When I started SAISA swimming this year, I was unsure whether I was going to travel. After realizing that I might be alone during this trip, I wondered whether I should do it. Around this same time even more unfortunate news came through. SAISA was no longer hosted in Dhaka. This was one of the most devastating news I’ve ever heard. Being an Alumni of AISD I was rather excited to visit and have my last ever SAISA, especially since my whole SAISA journey started from that place. However something rather interesting happened, the event was hosted in Nepal. This was such a coincidence for me, especially because my first ever SAISA swimming was hosted at Lincon School as well in 2019.  This was rather interesting to me, this realization had a major importance to me which I still don’t understand to this date why it was so important. After locking in swimming, I made the team. With hard training 3 times a week I was so exhausted and there were even times when I thought of quitting, however I persevered through to the finish. The final week before we traveled to SAISA I trained almost every day for 2 hours.

We went a day earlier, which meant we had a whole day of sightseeing, which was fun. It gave me a rush of memories from 2019 when I visited the same place, just with a different group and school. Second day when my old school arrived at the hotel I was so excited to meet my old mates. It was so nice reuniting with the people I grew up with from my childhood to my teenage years. The first day of the event was nerve-wracking, but our team racked up points back and forth, as the day went by the relays came. We were determined to get on the podium which we did we managed to get up there, and we were overly joyed. The second day was quite calm as I only had two events for the day. My day went by quickly and was mostly spent with the team and catching up with my old buddies which was quite comforting.

The third and final day of the event was one of the saddest days of my life and one of the most stressful. I caught an unexpected fever, however, I persevered by taking panadol and doing a race right after, and also placing in B finals for that race, which I was very proud of.

I pushed through the whole day, and to our surprise, we placed better than last year and our team also managed to get the most sportsmanship medals. As we sang songs on the way back to the hotel, it hit me. IT’S DONE and in the lobby, we gave our final goodbyes to other teams. This was quite hard for me especially saying bye to my old team, I’d been swimming for them for 4 years and competed against them for two years. All those core memories with those people are memories that will be never forgotten.  On the way back I was reflecting during the flight on my last SAISA, and overall I would say this was one of the most memorable and fun SAISA swimming I’ve had.