Laying the smack down

I have to tell you about something I experienced out in the village the other day. I was working with one of the community health teams when we came upon some children who were playing a game. It seemed awesome, there was soft sand and they were playing in the shade, but after watching it got very interesting.


It started out with a circle in the sand with a stick standing upright in the middle. There is a guard for the stick and all of the kids try to rush in from the outer circle to grab the stick without getting tagged by the guard. If you do get tagged, the whole game changes. You toss the stick away and you set in the middle. Now, the kids rush in and smack the mess out of you and then run out of the circle with out getting tagged. These kids are getting nailed and they love it and smile the whole time. Eventually as people get tagged the pile in the middle getting smacked gets bigger and then once there are 1-2 kids left the whole big pile of kids that had been getting whopped in the back/head/legs chase the 1-2 kids that are left and wail on them. Unbelievable. The kids loved it. This game to me shows cultural differences that are subtle but significant. I first thought that the kids risking their safety ran to the middle to tag the kids and set them free. Then I realized "man they are hitting them really hard." I think a Western mindset is focused on ideas of "rescue, valor, and liberation" but somehow these kids were totally used to getting smacked around and they had a lot of fun doing it together. Just some stuff to chew on.