Swimming to Safety Activity 2 Day 5 Week 1 SLJ

Hi Everyone,

For this activity I am going to retell the tale of Yusura Mardini so read carefully please if you are reading this text.

Yusra Mardini

Sara Mardini

The tale of Yusra Mardini

When Yusura Mardiniw was a little girl in Syria she was afraid of the water. she used to watch the little kids swim while she just watched staring at the deep end. 

Soon she started to swim and swam very competitively. She got trained by her elder sister and father and soon was winning competitions left and right. She nearly forgot her fright of the water when she was little. 

When she swam it helped make her problems in life disappear. But swimming could not help this problem her country was at war. There were huge protests lots of people gathered around on the street and spoke their minds and the government used violence and shot them. Brave people protested more and the violence was getting worse. 

When Yusra was 13 the protesters and the government had already became a full grown civil war. Rebel groups were formed all around the country and battled against the government. 

Yusra and her family heard more bad news coming every single day. People were starting to die not only rebel fighters or government solders but even regular innocent people were too. 

In the first year Yusra and her family were safe for now. But eventually it began getting closer. Her family and neighbours could hear the sounds of weapons and fighting. After a few more months the war was close. 

One day Ysura and her father walked to the gym so she could train in the pool when they reached the building Ysura and her father were to late it had already been bombed she had no place to swim.

There were few safe places in the country anymore the war. Her family lived in constant fear. When she turned 14 Ysura had an idea to escape. She wanted to leave the country to go to Europe she begged her parents to go. But it was to risky and dangerous  her younger sister was just a toddler.   

Then the bombings reached Ysura and her family's neighbourhood and house was destroyed from it. Luckily nobody was home when it happens so nobody was hurt but they had lost everything but each other.  Ysuras mother had a plan tears came out out as she spoke. 

Her two cousins were leaving on a boat aiming to make the long and dangerous trip to berlin, germany offered to take Ysura and her older sister Sara with them. Nobody knew when their parents, younger sister and the rest of the family would join them. 

The journey was dangerous but staying there was terrifying. The day she and her sister left she hugged her parents and younger sister and said goodbye. They left with almost nothing a cellphone, some clothes and cash for the smugglers agreeing to help them sneak across borders because in many neighbouring country refugees were not welcome.

She and her sister set off with their two cousins and group of other refugees. First they travelled to Beru to Lebanon. Then to Eatstanbul turkey every step of the way they were scared of being discovered by the police who would send them back to Syria. 

Then they went to a Greek island and met up with the smugglers willing to help them reach their destination for money. Ysura and Sara hid with the group in the woods by the beach waiting for the right moment when the smugglers thought it was safe to make their move. 

They needed calm waters and to avoid the Turkish coast guard. Finally it was time to make the move. The smugglers loaded them onto the tiny boat at the dock and pushed them out to sea the molter starting to work. But all most as soon as they had set off they got spotted by Turkish coast guards who forced them back to shore.

 The two sister decided to try again as soon as it got dark at night. Now with the cover of darkness they might make it. The drone of the engine forced them to silence. Slowly the coast behind them had started to shrink. The trees they hid in for day got shorter and shorter as they spit away into the sea. 

But then twenty minutes after they had left the coast the engine shifted a pitch higher showing that it was working to hard and it sputterd getting slower and slower until . . . it STOPPED!. The Molter was broken. While trying to fix it the water slowly crept silently into the boat. 

The tiny boat could only hold about six people but the smugglers had crammed in twenty and most could not actually swim. They tried splashing water out of the boat and doing everything they could to make it lighter. They threw their bags and any belongings out of the boat trying desperately to keep the boat from sinking.   

But none of it had helped. The water was at Ysuras ankles now she knew what she had to do something. She thought to herself it would be a shame for all of us to drown in this sea when I am a strong swimmer. She looked at her sister Sara and both knew what they had to do. 

They jumped into the cold water with two other people. Out of the 20 people on the boat only 4 could swim. Ysura was at the front so she could pull it with an rope. She used the other hand and feet to swim. Five minutes had passed then twenty Ysuras eye were burning from the salty water. The boat was heavy. 

With sixteen on board an only four swimming and pulling the struggle had become Eminence. They had been swimming for a full hour. It was going so slow that they could not tell if they were getting closer or not. Ysuras legs were tired. 

But she knew she could not stop kicking. Her flip flops slipped off her feet and floated away. Any concern for her clothes all she had now was gone. Her soul focus was to get everyone to shore alive. She rapped her hand tighter around the rope and kept on swimming. 

They pushed and pulled and pushed. Ysura was so tired she did not know if she could keep going. Would they die here? Would they ever see her parents and little sister again. Ysura wanted to cry but she could not cause when she looked up at the boat. She saw one of the boys was watching he swim. He was only six years old. not much older than ysuras little sister.

So Ysura forced a smile on her face and tried to make him laugh. She did not want him to think they were going to die here. even if they might. Now her hand had became raw from holding the rope and feet were numb from the cold water. Her eyes still burned and mouth was chapped by the salt. But she kept swimming.

Then Ysura was sure she was not imagining it this time the shore was getting closer. They were going to make it. Ysura, Sara and the two other swimmers dragged the boat onto the shore and collapsed onto the ground. They had been swimming for three and an half hours. They saved themselves and sixteen other refugees they had make it.

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog post if you would like to know story click on this link feel free to comment if you would like too. Goodbye