BUFFALO City’s department of sport hosted a festival of indigenous games and attracted people from all corners of the metro to the Breidbach Sports Grounds at the weekend.
The action was totally different than the usual soccer games played at the facility and it was evident that the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the games presented to them.
Department official and project manager Lundi “Madiba” Lwana said it was a BCM district festival and the aim was to prepare for the Eastern Cape Indigenous Games Festival to be held in Port Elizabeth from July 21-23.
The event started with an official opening with department official Bongi Ndlela as the programme director. Ndlela then handed the mic over to Breidbach Hub founder Desmond Coetzee to welcome the participants and officials from all the other hubs in the metro.
Visiting teams, transported by the department, came from Nxaruni, Kwelerha, Mdantsane, Orange Grove and Mount Coke.
Lwana was than given the platform where he explained the purpose of the day.
“We are going to select teams to represent Buffalo City district against all the other districts within the province and we are going to compete with the best of our ability,” Lwana said.
“Buffalo City is always among the best at the provincial games and we are hoping to end at the top at this year’s event.”
The proceedings then went straight to the action with teams and athletes competing in jukskei, ncuwa, ntonga, dibeke, morabaraba, puca, drie stokkies, gqapu and kho-kho.
The action attracting the most attention was ntonga, where two contestants take each other on in stick-fighting.
Dibeke is a ball game involving two teams of 12 players each and drie stokkies see individuals participating in an event similar to triple jump.
Locals selected for the BCM team are:
Dibeke: Tremeine Oliphant, Simone Matroos, Doneè Coetzee, Devonique Christian, Desmond Coetzee (manager).
Drie stokkies: Keegon September, Dellarice Christian and Glynnice Bester (manager).
