Alex? On the swim team? OUR Alex??

So. I am at home, minding my own, when the phone rings. It is the swim coach at GDGoenka (the kids' school). She tells me that there is a swim meet today at the American Embassy School in Delhi and they are short some girls in Alex's age group and could she go and swim for them?......uh, I guess so. (Can she swim an actual stroke, an actual length of the pool is what I think, but I don't say that.) So we arrange that I will walk out to Sohna Road and deliver a swimsuit, towel, goggles, and swim cap and sign the permission forms as the bus goes by on its way to Delhi. About 10 minutes later, Alex calls. I say, I forgot to ask if you WANTED to do this - do you? She says, well, yeah, whatever. So, suddenly I have a competitive swimmer in my family! Incidently, Sam IS on the swim team, but dislikes competition, and they have enough girls in HER age group, so she didn't go. Weird. Anyway, Randy knocks off work early and we drive to Delhi, since this could very well be the only swim meet we ever have reason to go to, and the girls relay is the first race. Alex swims breast stroke. At a blistering pace. haha. Not. BUT, she does it, she makes it, and we are both tired just watching, so there you go. Of course, the Goenka kids get SLAUGHTERED by the AES kids, who swim several hours a DAY (and this is their varsity team, too, not the B list kids) The other school at the meet is Pathways, the other Indian school we looked at. They are also bad, but not as bad as us. To be fair, Goenka has had a pool for less than a year, so what do you expect. Anyway, after the relay (and AES was done, while we were on our 2nd leg) the boys relay started, and about halfway thru, lightening was spotted. Everybody got out of the pool, it proceeded to DUMP with rain, and after an hour, they called the meet. And we went home. By way of KFC for dinner :) . Of course, the photos do not do justice to the amount of rain that fell. We were trapped under a stand umbrella on the far side of the pool from the kids.
This is the GDGoenka contingent.
One thing to notice - the swim suits on the Indian girls. I talked about this earlier, when we went to the water park, but to see a kid try to RACE in a suit with a skirt and legs was pretty weird. Oh yeah, and the other teams both had team suits, and matching towels, etc etc. Oh well. I am just glad I don't have to fork out $50 for a special "swim costume" (not suit, costime). Here is video of Alex, and we were very pleased with her performance. She got the job done, and we were happy with her willingness to put herself out there and give it a shot.
Alex has surprised us with how her swimming has improved. Actually, all the kids are so much better this year. We have been experimenting with snorkeling too, and Alex caught on right away - she dives down under with the snorkel and everything.