With this in mind, when we were given some beautiful checkers sets from Camille of Little Libraries, and Liz Parry from London, we decided to teach Paleng children the game and see what would happen.
Abuti Khothatso, who quickly became an excellent player, taught one or two interested little people how to play one afternoon. Suddenly every one wanted to play. Our donated sets were in constant use. So in order to make the most of this checkers frenzy, we decided to hold a checkers competition.
Amidst great excitement, sixteen eager boys and girls entered, and thus began some very busy afternoons.
Some children who entered had not yet fully understood how to play, but this did not stop them. Even though they might forget which were their pieces, or which direction they were playing in, or how many squares they could jump, their opponent and the many, many spectators soon put them right ☺
In the end, the overall winner, to the boy’s surprise, was a girl, but the children who won first, second, and third prizes in both the boys’ and girls’ categories were nevertheless delighted with their little prizes.
And it hasn’t stopped … we still play checkers most library afternoons.