Hopscotching down memory lane
Games are where we learn about the world. Sometimes at the hands of our diabolical baby sisters
My family are a bunch of card sharks. They don’t play poker, they play 13card rummy. It’s a vicious, quick game of open card rummy (making sets, building on those sets until the winner has no cards left), and everyone has to play — mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, children, even great-grandchildren.
That’s how we grew up. My gran made sure we knew how to add/subtract by playing cards. We learnt how to count and barter, how to spot a cheat, how to read the game and the players. We learnt when to be loud, quiet or funny.
You have to be sharp, because the other part of the game is being teased. Mercilessly. Even by your mother. No one is safe. You have to have your words ready to deflect or attack.
At a family gathering, after the meal and the afternoon naps, we would put a blanket on the dining room table, shift seats around, take out two or three packs of Bicycle cards (only that brand would do — if you are hosting and have a different brand, you must run to shops and make sure you get the Bicycle ones).
We also developed our own language — shouts of “maak hom vas”; “geaf!” and “gala-gala” – would be yelled out.
Sometimes an outsider (a new suitor in the family hoping to impress) would put themselves in the line of fire and decide to play. Rules would be explained. But shame. Annihilation.
Those were the best times, with my family playing 13-card rummy until the early hours of the morning, eating dried fruit and drinking Monis grape juice. We laughed until we cried. And some cried until they laughed. Jennifer Platt
My six-year-old son recently asked me for R2 to buy topo (a throwing top). I was shocked that in today’s world — where kids play with games on tablets and cellphones — my son asked for money to buy topo . But I was also happy that he did because he took me back to how I grew up, which had a big influence on how I interacted with people and learnt teamwork.
Growing up in the township, I made use of whatever we had and street games were seasonal. I used to leave home at 11am and go set up for my favourite childhood game (Marola Four) at the sganga (open veld) close to my grandmother’s house.
Marola Four was a game where we drew four circles in a square shape, linked by lines with one on the big circle in the centre as the starting point. The game required a team to be in the big centre circle and a ball was thrown at your feet when they called your name. You had to kick it as far as possible for everyone to run from the circle to the next point of the circle. And then it went on until the opposite team caught the ball or hit all the members who were not in the next circle. More like a baseball game. The only difference is that we kicked the ball and in baseball they use a bat. Rea Khoabane
Iwas a laatlammetjie , and used to follow my elder brother, who was at varsity, everywhere. To my parents I was probably that handy eyeball to keep him from mischief with the ladies. On the way to the driving range — or so he said — he would drop me off at the games arcade with a fistful of coins, while he went to practise his swing.
Through the dim haze and electronic buzz, I’d head straight for Asteroids, a game that captured the danger and vastness of outer space in two-dimensional line art set against a black screen. You commanded a space ship, represented by a triangle that rotated, and moved to shoot down a mass of equally simplistic shapes bent on smashing into your triangle. It took some skill to survive.
It wasn’t the most inventive game, but the rudimentary graphics and plot left plenty of holes for the imagination to fill. The sun would set, my brother would pick me up, and we’d both head home, dreaming, me of being a starship pilot, and him, of landing that birdie. Keith Tamkei
My history with games is a generally joyous threedecade-long mashing of Xes and Os, interspersed with lazily caressed triangles, and a few casually flicked L2s (all of those are buttons on a PlayStation controller). What stands out in it, however, is tragedy, the kind that rends young hearts and leaves them forever scarred. The tale starts when I was 11.
At the time, there was nothing cooler in the universe of little boys than a PlayStation. The console had been released a year or two prior and dominated Christmas wish lists across the playground. Naturally that meant when I initially asked, my parents declined my invitation to invest in this new “fad”. After a solid year of incessant nagging, needling and badgering they relented. Joy never tasted so sweet.
The terms and conditions stipulated that the game they had bought me, Tekken 3, would be the only one Gail and Kwanele Mkele ever purchased. Any diversification in that portfolio would be at my own expense. Too busy dreaming of mastering various combos, I waved them away and took delivery of my new baby. This was around the same time that their new toddler, my younger sister, was just beginning to enjoy the pleasures of grabbing things then giggling when a bunch of tall people rushed to her side, panicking.
One day, exhausted from doing battle against the forces of evil, I paused for a bathroom break. The room was empty and I would not be gone long, I thought. But that diabolical villain masquerading as my baby sister chose this moment to strike.
The sight that greeted me when I returned to the TV room still haunts my dreams. There she was, dressed in a nappy and perfidy, bashing the cover of my PlayStation over the half-exposed Tekken 3. I stopped her but the damage had been done. Tekken was dead and on my 11-yearold wages, it would be another six months of chores and begging before I could hustle another game. Yolisa Mkele
YOU COMMANDED A SPACE SHIP. IT TOOK SOME SKILL TO SURVIVE