Mongolian Tour: Games and Kids

I previously mentioned how one my favourite things from our Mongolian trip was hanging out with our host families. One highlight in this regard was when we arrived up North with the families who trained horses. Another, was a a few days earlier when we stayed in a house rather than a ger. On all occasions children from the host families and their neighbours were pretty excited to have people to play with them. It was lots of fun spending a few hours playing volleyball, soccer, martial arts, chasey and other games with these guys:

Skilled volleyballer that I struggled to keep up with

Did not want to stop playing

Look at me!

A bigger kid!

Lover of whirly-whirls

Rob: the ultimate piggy-back 

These kids are going to be tired tonight

Collecting tolls at one of the coolest toll-bridges ever!

At the end of our stay with a family we would give them small gifts. As part of our fundraising for Nepali youth we accepted a challenge from Tim to fire a bow and arrow from a horse in Mongolia. Our plan was always to give the toy bow and arrow to a child after we'd used it. However, we thought that it would be a pretty boring gift for a Mongolian child, for all we knew they had a real one! It actually turned out to be the best gift we gave. The boy we gave it to (pictured below) was clearly delighted and he touched the bow and arrow to his head which Bimba told us was a way to show appreciation. We were so pleased he liked it! 

Rob catches a ride

A little one from the reindeer herder family. We had a fun flower picking game.
(Pick flowers, put them in flower pile!) 

UNO Special Rules: the game that transcends all barriers!