Rooster Flying, not fighting

   Nowadays we are conducting interviews to children and communities for the upcoming projects. We see some interesting things every day.

  There are a few questions about children’s entertainment and sports activities in our interview sheet. We have received the same answer from every child. They say "No proper playground, No sports items". After receiving those answers, we urge them to tell us the proper answer, because it is impossible to see that all the children in one village will be living without any entertainment or sports activities.

  In the end, children who were gathering around our vehicle brought us somewhere. What we saw was... a little far behind their houses, where many children gathered in a plain small ground and some of them were playing marbles (small balls made by glasses). There were some competitions going on among the children. Every one was playing with concentration, it was encouraging to see that earthquake didn’t affect the children mentally and they are still enjoying their free time.

  At the other corner of the ground, we saw some children playing wtih a strange game. They were throwing something weird... We know that rooster fighting was an popular entertainment in the ancient time of Indus Valley Civilization by 2000 BC and still popular in many Asian countries and some Latin American countries. But, the sport in District Pishin was not what I know, we moved forward to the children and saw naughty game I have never seen. It was Rooster’s long jumping competition. Have you heard of it?

  Many children were standing in line holding their roosters. They look serious. Moreover they were throwing their roosters in the air after the whistle, and the winner is..... the rooster which touched ground the farthest. How cruel is it!?! Children were enjoying it a lot, same as we were enjoying the ancient sport. I asked an older boy if their parents know about it? He said "Of course NOT! We are catching our roosters in the evening before they go back to the home. And coming to this ground to play with it." I asked how they thought about this cruel game. He said they don’t have foot balls, cricket, balls, volley balls, that’s why they are playing with this. They made a compromise in their way. I asked if they have foot ball, bats and balls, will they stop to playing this game or not? The boy replied "Yes! we stop to play this rooster jumping."

  Later I was thinking, Whether or not, Let them play or make them play with the so called proper toys, that is the question..

It is difficult to decide.

Look forward to hear your opinion at info@je-npo.org,

Thank you.