Chaskele 101 (fan-da-MENTALs)

Chaskele is an ingenious game invented by some kobolo-(truant) (not referring to Wanlav da Kobolor).And mind you kobolo is not a derogatory term. It is usually played by young adults when their peers are busy in the classroom. Or for the serious students, during long vacations (i.e. before long vacs were destroyed by extra classes and computer games).

To the uninitiated let me explain, chaskele is a potpourri of baseball and golf. So to be very good at it you have to be a Bonds and Woods at the same time. Just as the object of golf is to hit (or is it kick) a ball into a hole (hope am right! Please correct me if I’m not) so is chaskele. The aim is however not just to get the ball/can into a hole but that there is a further obstacle in terms of a player with a bat/ heavy big stick who will try to prevent the ball from entering the basket/ hole and whom you have to outwit. As in baseball also, this player will try and hit the can as far away from basket as his strength will allow. (now something for Tiger Woods to try).
Instruments of the game include an empty milk can ( any tin can will do, but for optimum enjoyment , you need an old empty Ideal (R) milk can)

Xtreme sports

This is extreme sports by all standards and kids in Ghana are warned never to play this game (possibly for an impending doom it is supposed to bring). This heightened the adrenalin and ecstasy for playing this game. Surely this must be extreme by Ghana standards, comparable to mountain climbing and bungee jumping. Since we don’t have snow boarding and the like of games, this is our own origination that we should be proud of. The dangers of playing chaskele are numerous but I can only mention a few here. Remember the dangers are not just from playing chaskele but also associated with it. You are likely to get some lashes if your parents find out (possibly through a loud-mouth-long nose neighbour), you would be classified as a bad boy (this boy is a chaskele player and hence a kobolo --- possibly by relatives of the loud-mouth-long nose neighbour) and other things- you see the dangers do not come directly from the game but the social imports associated with the game.



Chaskele 4 olympics

Now since Ghana has and continues to be thrashed--beaten to dust—and all but thrown out of the Olympics. (can’t believe we haven’t won gold since the inception of the games? Are we that bad?) , this is a game we can excel at –surely by all means. Secondly since we have a lot of kobolor (or tough boys) as compared to swimmers and athletes, we can ehmm… mobilise our ugh..%$ human resources capital… so that we can start winning medals for our homeland Ghana (can I hear the next sports minister quoting this at the next ministerial vetting?).


Moving forward (I’m not NPP by the way)

Please do let me know how we can take this game forward. Setting up a CBA (Chaskele Board Association) to run chaskele in Ghana and beyond the shores of Ghana. We will have to model this on the Barclays Premiership with sponsorship and all that, which will help us get the best kobolor players from the nook and cranny of Ghana. We will then have our own Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho’s (have some old kobolo friends who are willing to share their experience with the youth of today). This as we say in Ghana has huge potential and could be a major foreign exchange earner for Ghana overtaking cocoa and gold (how many times have we heard this!) and could make Ghana an African tiger. Who knows Atta-Mills might make this his first presidential initiative.
Koreans have their judo and Ghanaians should have their chaskele. We need to push this through , yes we can! chaskele.