The list is long, including the discredited "Mummy-and-Daddy" which I deny ever playing. Well, maybe I once pretended to be the baby for obvious reasons. Lol. Here's my list. Can you add to it?
Police-and-Thieves (not Robbers)
I liked this game especially for the part where your friend (a policeman) would shoot you (the thief) and you would defiantly refuse to die. It was so painful to the policeman.
Hide-and-Seek
I like this game because of the call to the seekers to come looking for you: Pampanaaaaa!
Chaskele
I loved this game for the sheer opportunity to be cruel. Crudely based on baseball, players would be divided into throwers and hitters. Throwers had to throw an empty tin into a disused car tyre, while hitters tried to bat it as far away as possible. They could literally "send" you to the next street or the next neighbourhood.
Piilolo
We would hide something in an obscure place and scour the grounds looking for it. We would shout "piilolo" when we found it. But there was a lot of bonding opportunity for boys and girls in between.
Kyem Pe
"Divide it equally". A game played over the whole term. Players would shout "kyem pe" upon chancing on another player holding/eating/carrying food. And you had to divide it equally. A more radical version was "Gbo ni ma wo" (literally "Die and let me take it"). In this case, the owner of the food had to leave it all to the other person.
Sete(waa)
This game turned every day into All/April Fools Day.
I Drop It
Players would squat in a circle and one of them would run round them, while they sang. The runner would secretly drop an item in their hand behind one squatter, who had to detect it and continue the run before the original runner back or risk a painful slap on the back. The song was "I drop it, I drop it" sang repeatedly. As kids, we would say "Law Peter" repeatedly. I love to think back to it.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Well, this is universal enough, but we played it with the "exotic effect" after Aunt Junko Izumiyama, of obvious nationality, taught us the words Gu (rock), Chock (scissors) and Par (paper) ostensibly in Japanese.
wow..memories! Apart from chaskele..I've been involved in all. *sniff* pilolo..always got caught hiding in a barrel filled with water..lol
ReplyDeleteKpinting£, stuck in the mud, stay.... u missed these?
ReplyDeletePlaying with football (pebbles), with my fingers, on my knees, on the carpet, on my own, with my own league....weird! Had serious people issues back then!
ReplyDeleteThe discredited "Mummy-and-Daddy" you say? Outrageous! It was my favourite by far!!! I often played the Daddy part, for obvious reasons - which boy wouldn't have, especially where the Mummy part was starring the area belle?
ReplyDeleteA very distant second was Chaskele - man, you are so right about the opportunity to be cruel. I remember once, when the battered tin flew past straight into a waiting forehead of a taller boy. It missed me cos I was shorter.
Hopscotch of course! (my personal favorite) Although I can't remember what the heck it was called in Ghana :(
ReplyDeleteAnd the dangerous game of ALIKOTO. I didn't have the guts to pay for fear loosing my fingers and/or hand.
Then classic ampe.
Then BASH
So many more I wanna list but I want to give other people a chance ;)
I hated Mummy and Daddy was for bad kids... there was a variation to it- what a porn flick is to the Titanic. I loved Police and robbers and of course "Law Peter". Thanks for taking us down this nostalgic road. Kids of today....they just don't know creativity.
ReplyDeleteLol, i remember games like ride over, where one party from team A will try to break through the human the human chain of B. Aashi na gbo, was a favourite.
ReplyDeletei know right, was so much fun! but imagine some "daddy's" still tryna play the game at thirteen+????? usually had to tell 'em :"Dude, hold it, game was over 2yrs ago"! its time for the Senior league now..... lol! Nyc one "Boss" ;-)
ReplyDeleteha!
ReplyDeletei played tinko-tinko
and 'yo yo yo african bend down'
and 'catch'
oh and 'my mother told me'
:)) i miss those days
and 'i call onnnnn'
and
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh! I remember all of these games too!!! Oh I had so much fun laughing! Thanks for the memories, Nana Kofi!
ReplyDeleteYou know - chaskele was only fun with the crude items. When you got real soft balls and stuff, it became dada-b.....
hmm I wonder - do the children still play these games, or have they graduated to playstations n the like? Their loss....
PS: The different skippign rope games we had!
They are many bur skipping, a form of hop-cotch called swell, tag and hide and seek, are my favorites.
ReplyDeleteChildhood, games, friendships,... where have all these gone? Only the treasured memories remain.I so miss the fond of it all.
ReplyDeleteThanks NY!
@ JuaNita: You just wanted to wash your pudenda no? Lol.
ReplyDelete@ Anon#1: Stay! Stuck in the Mud! Yeah. But, I have never heard of Kpetinge.
@ Kwame Mensa-Bonsu: Your finger-football would be what we called "Counters Ball".
@ Kissi: Lol. Yes, when the tin hit somebody, in Chaskele, it was such a thrill. You liked being Daddy, huh?
@Raine: Hopscotch, huh? I thought it was called "Tomanto" but my office mates swear by "Tuu Ma Tuu". Alikoto should have received an honourable mention in my post.
@ Anon#2: About the variation to Mummy & Daddy, could you be talking about Sokoi-Sokoi?
@lucci: "Ride Over" and "Aashi N'Agbo" are new to me. Wait, I think "Aashi N'Agbo" could be the same as what we called "Aponkye (Goat) Brake".
@ Anon#3: Mummy & Daddy at 13 plus? Na bad boys be dat!
@ CerebrallyBusy: I do not know any of the games to mention, sadly. Incomplete childhood? "Tinko-Tinko" sounds slightly naughty. Can you tell us about your games?
@ Lady Jaye: Kids now play PS2 and Wie, etc etc. I should not have forgotten all the lovely skipping games.
@ Myne Whitman: I think "Tag" would be the same as our "It's Unto You!" Lol!
@ Posekyere: My pleasure. Maybe we should write a book about Extinct African Childhood Games, "Mummy & Daddy" excepted, of course!
Ya, Ny. But all by myself!
ReplyDeletehaahaa lol this brought back memories.. but you forgot
ReplyDeleteAMPE
And that stones game that is played mostly by girls.. where u throw one stone in the air and then u pick one on the floor and then catch the stone in the air and in the end have two stones in ur hands.. (and the number of stones you pick from the floor increases as you level).. i think it's called "aba"
and you forgot that hand game that is also played mostly by girls and u sing "Robert, *clap clap clap* Rooobert *clap clap clap** Robert Mansa goalkeeper number one, aka nansa na woko aburokyire, kwasia be ti ho onpe ni ho asem, wa ko fa pentoa ode awo nenfi, ....." lol it's a long song.. but hopefully u'll remember that hand clapping game.
and yea i remember counters lol.. i miss that game since in the U.S.A sodas aren't in glass bottles so counters aren't available lol.. ahhh counters.. good times, good times..
and those skipping rope games were really fun.. and awesome exercise.