Games day

29/3/11
As James had another lie in I set off on a long bike ride and bought some cricket balls as prizes for the games we had planned for later that day. Our cricket bat also arrived so once James was awake we began to prepare the games:

• Treasure hunt written in English and the local language
• Blind deaf obstacle course
• Wheel barrow race
• Creating something out of the items found on the treasure hunt
• Three legged race.

During the perpetration children stopped by and we confirmed that 4pm was the starting time. At 3.30 children began to arrive and we were glad that we had roped in a new guest anuna (from Finland) to help as over 35 children aged 4-17 had arrived. What ensued could only be described as organized chaos. With me speaking in English and Thomas translating we organized the young people into mixed sex groups. This in itself was a challenge as it became apparent that boys and girls do not mix. Being determined to challenge the perception that the sexes should be separate and that boys were better we preserved and formulated 5 teams. The young people agreed there team names and James wrote them on the chart he had prepared.

After explaing the treasure hunt rules and objective (to collect 30 items listed in 15 minutes) the teams were released. This game was a huge success with most teams managing to collect items ranging from fresh water mussels to old plastic bottles. Although it was interesting to note that the collecting tasks were undertaken along strict gender lines. Girls collected flowers and litter boys collected muscles and rope.

Whilst James and Anuna counted up the items I engaged in a game of heads, shoulders, knees and toes, star jumps, hops and pretty little bows. No easy in 35 degree heat but never the less most seemed to engage. The groups were then directed to their treasure hunt collections and asked to make something creative and beautiful whilst one group at a time took part in the blind deaf obstacle course. One person is blind folded, one person can see the course, cannot speak but can instruct via hand movements and the 3rd person can see the hand movements and shout out there interpretation of the hand movements. Each of the teams successfully completed the course against the clock with only one group cheating (resulting in a 3 minute time penalty). During this time James and Anuna entertained the other groups and encouraged creativity.

After one and a half hours felling distinctly hot, sweaty and smelly we tried to organize a wheel barrow relay race. Our first attempt with mixed teams was an unmitigated failure with children from both ends of the course setting off at the same time, meeting in the middle and falling over. The girls were not competitive and the boys over competitive so it was agreed to split the race into a girls and young boys race and a male teenager race.

Felling completely frazzled and hot we skipped the last game, judged the team that had created the best thing from the treasure hunt finds and added up the final scores. We announced the winner and before handing over the prize gave the cricket bat to the group with strict institutions that it was for everyone to use (read older boys and no girls). We handed it to Dishnoo as he seemed kind and sensible and looked like he would share it. We then gave the winning team the box that contained the prize (sweets, pop and two balls) and within 10 seconds there was a scrum, the box shredded and the older boys from each of the teams had made off with the prizes leaving the girls and younger boys to pick over what was left.

James, Anuna and I were in a stunned silence; we had not expected the prize to cause a scrum and were uncertain what had just happened. A number of the younger children came to complain that the older boys were not sharing but upon investigating we found that the boys were giving out the sweets and sharing the pop. A number of the boys came to thank us profusely for the bat and many of the kids wanted to know what time they should come the next day for more games…