared. Recovery crews have yet to find him.

On my way up through the current toward the prison, I pass the rocky island near where rescuers last saw him.

He is one of six people in the last three weeks to have drowned in the rivers and lakes around Sacramento.

The other five drowned along the lower American River, or at the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers, where the current can sweep unsuspecting swimmers over unseen drop-offs below the surface and pull them under.

The Sacramento has long been a river of industry, its bottom crowded with concrete slabs and poles and cables and downed trees and junked cars — there to catch a struggling swimmer.

The Sacramento Fire Department reports that an average of eight people drown in Sacramento's rivers each year – four times the national average. This year the terrible season started early, with a drowning in late and warm March at the rivers' confluence. The number of drownings has already exceeded the average.

Drowning, widespread far away, is also prevalent here, where we would expect the resources to prevent it.

I had been numb to it all, until that man drowned near where I swim. Now I mark his passing, looking shoreward to see if anyone has come to mourn him, looking to see if recovery teams have resumed their search that early in the morning.

Now I wonder how I could help stop the drownings. I have been blessed to be able to swim, blessed to have had help since childhood to overcome my fears and respect the water; blessed to have practiced open water swimming, first as a Scout leader, then with new friends passionate about the sport, who would not let me give up because of new old-guy fears.

I have been blessed to have time to swim my lake, to learn its ways, to learn to relax and be patience in current and high chop.

But I have lost touch. In the television news stories, I have heard experienced swimmers describe Lake Natoma as "extremely cold," and I have forgotten that for many people who rarely or never go into the lake, it can feel cold even in high summer.

I had forgotten that not long ago, helping Scouts learn canoe rescue techniques in Lake Natoma, the cold (64 degrees F) shocked me head to toe, arrested my breathing, chased away rational thought, began to induce panic.

Though I'm as snarky as the next skins swimmer, I'm not militant: If a wetsuit is what it takes for someone to swim the open water, I bid welcome.

I had forgotten, too, how frightening moving water can be, how futile it made me feel.

The city and county are taking new water safety steps after this horrible string of drownings, including new signs posted near the most dangerous landmarks along the American and Sacramento rivers, and rangers talking with beachgoers about the perils of swimming.

It already provides life vests on a rack at swimming holes along the two rivers, including the dangerous confluence. Many people, unfortunately, ignore the offer.

I'd like to do more, and as usual with most of my public whinings, I don't know what. I'm not trained to teach others to swim, and I'm not even sure encouraging more open water swimmers is even the answer. Though I do encourage anyone halfway interested to give it a try, as safely as possible along the shallow beach at the lower end of my beloved lake.

I would not swim where most have drowned, where the currents and undertows are swift even at low levels. Most of the victims weren't even swimming, but wading until they got too far out to come back. Only in a few instances have drownings resulted from hubris, swimming beyond ability and knowledge.

Knowing is key — knowing how to swim, knowing how to relax in the water, knowing where the life vests are, knowing where the water is dangerous. The education is often in English and many who drown here don't speak English.

I can do something. The numbness needs to go away.

Ask, tell

My Mitty-esque idea for helping a cause.

Now for something completely different:

In which, rather than blather about questionable conduct in my own life, I ask you for advice about an important part of someone else's life.

I need your expertise – experience with similar problems and solutions, resources I can look into, alternate solutions I don't even know about.

Here's the story:

One fallout from facebook™® and its best page ever, "Did you swim today?" (about which I've blathered ad nauseam) is meeting people reaching out for this and that need.

One person I've met this way is Kabutey Emmanuel McCain. He lives in Accra, the capital of Ghana in West Africa, along the Gulf of Guinea.

He swims, but mostly he teaches people how to swim.

Inability to swim is epidemic in Ghana, I've come to learn, where people move by water to get places — along the coast, across lagoons, up and down rivers.

Drowning is a big problem during normal times, Kabutey says, and goes underreported in his country because of burdensome requirements to get official help.

These aren't normal times — Accra is recovering from last month's massive flooding in which more people drowned and scores died when a gas station exploded where people had taken shelter from the rains. It's one of those tragedies we don't hear much about in the West.

Kabutey is trying to help people swim, and teach them to rescue others, normal times or no.

Someday, he says, he'd like to run swim-and-rescue programs throughout Accra and beyond its borders. Right now, he and some friends work in their neighborhood, using the community pool or a friend's pool when the weather permits, teaching the neighborhood children.

His is a shoestring operation on a broken shoestring budget. He would like to get some cardiopulmonary resuscitation mannequins to teach lifesaving skills … transportation money to get him and his team around Accra … and means of publicizing his programs.

I met Kabutey through facebook®™ when he was asking individual DYSTers (what swimmers on the page call themselves) for help.

Some sent some. I learned how cumbersome it is to send even a few items and a bit of money from California to Ghana. Though the bit of money reached Accra fairly quickly, the items took weeks and weeks.

This method of sporadic and individual giving was not going to help anyone accomplish anything, I realized – neither Kabutey his goal nor his donors goodwill.

Kabutey needs another way to go about this. Namely, he needs

• another resource that's more dependable than a small random hodgepodge of people, or
• a wider audience

and

• he needs to be able to manage fundraising on his own

So now he's trying crowdsourcing. I don't know much about crowdsourcing, except that it's a way for a lot of people to give a little in a fairly convenient manner, the little adding up to a substantial sum to help people solve problems just like Kabutey's.

He could manage and monitor it, having access to a computer and social media.

I've offered what I can, which amounts to writing copy and maybe supplying graphics for the cause, including the logo above, which Kabutey did not ask for. I live in my own world of imagination, but even there, my pockets aren't deep.

He's trying crowdrise.com, created in part by actor Edward Norton. It seems like a good fit.

But crowdrise.com requires that he have a U.S. bank account, meaning someone else would have to manage fundraising operations for Kabutey, rather than him managing on his own.

He can't post any information about his needs on crowdrise until he secures a U.S. destination for the money.

We're back to where this started. I'm uneasy, frankly, about setting up an account for this purpose, because I don't know the ramifications, the pros and cons.

So I need your advice and suggestions, people and resources I can consult:

• Have you ever set up an account for a similar person, or know someone who did, who can tell me the perils and pitfalls?
• Is there a way to set up a third-party account?
• What are some other means he can use to meet his needs such as:
• Grants
• Existing funding sources in Ghana or Africa
• Sources that serve Africa specifically
• Sources that serve swim instruction, lifesaving and drowning prevention specifically
• What ideas do you have about helping serve Kabutey's needs that I don't even know about (my ignorance being epic)?

I welcome any and all ideas and resources I can pursue, and thank you for your consideration.

Right now it feels intractable, but my gut tells me it isn't.