The games we played
A couple of months ago, I was with a group of friends, chilling, gisting and laughing. Of course, we were all very baked.
We talked through quite a diverse array of topics, as one is wont to do when wammed.
We talked about how kids were so mean (in secondary school). The yabs. The pranks. Games like Egbon, Ebuyo and Kolo Rushing.
Lanu said “the reason boys can have energy for all that; they don’t have periods, they don’t need energy for periods”
I died.
Anyway, a good number of us had never heard of these games and their reactions were priceless. It was also felt good to reminisce because they’re so unnecessarily silly and hilarious. I mean, some of them are quite violent which sucks but I can’t lie I remember enjoying them. I sha decided to write about them here.
Qundus (or Qudus)
Pronounced: Koondoos
To play, you need to “bet” Qundus with at least one person. Once you’ve bet Qundus with Martins, Nicholas and Kabiru, you have to make sure that before you sit down at any point in time, you say the word “Qundus” to each of them. If you don’t, then they’re free to give you a violently hot slap on your lap (which hurt a lot because we wore shorts).
It’s important to note that you can bet Qundus with Martins & Nicholas but that doesn’t mean they’ve bet with each other. This made for very interesting Qundus trees and alliances.
Kids would literally intentionally miss class so their prey can’t have possibly said “Qundus” to them, only to run on desks in class with mad glee to leave a hand print on their classmates’ laps.
Abara Qundus
This is much like Qundus, but with a few hardcore differences:
- You slap other players on their backs, not their laps.
- 2. You have to say Qundus not only before you sit down, but before you bend. Yes, before you bend. If you bend to pick up something, you have to say it. If you’re leaning on a desk, you have to say it. Anytime you’re going from standing straight, to literally anything else (except lying on your back because it’s not exposed for slapping), you. have. to. say. it.
Egbon
So my memory of Egbon is a bit fuzzy, so I might be wrong about some things, but here goes:
Upon betting Egbon with someone , they immediately have the right to hit your food (or biro) out of our hands and take it for themselves. I think that the way to prevent being Egbon-ed is to shout/say Egbon before your attacker attacks.
What kills me is what Egbon eventually evolved to, at least in my own secondary school. When you hit someone’s gala out of their hands, there’s sometimes a struggle between both of you to pick it up. To avoid this struggle (and to make sure that the pain is felt through & through), we stopped picking trying to pick up the food of our victims. Instead, we stepped on it like crazy till we were certain that no one in their right minds would eat it.
Nothing hurts more than finally getting your hands on those ridiculously sweet donuts at the kiosks only to see them being mauled into the floor by your classmate before you got a chance to taste them.
Freeze & Command
These are two different games but they’re quite similar. When you bet either with someone, you have to make sure your fingers are crossed at all times 🤞🏽. If you’re caught not crossing them, the people you bet with can tell you to Freeze (don’t move at all till you’re released) or to obey any Command of their choosing.
So you can be frozen long enough for your friend (who, for some reason, didn’t wear a belt) to undo yours and take it for himself.
Or you can be commanded to just hand over the belt. Depends on which game you’re playing.
One fun thing about all of the games I’ve mentioned thus far is that you can be playing more than one (or all of them) at the same time, with some (or all) of the same people.
Ebuyo
This Yoruba literally translates to “pack some salt” which is hilarious to me because the game has nothing to do with salt. Say you and a bunch of clearly bored kids decide to play Ebuyo, here’s how to set it up:
- Choose an arbitrary point that’s running distance from where you’re all huddled together as what I’ll call the “escape zone”.
- Create a mound of sand and put a piece of a broomstick (igbale) into the peak of this mound.
To play, every one needs to “pack” or move away some sand from the mound (with their hands or feet). If you don’t touch the sand, then you’re not playing. Participating in the next part of the game without actually touching sand is a punishable offense.
Anyway, if during your turn, the broomstick falls, you’re dead. Everybody gets to beat you. The only escape is to run past the “escape zone”, which more often than not, is impossible.
If you partake in beating someone who fell the broomstick without actually packing sand yourself (and as such have no real skin in the game), you’ll be beaten the second actual players notice (most of the time, without the option of running to the “escape zone”).
Kolo Rushing
Kolo rushing (our last game of today) is similar to Ebuyo in some respects:
- There’s a lot of beating
- There’s sometimes an “escape zone” to run to.
Kolo rushing is played with a football. Everyone kicks the ball around till it finds its way between someone’s legs (nutmeg, “e enter your torose”). Once that happens, it’s beating time. Everyone who partook in kicking the ball around gets to slap you around for a bit. If there’s an escape zone, then you better start running.
Why did we play these games? Why were they SO much fun? Man, kids are the worst lmao.
