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| View from our home for the weekend. So peaceful. |
Just returned from a long weekend in Moniquirá. A small town in the
departamento (like a state) of Boyacá but bordering the departamento of
Santander. Juan Carlos' friend Freddy invited us to drive up with him
and stay with his family for the weekend. So nice to have the invite
and to get away - great food, plenty of time to sleep and relax, I read
an entire book (Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children per
Katie Norwood's recommendation) and I learned to play Tejo!!!
What,
you might ask, is Tejo? Tejo is a truly Colombia game (only second to
soccer in popularity!) that I wish everyone had the chance to play.
It's kind of like horsehoes but with explosives! ...literally,
explosives. To play, first, you buy beer. You don't have to pay for
the
canchas (courts, I guess is the best translation) or the time
but you have to buy beer. Funny rules these Colombians have, but this
is a rule that I can live with. (Also, this might just have been at the
location we were playing...my guess is that in the big city of Bogotá
they require you to buy beer AND to pay to play). Anyhow, you get a
tejo.
This is a round, flat disk (about an inch and a half thick) that weighs
about 2 pounds. This is what you throw at the target. The target is a
wooden box on an incline and the surface is covered with clay. In the
center, you place 4
mechas little paper rectangles filled with gunpowder (I think) or some sort of explosive material around the
bocin - a metal circle. The teams take turns to throw their
tejos from 18 meters away (about 60 feet). The person with the tejo that lands on the board closest to the
bocin earns a
mano for their team. You can also earn 3 points by hitting a
mecha. You know when you've hit a
mecha because the friction between the
tejo, mecha (filled with gunpowder) and the metal
bocin causes an explosion! It's so fun! But very difficult...I hit a
mecha once and was SO excited!
b
Here's a perhaps better description of the game by
Wikipedia followed by pictures of my first Tejo experience.
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| The Tejo court and my target. |
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| These are the mechas that are full of gunpowder. |
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| Action shots...I actually improved quite a bit... |
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| ...despite the fact that I look like I'm involved in some sort of interpretive dance! |
Ahaha you do look like you're doing an interpretive dance. But seriously, I can picture you getting so into this. Looks fun!
ReplyDeleteWow! What an interesting game. (You do look like you're doing an interpretive dance! Ha ha!) I would have never thought of it. Seems cool and scary and safe and surprising. Thanks for the cultural lesson.
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