Maroundas and other games

I was reminded this week about how much I love working with students.  Tuesday was my last day of antibiotics that had been making me nauseous since last Friday.  I had a big day, a morning double period with the students at GSS, a long period of waiting at school, hopefully implementing our project with my group members from UB, and then a 3:00pm history class.  I thought about waiting until after school to take the first dose of the day, but decided to stay on track and just get them over with as soon as possible.

For the project, each group had to choose a traditional game, go out into the community, observe people playing the game and then uncover the mathematics used in the game.  Our first mistake from a few weeks ago was choosing a game that is not played around here.  We thought we could read about it online and then discuss the mathematics and were thinking about choosing mancala . When we talked about it with the lecturer, he asked if others had written about the mathematics of this game.  I proudly thought “yes!” thinking that we had found a good one.  He said that others have already done the work that we needed to do for this project.  I was missing the whole point of the assignment, thinking he wanted a report of what researchers have said about the game.  No, he wanted us to experience the game and actually uncover the mathematics ourselves.  This makes total sense now and is a much better idea. 

My class at GSS ended at 10:00 and I told the students that I was looking for five or six volunteers to help with a group project for the university.   I’d been working with this class every day for two and a half weeks and I was thrilled that many of them were willing to stay after class and talk to me.  I had a list of three games from one of my group mates and they agreed to show us how to play maroundas at 1:00pm dismissal.  They said they would need a ball like a football (soccer ball).  One of the students walked me over to where we should all meet up later.  This will become important later in the story.

At 12:30, the running late texts from my UB group members started coming in and I was starting to get anxious because we had already missed many group meetings before.  I got to the spot a few minutes before dismissal.  The students have lunch from 1:00-2:00 and then various types of study and activities from 2:00-4:00, but classes are finished for the day at 1:00.  I was surprised that I didn’t see the students from my class because they seemed so eager to volunteer.  I began to question myself.  Are they here and I am just not recognizing them?  I walked up to random groups of confused students, who I’m sure were wondering what this lady with the football wants.  When of my group members arrived I told him I wasn’t sure where the kids from my class were, but maybe we could just go up to random students and ask them to help us out.  I must have been riding the high from the eagerness to volunteer earlier because the students that we didn’t know had no interest in helping us play a game.  Most were familiar with the game but said they would need many people to play, twelve or so.  This confused me because my students didn’t say anything about needing so many players.  At this point, I still had no clue how this game is played.  I think the students that we didn’t know felt like it would be a lot of effort and possibly socially risky to try to strike up a game on the spot for adults they didn’t know.  I was frustrated that no one wanted to help us, but I think I understand the reasons now.  Our third group member showed up at some point during all this.  They wanted to postpone for another time and I definitely was feeling the opposite, like I wanted to start bribing students if necessary.  It wasn’t working and Ivy said she could make a video of some younger children playing one of the other games that was suggested to us.  We agreed to meet the next day at 2:00 and I was disappointed and not feeling well.  Oh, and in the middle of all of this, one of our group members got a text that another group already chose maroundas and we couldn’t do it anyway.  This is why Ivy said she would find children playing one of the other games.  I was also very confused and frustrated by this.  How were we supposed to know that another group chose it?  There was never a process for groups choosing a game, it wasn’t written on the group sign-up sheet and the lecturer never said anything about this being a problem.  I set back into the school grounds, defeated, to find the owner of the football (who had driven home earlier in the day to pick it up for us) and return it. 

When I turned the corner of the big building that we had all been in front of for the past 45 minutes, I ran smack dab into my students!  They were at a different entrance to the building and were cheerfully wondering where I was.  It turned out that the student who showed me where to meet was not actually a part of our class and so she took me to the front entrance of the building, but my group was waiting for me at the side entrance that leads directly into the auditorium.  How could I have been confused about which students were from my class?  I recognized them immediately.  I did not tell them any of the drama of the past 45 minutes, we just went into the gym and played the game. 

The students had failed to mention they needed chalk to make the playing area, but I imagine that could be improvised if there was no chalk.  I happened to have a few pieces in my pocket from class.  A student made a playing area on the floor.

 

There seem to be many different variations, but this is is how a student explained it.

There are two teams.  A player from one team stands in the circle on the left and is the kicker.  A player from the other team stands in the other circle and is the pitcher.  It is basically a very simplified version of kickball.  The pitcher rolls the ball and the kicker must put the ball in play.  The pitcher runs after the ball and brings it back to the circle.  Meanwhile, the kicker is running back and forth between the two circles scoring points.  When the pitcher gets back to the circle with the ball, the kicker must be back on his/her own side of the centerline.  If the kicker is caught on the pitcher’s side of the centerline, the kicker is out.  The kicker is also out if the pitcher catches the kicked ball in the air or if the kicker didn’t kick the ball past the centerline (must kick it forward, not to the side, no foul balls).  The game is over when all the players from one team get out.  I asked about the points that were accumulating while the kicker is running back and forth.  They said you could also play according to points or that scoring can be used to get players from your team who are out back in the game.  Also, some of them said that you score a point each time you get to a circle and others said you score a point each time you get back to your own circle. 

When I left 45 minutes later, my mood was light and cheerful.  It has been wonderful taking a break from the classroom for the past four months, but there is something about working with students for the past month that has reminded me of how rewarding and grounding it is.  I’ve had a similar feeling after leaving some of the lessons I’ve been doing with them and am happy I chose an inquiry project that works directly with students. 

I’m still not sure what the name of this game is.  According to the GSS students, this is maroundas.  When I got home, I showed my housemates a video and they said that maroundas is played using four circles, not two, and this game is called “dila.”  This is interesting because if there were four circles, the playing would look much more like baseball, and “maroundas” sounds like “rounders.” So maybe that is the connection.