One lovely thing about growing up in an African setting is the games played by children. We were introduced to several kinds of games, some helped our ability to think fast and others groomed us into finding ways to hide away from the seeker. Every one of these games contributed to the fun we had as children while growing up and we were never tired until adulthood started to set in and our priorities changed with time. One of these games was Boju boju ( hide and seek), it was my favorite game as a child and it was often played at night in the moonlight.
Immediately after sunset, the dim illumination of the environment by the moonlight becomes a perfect atmosphere for the game. We gather as children and one person is selected to be the seeker, sometimes one person among us can volunteer to be the seeker at the start of the game while the rest of us run into hiding. The faint moonlight gives us an opportunity to hide in strategic places while the seeker goes around looking for our hiding place. Most often, someone who has a good hiding skill is not easily detected while people who lack good places to hide are fetched out easily and once you're seen and caught, the person caught becomes the seeker while the other person goes into hiding.
There's a song the seeker sings with his eyes close while the others go into hiding , it goes like this
Boju boju o,
Wunda na kama
Na ma na ne
Na man kura
In zo, in zo.
Gani na zuwa, kutura
Na gashe ka
It says, hide and seek, hide and seek. Whoever I catch, he becomes my meat, a meat for the wise. Should I come, should I come? See me coming, The leper is sending his regards.
It was often the intro before the seek and one of the reasons why I loved the game was because we were often in large numbers and it brought us together. Unlike some of the other games, we laughed and often tried to prove our prowess in the area of hiding or seeking. Whenever we go hiding in a place where someone notices us, we often plead with them not to reveal our location. Some don't while others do using eye signs to direct the seeker of our hiding place. It was fun growing up with a lot of games and boju boju was out best.