iQaQa: tales of playing life in thingthing

16 October, 2007 | 2 comments | Category: nostalgia.personal

there was a refined science and an art to evaluating the right proportions of water and soil…red or black, or ashawa sand…to make the purrrfect pot, food, house, miniature person … a little world of iQaQa!

I remember playing this game in two settings:

ahnd. the main gates were fuchsia pink, with peeling paint along the top edges. we lived across the sandy driveway from each other. Three of the SaId family children: the eldest boy, the eldest girl, the youngest and I, grandma’s girl. Chronologically, I fit between the two girls.

the consistency was fiiiine! fine sand which rises in sheets from underneath the ’save the children’ land cruiser usually parked next to the veranda where the gatekeeper situates his-self under the shade and cockily challenges all willing to a mean game of draughts.

the scorching heat of the sun and humidity prick the air leaving wavy optical illusions and refractions tangled with the dusty sand puffing upwards all day. but we always hid, we would go behind the old Italian building housing the venerated top floor office. we would go where the adults did not come, by the garden and store rooms. we frolicked well-lit grounds quaintly accented with insect infested dark corners while ever-flowing tap water trickled into these bountiful lands …casting pipes of soft gooey sand along the edges of the plants. If only grandma knew how we messed with those peoples’ gardens!

‘there are so many big trees!!’ Don’t you ask me what big meant! Ask me ‘when is Big’? and I might try to recall how tall I was at 7 years old….or not! … I wasn’t short! I did like wearing puffy colorful skirts tho!…

trees were the kind unique to that area of the world. ones with “monkey money” (yeTota frank) with entourages of small plants with “trumpet flower” (TirumBa AbeBa) & “bird’s seed Qolo” (yeWef Qolo)…my favorite, the ‘bogambil’, made for a mean hoooot pink stew concocted in a mud pot which had been very crispy-crunchy well done under the hot horn of African sun.

lema. there was a lot of short and stout greenery 515kms away, many about my height. and large chipped rocks lining the ground. it was rainy and muddy, gloomy clouds suspended over the wet season blues… moisture, nagging muggyness. the corrugated narrow metal doors were open, for what reason I don’t know. there was my cousin, the neighbors’ kids and I. the youngest one, a chubby little pumbkin with twinkily eyes was my favorite. such a cutttiie! they lived across the rocks…it seemed.

we messed with water. messy could make Coca cola, (aheeem! ambition and imagination allowed us to fathom even the most infamous/intricate billion dollar cola assembly line, kemir!!) … and soups and sauces, salaTa…and many more dishes and beverages… there were different shapes and sizes of tin cans, the yellow ethfruit salsa can and rectangular green olive oil can, the small one with the cartoon yeast dude on it!… and we went water-fetching behind the house… through the narrow path into spooksville, a space I later grew too big to fit in.

I enjoyed snipping all sorts of leaves and flower petals, mashing up different colors and concoctions. soiling my soft palms, tinging them with acidy tart smells/tastes. We served on different plates, qorkies (bottle caps…whatever are they called in english!?)… and with different utensils; invisible ones work especially well when we make the sound-effects “Aam-Aaaaam-Aam” and “fpfffffuuuuut!”

I remember the fascination with which every day passed, the immense amount of concentration and energy with which we jumped! jumped! Jumped! songs and chants, daily chores, timhirtibet-timhirtibet, mushira-mushira, …we were playing life! oh! joy-joy, funny how somethings, like playing life, are universal!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Flattery: Fast-tracking Success?
• Murky
• Dark Spirits
• Wayna & Dinaw: Slums of Paradise
• Diirre: A Childhood Crush

2 comments to “iQaQa: tales of playing life in thingthing”

Alpha, October 18th, 2007 at 8:13 pm:

• Wow…..you have one hella memory new yemibalew…..nice…..took me back to the noises and smell of it all

  Funny how a simple glance into our childhood also seemed like a deconstruction of our socioeconomic status…..while the games are universal the iqas’ are not

  no little pastic cups—-we use qorkies
  no playdoh— we have chiqa

  but like i said earlier it was nice read anyways

Nani, March 9th, 2009 at 7:27 am:

• LOL did u actually eat all that u made or at least taste them?? ok my version of iQaQa is … my dad brought us “yemisekaka mechawecha” don’t know the name in English so we’re only allowed to play with those in the house, me and my bro used to imagine them as bombs and used to hide them everywhere in the garden,… in the trash, …. on the atir … everywhere and then if you don’t find this bomb and pass by it boooom! you’re dead! and there used to be this distinct plant in our garden which had thick thick leaves that used to have lots of water when you cut it, we used to make gomen from that lol and from the red flowers key wet … lol if only mom knew what used ruin her beautiful garden! don’t tell her

Your comment: