Childhood Games We Played

When I was growing up, my parents hardly bought us any toys.  My cousins' parents were not fond of buying them any either except for Olie and Dodie's.

Instead of playing with toys, we played what I call playground games with other kids on any vacant lot we could find.  Most of these games hardly need any equipment at all.  We played "piko" which is similar to hopscotch on bare ground using a stick to make the lines on the soil.  We also played "patintero" where your goal is to avoid being touched as you go through three lines each manned by kids.  Another game I love is called by "tumbang preso" where you hit a can without being touched by the "it".  A very simple popular game that we loved to play is "luksong tinik". Two kids form the fence that the other players have to jump over without touching the fence.  This is very convenient since one uses ones feet and hands to make the fence starting with one foot of the two kids and progressively include the other foot then the hands.

I think having nothing but what you have around you can make you creative to think of ways to use them as your toys.  My cousin Pepe proved that.

He was creative in devising a sort of game to amuse himself and us, his cousins. We usually played in the compound where the fish sauce, which my family made, underwent fermentation in large vats. These large round wooden containers which later were made of concrete. were pretty close to each other creating dark corners where spiders loved to create their cobwebs.

Pepe loved to catch some of the small spiders and place them in matchboxes.  He would then take them out and allow two of them to walk on a stick.  He would then invite us to watch as the two spiders fight each other and predict who would come out alive at the end.  He delighted on putting this show for us especially when make believe bets were made like the grown ups did real ones during the ever popular Filipino past time, cockfighting.

Who needs electronic games when you have a creative cousin like Pepe?