Chicken, Airplane, Police.

In Indonesia, drowning is a leading cause of death among children. One group is working to change that.

Photos: Timmy Toes

Agus Satriawibawa drives me along a river where women scrub clothes in the hazy afternoon light. He stops the car at an irrigation ditch, we get out, and as I peer into the water, he points to where the boy died a week prior. Rivers and irrigation ditches run through Bali like veins, and although tourists rarely see it, ask anyone who’s lived in Indonesia for more than a few years, and they’ll nod their head solemnly when the subject is broached.

Southeast Asia accounts for 3 percent of Earth’s land mass but 35 percent of global drownings. The vast majority of deaths are children in low-income areas. According to the World Health Organization, 71,000 people drown in Southeast Asia each year, however these numbers are likely an “under-estimation” due to unreported deaths. 

Born and raised in Bali, Agus only learned to swim a few years ago. The 27-year-old has a short beard, jolly cheeks and quick mind. In 2015, when Agus was nearing high school graduation, he took an English class from an American surfer named Seamus Pettigrew. 

“We became friends,” Pettigrew recalls. “One day I offered to take him surfing. Not only did Agus refuse the lesson, but there was palpable fear in his voice.”

Pettigrew learned that none of his Balinese students knew how to swim. After asking around, he learned about the widespread drownings across Indonesia. “The stories weren’t being published, but I didn’t have to look far,” Pettigrew said. “I met one family who lost two kids, separately. One was swept away by a wave, another slipped into a river.”

That’s when Pettigrew had the idea for Swimdo, an organization that could teach a survival swimming technique to locals. 

Agus was one of Pettigrew’s first six students. “It was amazing,” Pettigrew said, “Within a matter of weeks he went from not being able to swim, to teaching other kids how to swim.” Pettigrew knew that the program had to be run by locals, so he put Agus in a leadership position as well as another woman from class, Indira Santi. Today, all of the paid positions at Swimdo are occupied by locals. “The more I stepped away, the faster it grew,” Pettigrew said. “It’s their country and they’re so much more efficient.”

Agus drives me to Keramas, a famous surf spot on the east side of Bali with a rifling right hand barrel that breaks just beyond a charcoal-colored beach. A wave that draws pro surfers all over the world. But just before we reach the break, Agus turns inland, up a road to Keramas Park, a local recreation area with picnic benches, grass, a swimming pool, and about 40 Indonesian kids going absolutely ape shit.  

“Ayam! Pesawat! Polisi!” a Balinese instructor shouts, chest deep in the pool. (Translation: chicken, airplane, police.) A line of new students stand at the edge of the pool and move their little arms like chickens, splay out like airplanes, then stand at attention like police officers. Their facial expressions range from elated to suspicious. One boy is looking into space, absently gnawing on the collar of his T-shirt. Agus introduces me to a boy and a girl, both 10, eager to show me their skills. They jump into the pool, squirm onto their backs, then backstroke across the length of the pool using the chicken, airplane, police technique. They look like water-skeeters. The stroke isn’t meant to give kids the confidence to hurl themselves into waves but to stay alive long enough for help to arrive. 

“The stroke hammers down the principles of keeping the airway open, calling for help, and it's an easy stroke to teach,” says Pettigrew. 

One of the volunteers, Amy Holden, flew from Manchester, England to work with Swimdo. “The program is working,” Holden says. “The work they can do in just a couple weeks is incredible.” Holden jumps in the pool to train a new student. She holds her hands under his back. Except for his face, the rest of his body is submerged. Together they drift across the pool, and at one point, I notice him slow his breath, and close his eyes. 

To date, more than 5,000 students have graduated from the Swimdo program.

After class, Agus takes me to a local restaurant. A whole pig is roasting on a spit, it’s charred fat hissing into the flame. Agus suggests, (demands actually) that I try a plate of pig skin, then points to the hot sauce sitting at the center of our table like its plutonium. “You must be very careful,” he cautions. 

I ask Agus why he thinks drowning is so bad in Indonesia, compared to other parts of the world. “The problem,” he says, “is that people don’t think it’s a problem.” Drowning is so common, Indonesian culture accepts it as just another part of life, similar to how the US perceives mass shootings: a tragic normality. “If you give parents extra money to teach the kids to swim, trust me they won’t do it. People don’t think it’s important,” he says. Which is why Swimdo classes are free for students, the organization relies on tax deductible donations to keep their classes going.

Although Indonesia is mostly muslim, Bali is 70 percent Hindu. Agus tells me about Kidul, goddess of the Southern sea. Kidul rides a dragon, and when an earthquake rumbles, it means the dragons are moving. When a child drowns, the family believes it’s the work of Kidul, “I think it helps the family cope,” Agus says. 

One of Swimdo’s great accomplishments is getting buy-in from both Hindu and Muslim families. The programs’ hub is at Keramas Park, but they have expanded to Sumba and Central Borneo. In these rural areas—where deaths are highest—instructors teach the technique in rivers.

As we sit at the restaurant, I look across the horizon and see two kites dancing in the sky like flirting birds. Next to us is a rice field, and on all sides is encroaching development: bricks, rebar and the incessant clanking of hammers. I imagine that next time I visit this restaurant, this rice field will be gone.

It’s clear that Agus has reverence for his religion and his culture, but I also sense a shade of frustration. He laments that locals are selling their land for too cheap, and the elaborate Hindu ceremonies cause locals to drain their savings on decorations, rather than planning for the future. (Bali’s version of keeping up with the Jones’.) “We have ceremonies for plants, animals, even knives,” he says. “I have a ceremony for my car! Twice a year I put on my sarong, place offerings on the top of my car, clean it, and pray. It’s how I show respect for all that my car gives me.”

The following day, Agus takes me to Pura Tirta Empul, a bubbling spring high in the mountains where Hindu devotees and tourists purify themselves by ritual bathing. The sinuous road climbs to the center of the island, the dank fecundity of jungle buzzing with insects. We arrive and Agus wraps me in a purple sarong, hands me incense, a banana leaf, and flowers to place at an altar.

Next we walk to a series of natural springs which gush beneath stone elephants. One elderly local woman stands waist-deep in the spring, holding a plastic water jug under the fountain, stashing some holy water for later. I step into the water, which is colder than I expected. A small creature slithers beneath my toes and I let out a full-body shiver. As I approach the spring, I bring my hands to the wall and hold my head under the fountain. The water runs across my face and into my eyes, blurring my vision. I close my eyes, and as I do, a memory arrives. It comes into focus like a Polaroid, first with soft lines and shades of gray, then sharpening into vivid detail. 

I am maybe four years old at a local swimming pool with my family on a Northern California summer day, the smell of chlorine and Banana Boat sunscreen fill the air. I am on my hands and knees, peering over the edge of the pool, playing with a toy boat. The boat drifts away and as I reach out to grab it, I fall into the pool. At once, my big sister jumps in and fishes me out. My mom runs up and holds me in her arms, wrapping a towel around my back. I remember crying and shivering and feeling real terror, a primal part of my brain had been triggered, and although I didn’t have the words to describe it then, the message was clear: water will kill you. Sometime later, I can’t remember how long, my mom signed me up for swimming lessons, then Junior Lifeguards. These skills fundamentally shifted my perception of water; it no longer evoked blind terror, but a healthy respect. Swimming led to surfing which led to traveling which led me here. A simple series of moves that redirected my life. 

As we finish the holy water soak Agus tells me that he needs to get home, he has a six month old baby boy and his neighbors are visiting to bless the child. I thank him for his hospitality and for giving me a window into his culture. But before we depart, he scrolls through his phone and holds it out, showing me a recent photo of his infant. The boy is submerged in water with Agus cradling his head safely above.

For more, go to swimdo.org