I had posted this as a reply, when I mentioned Poor kids is because most if not ALL the rich kids don't play these games,but I figured it warrants a personal blog entry, for future refference
1) Trompo: , specially Mancha brava, trompo is a topper top or spin top, whatever the heck they are called in English.
2) Chibolas/Marbles: These are played often,sometimes with money. there are different games played with marbels, my favs growing up was, "La Capital" that's the name of the game.
3) Contar Chistes/Cuentos: This one used to be very popularwith the boys on our Manzana hood,we used to gather on one of the corner and tell stories/chistes.
Handball: I used to play this one as well, it is played with a rubber ball,you strike it with one hand, 2 other kids would try to catch the ball and touch the base.
Baseball: I should have ranked this one at the top, there are 2 kinds of baseball, the rich kids baseball with regular bats and regular balls, and my baseball,poor kids baseball, we used a Branch as a bat from a Guasimo tree, and we used several socks bunched up as a ball, when we could find little money we would build one with electrical tape.
I joined little league with a team of our barrio when I was 10 I played shorts stop and pitched, my last year I was selected to go to the Nationals but I was 1 month too old :-(.
At the time there were 10 teams in Esteli, 6 where rich kids teams, 4 were poor kids teams, ofcourse the richs kids had their nice uniform and all the equipment, Us the poor kids we barely had a bat, we would wear our regular clother,some shirts with holes on them and a couple of kids,like our catcher, did not even wear shoes, thou we were poor money wise ,we were rich at heart when it came to playing baseball.
When I was a kid I loved baseball,the game was a pasion for me and my teamates, we played our hearts out,no matter how precariuos our circumstances were.
For 3 years in a row, our barrio team was champions,after winning the first championship, our barrio received sponsored shirts for everyone in ou proud team from a German gentleman that watched us played in the finals, we never did get to have a full uniform thou. I would have loved to have had a uniform, that's why it gave me great pleasure to have sponsored a little league team on our barrio Extreme Cigars lil Team.
One should never forget, One's humble roots/beginnings,neither should one ever be embarrased about it, I never have and never will, Have You? I know, way to many people that forget that ever hard poor/humble beggining,that due to the circumstances, the decisions they took then, shaped them who they grew up to be.
Enjoy!
FAP
Bookmarks