Pinoy street games and growing up in the province

Two weekends ago, I attended a children’s party at Museo Pambata and the theme was unlike other typical kiddie parties.  Instead of the usual cartoon character theme, it was a Pinoy-centric kiddie party.  The games that were played were the games that we played as kids - Chinese garter, sipa, etc. 

I missed a lot of the games since I arrived late but my friends said that the games consumed almost 2 hours because it was the first time most of the kids played traditional Pinoy games.  They said that the kids had a hard time grasping the concept of “pompyang” (or pompiang, I’m not too sure on the spelling but it’s a Pampanggo term.  Sorry, I don’t know its English equivalent! In Tagalog, I asked someone and it's called "Maiba ang taya".).   Anyway, going back, I was so shocked that they didn’t  know what pompyang is.  All street games start with pompyang to determine who’s “it”!  This goes to prove that kids these days really no longer play traditional Pinoy games. Sigh…

Then, yesterday, a friend showed me a text message describing the childhood of yesteryears and it brought back a lot of fond memories of my childhood in the province.  Here are some of them in random order -

• Buying buko and monggo ice drop from the mamang sorbetero who goes around the village every 3pm.
• Digging up the soil to catch earthworms and using them as bait to catch frogs during the rainy season!  (I know it sounds so gross but yes, I strung earthworms into fishing hooks using my bare hands when I was a kid! Wahaha…) 
• Watching my brothers hold spider matches on walis tingting, then they house the champion spiders in matchboxes.  I remember 2 kinds of spiders – the small, brown spider and the big, black spider with yellow stripes.  The brown type usually wins even if it’s smaller.  It was an early lesson that size does not matter.:)
• Sucking the nectar of the santan flower.
• Cooking in mini claypots or called “kurang-kurangan” in Pampanggo (usually bought in tiangges during town fiestas).
• Running and playing under the rain… and when there’s no rain, using the hose in the garden.  Haha…
• Playing street games like 007, Lemo-lemo-lemo lime, siliman, patintero, monkey-monkey, Dr Quack-Quack, piko, open the basket, jolen (marbles), text cards, Jaws … 
• Playing gameboards like Snakes & Ladder, Millionaire’s, Cluedo, Games of the General, Chinese Checkers, chess, Chase, Scrabble, as well as dominoes, sungka and Trump Cards.
• Playing hide and seek around the village on our bikes! Ultimate adrenaline rush!

The list can go on… and looking back now, I wouldn’t trade my “primitive” (haha…) childhood experiences with the hi-tech gadgets of today’s kids. :)