Winners Keepers: The Jamaican Childhood Games I Grew Up With

Before there were phones in every pocket, a Jamaican childhood ran on a few marbles, a homemade ball and whoever was free to play. Here are the games I grew up with, and why I think they still matter for children today, in Jamaica, in Norway and everywhere the diaspora has settled.

I grew up in Snow Hill, in the parish of Portland, and spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house in Port Antonio. Those yards are where I learned to play.

Marbles: winners keepers

My friend and I played marbles for keeps. The rule was simple and serious: winners keepers. If you lost, you lost your marbles, and they went home in the other boy’s pocket.

Some days you were winning, and you walked home with your pockets heavy and a lot of marbles to show for it. Other days you walked home lighter. Either way, you learned something. You learned to aim, to take a loss without crying about it, and to come back the next day and try again.

Want to play? The step-by-step marbles rules and diagram are in our Jamaican games guide. Agree before the first shot whether you are playing for keeps.

Dandy Shandy: the whole yard plays

Dandy Shandy was never just for children. In my neighborhood it was the whole family: the grandmother, the young ones and everybody in between. If you could run, you could play.

Sometimes we had a real ball. Often we did not, so we made one. We took empty milk boxes, pressed a lot of them together into one, and that was the ball. We used our hands for a bat. Nobody needed to buy anything. The game was made from what was in the yard and the people who were there.

That is one of the quiet lessons of Jamaican play: you do not wait until you have the right equipment. You make it work, and you have fun doing it.

New to the game? Here is how to play Dandy Shandy, with a diagram and a video.

Saturday Ludi on four chairs

Saturday afternoons meant Ludo, or Ludi as many of us say, and we played a lot of it. Four chairs pulled together around a big Ludi board, and four players ready to send each other’s counters back home.

We played together, we argued together and we laughed together. It was truly a lot of fun. Looking back, the board was only the excuse. The real game was the time spent face to face.

The Jamaican Ludi rules are in the table games section, next to dominoes, Kalooki and Strip Me.

What these games taught us

• Every age together. A grandmother and a six-year-old in the same game. Older ones taught younger ones, and that is how the games survived.
• Making do. Milk boxes became a ball and a hand became a bat. Creativity was part of the game.
• Winning and losing. Winners keepers meant real stakes. You learned to lose and still show up tomorrow.
• Community. Neighbors were not strangers. The yard was a shared space, and the games kept it that way.

Passing the games on, wherever you live

Living in Norway, I see how easily these games could disappear in one generation. They do not have to. Most need nothing more than a yard, a table or a few friends, and they work just as well in Sandnes or Oslo as in a Jamaican district. Jamaicans in Norway still gather around a table to play, as you can see at the domino tournament in Oslo.

If you want to start, our guide to 22 traditional Jamaican games for all ages has rules, diagrams and videos for each one, from ring games for toddlers to dominoes for grandparents. And if you want to understand the culture these games come from, Good Luck With That! A Guide to Understanding Jamaicans goes deeper.

Your turn

Which game did you grow up with? Did your yard play marbles for keeps, or make a ball out of milk boxes too? Tell me in the comments.