From a story on lithub.com headlined “Seven Swims: Omar El Akkad Chronicles a Life in the Water”:

The American Ambassador’s Villa

It must have been the fall of 1988 or the winter of 1989. We were first-graders at a pool party: we lost our minds. For a few hours it was all cannonballs and sugar and squealing, and maybe somewhere on the periphery a grown-up in the employ of the embassy was watching to make sure none of us drowned, but they were invisible to us then, or invisible in my recollection now.