Ten-Ten-Nigerian-Childhood-Games-Secrets

 

There is something I have wanted to talk about for a while, something I need to share here, for your ears only. *sigh* It’s a new year, so I figured, this is a good time to come clean.  There’s no point hiding this for another second.

Are you ready?

*deep breath*

Here it is …

I can’t play Ten Ten.

Yes, you heard me well.  Ten Ten, that childhood game that girls played, the one with clapping and sticking out feet at the appropriate time … That game.  I can’t play it.  I just can’t.

Why?

It’s not that I can’t count in multiples of ten, which is a requirement for this game.  Remember girls clapping and counting:

“Twenty, Thirty, Forty, etc … ”

The truth is this: I just never learned it.  Maybe I was too busy with other games, like this Biro Game:

Table Soccer

 

Or else Ten Ten just didn’t appeal to me.  But Ten Ten was quite popular in primary school, and also in secondary school, right after exams.

I never saw anyone play Ten Ten in the university … for obvious reasons.

Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen though.  Hehe!

Perhaps, this is a good time to disclose the games I can play:

  1. Tinko Tinko
  2. Who Stole the Meat from the Cooking Pot?
  3. Fire on the Mountain (Run, run, run …)
  4. Hopscotch a.k.a Suwe
  5. Skipping rope
  6. All those that are born in January, stand up, stand up … God bless you! (Does this qualify as a game?)
  7. Rolling car tires with a stick or bare hands (Same question: Does this qualify as a game or is it just child’s play?)

So, that’s it.  I can’t play Ten Ten.

Oh well …

Tinko, tinko, tin-ko-ko, tin-ko …

By the way, why were most of these games, especially Ten Ten and Tinko played by girls only? Were the boys too busy with Police and Thief? Which games can you play? Which ones can’t you play?

Oya, confess! Don’t be shy. 😀

*Image Credit: Madame Noire

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