Home Town Games

We were a group of boys aged 10 to 13 who congregated to play street games that involve hitting one object with another, usually from a distance. The projectiles are generally pieces of metal or other objects that slides or throws well. The arrangements of seeds from the local flora usually form the target. The seeds were our chips, our currency. Imagine if you will a primitive and free form of bowling without the pin setting machine or a set pattern of individual lanes. That was the game we played.

The nature of the game varies with the arrangement of the target negotiated before hand. It could be a vertical arrangement, one behind the other or a horizontal one, spread across, or some other designs. The object is always to knock out as many of the pieces as possible in one throw. Strategy and finesse, more than accuracy, are required to be a consistent winner.

We played in the street when the bullock cart traffic was no longer active. When it rained, we played a truncated versions of the same games under our houses which were built on long legs, with enough headroom for an adult to walk through with ease. The space sometimes doubled as refuge for some domesticated animals, when the weather was bad.

We preferred the street, played until dusk or the players’ quorum falls below some number, or when continued playing was no longer fun. We broke up when some of us were called to dinners by our parents.

It was an idyllic times in our lives, i.e. until the two brothers joined our closed circle of friends. They were children of farm hands, with darker shade of skins, their little bodies wound tight with muscles which we didn’t possess. They told us that they knew kick-boxing, and we believe them without any demonstrations on their parts.

They came to play our games, and before long the brothers were bullying us in all sorts of ways. Even the bravest and the brawniest among us refused to confront them, i.e. until the brothers and we agreed to a game which allow the winner to strike the loser’s hand planted as a target some distance away. In this game, the hand must planted and the fist hold tight as the winner tried to strike the loser’s hand with a projectile made usually of round glass beads. A child’s version of Russian roulette you could say.

I was considered a good shot among our circle of gamers, and so I was chosen to play against the older brother. I won and I won. The older brother’s hand was black and blue, and as the game progressed, his hand flinched, an instinctual movement away from the incoming projectile. His spirit also capitulated, and from that day on, we became friends.

Best, the normalcy returned. We grew up.

The story of the two brothers should end here, but it was only the beginning. A major life lesson was learnt.

I will now put my life reel on fast forward.