1. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
Mbube-Mbube is a popular game for school children in South Africa. The aim of the game is to help the lion (mbube in isiZulu) to catch the impala.
This slide contain a link to a third-party website (YouTube) which may automatically play advertisements. The video gives more information on how to play the game.
How to play:
Two players are chosen, one to be the lion, one the impala.
All of the other players form a large circle around the lion and impala, linking hands.
Both the lion and impala are blindfolded and spun around several times.
The lion moves around inside the circle hunting the impala. The impala is allowed to move too to try to avoid the lion.
The children in the circle chant “Mbube-Mbube!” (em-boo-bay – em-boo-bay!). As the lion gets closer to the impala, the children in the circle should chant louder and faster. If the lion moves away from the impala, the chant should become slower and softer.
When the lion catches the impala, new players are chosen to be the lion and impala

2. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
Diketo is a game of skill and coordination played by school children in South Africa.
To play this game you will need:
A circle marked on the ground or a bowl
10 small stones or marbles
1 small rubber ball (called the ghoen (go-en))
This slide contain a link to a third-party website (YouTube) which may automatically play advertisements. The video gives more information on how to play the game.
The player places the 10 stones in the circle.
He/she throws the ghoen in the air with one hand. With the same hand, he/she scoops the 10 stones out of the circle before catching the ghoen again.
On the next throw of the ghoen, the player scoops 9 stones back into the circle. If the player catches the ghoen, the 10th stone is removed from play.
The ghoen is thrown again, and 9 stones removed from the circle before the ghoen is caught. On the next throw, 8 stones are scooped back into the circle. The game is repeated until all of the stones have been removed.
When all the stones have been successfully scooped out, the player will pat the circle, while he/she throws the ghoen up and catches it.

3. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
Morabaraba (mora-ba-raba) is a game of strategy for two players, played by children in South Africa.
To make a morabaraba board, you will need white paper or card, a ruler and a marker pen.
1. Take your piece of paper or card. and draw a large square. Draw lines diagonally across the page from corner to corner. Next, draw a line from halfway along each edge, straight through the middle and across the page.
2. Mark the points on the lines drawn around 1/3 and 2/3 of the distance between the edge of the page and the centre point. Connect these points to form two squares, one inside the other.
3. Draw a circle at each point where two or more lines meet (except the centre). You should have 24 circles on your board. These will mark your positions for the game.

4. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
How to play:
1. Placing the Cows. You need 24 markers, 12 each of two different colours. Each player starts the game with 12 markers, known as “cows”. The aim of the game is to get 3 of your cows in a row; your opponent must try to stop you. The game starts by each player taking it in turns to place their cows on the board. When you get 3 cows in a row (called a “mill”), you can remove one of your opponent’s cows from the board. If you create more than one mill in a single move, you can still only remove 1 of your opponent’s cows. You cannot remove a cow from your opponent’s mill unless all of their cows are in mills.
In the above example, all 12 cows have been placed by each opponent. Each player has formed a mill (row of 3), therefore each player has been allowed to remove one of their opponent’s cows. This means there are only 22 markers on the board, and 2 empty positions.
Three markers in a row and connected by a line are called a mill, as shown above. You cannot form a mill through the centre.
These examples are not mills. For the blue markers the row of three passes through the centre. For the red markers the three markers are not on a line.

5. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
How to play:
Here, if the blue player moves one of this cows into the space above on the board, he will form a mill and can therefore remove a red cow from the board. The player has selected the cow in the blue hashed circle to anticipate that the red player will move this cow one position to the left to form a mill on his next go.
2. Moving the Cows. Each player now takes it in turns to move their cows into the empty spaces. They are allowed to move their cow 1 into any adjacent space. If they form a mill because of the move, they can remove one of their opponent’s cows from the board. Again, you cannot remove a cow from your opponent’s mill unless all of their cows are in mills. This continues until one of the players has only 3 cows remaining on the board.
Here, the blue player has only three cow on the board. He can therefore “fly” his cow across the board and form a mill. When he has formed a mill, he can remove one of the red player’s cows. The red player can only move his cows to an adjacent position because he has more than 3 cows on the board.
3. Flying the Cows. This is the final phase of the game. When a player only has three cows left on the board, he is allowed to move his cow to any free position on the board. If the player forms a mill, he can remove one of his opponent’s cows. If one player has three cows but his opponent has more than three cows, only the player with three cows is allowed to move in this way.

6. South African Games for Children
A strategic health initiative from Project HOPE UK
South African Games for Children
4. Finishing the game. There are four ways to finish a game of morabaraba:
1. You win if your opponent has only 2 cows remaining on the board.
2. You win if your opponent cannot move (e.g. if there is no adjacent space).
3. You win if your opponent cheats.
4. If both players have 3 cows left and neither player is able to remove one of their opponent’s cows within 10 moves, the game is a draw.
In this situation, both players have 3 cows remaining on the board and so are able to “fly” their cows. The red player can move one of their cows to form a mill. This means they can remove one of the blue player’s cows. Since the blue player would then only have 2 cows remaining, the red player is the winner.