I miss childhood and how we would always have a lot fun. it wouldn't be based on size or looks but instead of how fast you could run, be nice to your friends and maximize each and every minute. The days when we would play regardless of the weather without getting tired and just crash on our beds at night without any worries of what tomorrow would hold. When I sit down and look back to the those times when the era of tech games was just at a foundation and could only be afforded by the extremely rich, I don't regret because coming from a humble home I couldn't wait for day break to go and meet thy neighbors who were in the same category so as to play our own games. After a twenty minutes sitting from our overly cautious parents telling us the do's and don'ts while playing, we would dash out of the gate like prisoners set free to roam and all the words our parents had told us would go flying with the wind.
Immediately we would take off to the neighbor's big grassy compound , and join all our friends who would be waiting for us to start the games. When all the playmates where gathered, arrangements would be made about which games to play and rules where made by either the coolest kid, the one who owned the ball or rope, the one one who came with sweets to bribe us.
One particular game we usually played was "maama ne taata". After carefully and secretly studying our parents' routines plus a mixture of movies , this was the time to show what happens in our homes. Come to think of it, this was why most parents would tread carefully because they knew they were being watched.
Fathers, mothers and children( usually the shortest)were chosen and the game would start. It would go on seriously and you would see those raised from the Ganda family kneeling while greeting and preparing food while us the bakiga would laugh knowing kneeling for praying but with time we adopted and realised it is a big sign of respect. Coming from different tribes and backgrounds, these games taught us how to live with people from different cultures, how to make equal and non discriminative decisions. We would play till our guardians called us for lunch. Because mud was the only option,
I would go home looking like a puddle of mud and I had to clean up and prepare for round two of the games. Afternoons were for playing hide and seek and there was this very intriguing one called "kakebe". It was always more interesting on the part of hiding but if you were the seeker, this was the day you had to put all your talents of sports to use. In this game, the seeker would close his/ her eyes and count to ten as the others dash off to the unknown spots. At ten, the seeker would start searching around like an eagle looking for rats and whoever was seen first , there would be a race to the counting point which was usually marked by an empty tin.
If the seeker reached first and tapped it, you would have lost and had to sit and wait for someone to bail you. To be bailed meant one of the people hiding if seen, would run faster than the seeker and kick the tin as far as possible so that all who had lost earlier would have a chance to rehide as the seeker brought back the tin. And the game would go on till either the last person was found or the seeker grew tired of loosing. After exhausting all the running, we would start planning to retire to our homes but first we would play group dodge ball locally know as "kirindi ,kirindi".
Whoever was beaten would sit and the first and last people would hold the ball in the next game. It's at this moment that most of us would fold our skirts and dresses and get ready to jump up, swipe left, right or squat to dodge the ball. All of us made sure we did our best to dodge but at the end of it all one person would be left and it was up to her to either save the whole group by not being caught by the ball after counting up to ten or risk catching the ball in the next game. As the sun would start to slowly disappear behind the clouds, parents would start calling their lovely babies back home. But before leaving we always had the crowning game called "kawuna" where whoever was found by the one who previously went home with the kawuna, they would tap them. We usually believed that sleeping when you have been tapped kawuna was bad luck so we would run to our different homes inorder not to be tapped. Little did we that this game would actually make us end the day as we all raced back to our homes otherwise we would keep playing till they came for us with canes. Otherwise I still hope that there are children who are still having fun like we did because they deserve it.
LORINE YATUHA
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