Pumpkin House Play Ground

Asia » India » Maharashtra » Meherabad
June 28th 2008

Published: June 28th 2008

Today was a day of outdoor gaming! After my last post I went back to the Pilgrim Retreat and played volley ball for about 3 hours after lunch. I am absolutely terrible but people tend to let me play anyway which I appreciate. After 2 cups of chai at tea time (LOTS OF SUGAR) I went to the pumpkin house. There we had all sorts of games. First we played red light green light, which didn't work that great because the yard was small and kids left the light green a long time so everyone pretty much dashed all the way up on the very first turn. One boy in particular was a pretty good stop light and would quickly change the lights prolonging the game and getting lots of people out. Then Stella decided it was time for a new game (I think she got bored watching) so we played I game I looked up this morning called Dinner time. One person is the wolf and we all ask what time is it. When the wolf says 6 we take 6 steps when they say 9 we take 9 steps. When the wolf has decided that we are close enough they say it is dinner time and they come to tag everyone. There was a really little boy who kept following me and I kept almost running over him so I finally picked him up and we played as a team. We played about 5 rounds of this and then it was time for another game I looked up called doggy where is your bone (another game found on google searching outdoor kids games) where someone sits on a bench with a small object under them ( we used a green plastic telephone) one person is chosen from the group to go get the bone. When they return we all ask "Doggy where is your bone?" and then the kid gets 5 guesses to figure out who it is. Only one kid guessed correctly, not bad considering including me they had 41 people to guess from. It was really funny to watch the kid with the bone come slowly to the back of the group and then the other kids would gather around to hide them. Once there was enough working together we played fire on the mountain where the kids became treacherous turn coats no longer working together. The person in the middle would say fire on the moutain and we would say run run run as we all ran in the circle. When they shouted a number we had to make a group of that number. As the person in the middle would kick out groups with the wrong number kids would quickly flee and change groups so that their former group did not have time to try and find someone to make their number right. This was hilarious to watch a kid leave their group of 5 for a group of 4 and the rest of the bewildered group would scramble around but to no avail. Mostly the kids would try to adjust so I could stay in the game until the very end where I was the odd one out making groups of two. Our last game was called bomb the city which is very similar to four corners. We were all assigned a place to start and then each corner was given the name of a country. As we were waiting for the game to begin team India began cheering for India and then my group, Australia had to cheer back at them then Germany and USA joined in as we all whooped, hollered and clapped for the countries that we wouldn't even stay in like we were at the Olympics. Finally we all ran around and tried to find a place as the bell,l our bomb siren, rang. Once it stopped a name was drawn out of a box and then the people in that country were out. I only lasted a few rounds ;_; but then I got to pick the countries to bomb, muahahahaha. I go back on Monday when I will hand out all the handy dandy glue sticks I got for 20 rs a piece and we will paste animal cut outs on a vin diagram. I was thinking in door and out door animals but I might change it to mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. (hahahaha I had to look up the fourth one, I couldn't remember birds.) Tomorrow I might see if I can go into Amednagar and start my India wardrobe!