wonderment

Have you ever tried to take a Mongolian swimming?

To me, Mongolia is the land of the perpetual cold winters where temperatures never go above freeze point. People live in “pau-like” houses, ride horses and always have foggy breath.

I even thought that most Monglians were illiterate, that is, until I met the Mongolian FEBC director with his American accent and realised that even though it takes a 15-hour transit at Incheon Airport to get in and out of Mongolia, there’s a booming city in Ulaanbaatar.

Anyway, back to my point - have you ever tried to take Mongolians swimming?

On the 2nd day that the Mongolian students team arrived for CCIS, one of them popped me a question: Where can we find a swimming pool around here?

Swimming pool … do you guys go swimming? Yes! Yes! We brought all our swimming stuff! Right …. well there are swimming pools, but all of them are in the hotels. Ohh… never mind then.

If you were there to see the crest-fallen look on his face, you would have felt sorry for the guy. I would have brought them home if I could, but I was barely surviving the 2nd day of CCIS. No can do.

I told my sis that the Mongolians wanted to go swimming and she laughed.

“They are so hot ah?”

I should think so.

So our dear Mongolian team battled the muggy December heat, piling on their lined costumes and mopping up buckets of perspiration.

Finally, when CCIS ended, Sarah and I dropped by the Mongolian house to see if they needed anymore groceries to last till Wednesday when they left.

We got there at about 10ish and everyone was just waking up. The moment we stepped into the house, we were embraced by the convection heat and I suddenly remembered about this little request they had at the start of CCIS.

On the spur of the moment, we asked if they would like to come to our house to go swimming and you couldn’t wipe the grin off the guy’s face then. You could see the eager smiles on the faces of the others when the news got translated into Mongolian.

They promised to be ready in 2 hours and within 2 hours they were dressed and raring to go! It was so funny to see them so excited over something as simple as going swimming. Even the team leader ran to the nearest sports shop to get a pair of swimming trunks.

In the train, they were like a bunch of children high on sugar or something. Sarah and I had never seen them so crazy before. We thought they were avid swimmers longing to go for a dip or something …

We were soooo wrong …….

The last time I used these arm floats was when I was three….

…. Now I see 10 grown adult kids sharing 2 arm floats!!

They have really cool swimsuits - most of the girls were in 2 piece suits but one observation I made? Their swimming ability matched their English. The 2 older guys (one holding the girl’s hand and the other at the back) spoke the most English and swam pretty well .. the rest who stared blankly at us when we asked, “How are you?” - didn’t even know how to float.

But what they lacked in swimming ability, they made up for the childish glee at being able to horse around in the water.

She’s looks like she’s 12 but you gotta see her contortionist act. It’s out of this world!

Boys will be boys … Thank goodness they don’t know anything about dumping the host in the water.

Anka is afraid of water so we had a fun time talking to her instead and finding out about her famous actor father, her love for dance and music and her ability to sing beautifully and play the guzheng.

A funny happy bunch of people

Satisfied and happy with homecooked lamb stew in their tummies - Bataa the team leader said that in Mongolia he couldn’t differentiate what kind of meat he was eating, but here in Singapore, he finally could appreciate MEAT! Not chicken … “No more chicken rice,” all of them said.

Hehe, they should all be home by now. Will miss our “Mongs”!