‘Does your mum surf?’ Lulu asks. He shakes his head. ‘My mum can’t even swim. She’s a university lecturer.’ Oh. This makes sense. His dad surfs and his mum’s an academic. Icah is a combination of them both. When you (read I) come out of the sea having nose-dived, sand-splattered and finally stood on the surf board after about twenty-seven tries, Icah doesn’t say anything. Unless you (read I) ask him what he thinks. ‘You had your weight too much on your back foot. Your front foot was turned in too much. You need to move forward on the board a little.’ When I was out there, he gave no indication he was watching. ‘I’ll never be able to surf,’ I’ve been known to spit out into the sand. Every time Icah raises his eyebrows, as calm as daylight. ‘Everyone can surf.’ 

The first time Delphine stood up on a surfboard, Icah was there, standing behind us. It was such a heart-stopping moment. ‘Do you see many disabled people surf?’ Icah looked at me. 'Not here.' 

When we were stacking surfboards at the side of the container, I asked, ‘How do you spell your name?’ ‘Like Micah without the M,’ he said, leaning a big yellow learning board next to another. All my brothers and my sister have names starting with I.’ ‘Why’s that?’ I said passing the last board. He stacked it and said, 'I come from a Rastafarian family. Rastafarians see everyone as an individual.’ He pointed into the air, conjuring people. 'So there’s no me and you, or him and her. Just I and I.’ Wow. I contemplated this. A simple pronoun change can change the way you see someone? 

‘What does your mum teach?’ Lulu asked him as the sand flies kept biting. ‘Social work,’ Icah said. ‘She works with people with disabilities and their families. All my life, she's brought people with disabilities to our house. Every weekend. People who can’t walk or talk. So my brothers and my sister and I take them down to the beach and teach them how to surf.’ By this point, our mouths have dropped into the sand but Icah carries on like it’s the most normal thing in the world. ‘We run a surf camp for autism sometimes. We get parents crying on the beach because they’ve never seen their child smile before. And their kids are surfing to the beach and grinning.’ I and I. 

Love from Quest and her crew xx