Ian Mcrea joins the Oware Canada Team

June 27, 2010

I want to take this opportunity to welcome Ian Mcrea aka Kwabena to the Oware Canada and Oware Africa in the Classroom team. Just last week Kwabena took the initiative to set up a hastily planned meeting at Driftwood Public School in the City of Toronto. In his excitement around the possibility of getting Oware into this school he had me doing a one hour presentation in the space of 7 minutes - during recess time. For those of you who are teachers in the classroom I know how you crave those few minutes break from your students to pull yourself together before going back to class. To have an unexpected presenter was not the most welcomed thing even though the few teachers present in the staff room were very pleasant. Just before the first bell rang for the teachers to return to their duty they got up and apologized as they walked out on me. Two teachers however stayed behind a little longer as they did not have a class to go to right away. They listened attentively as I continued to present the merits of my product. After leaving them we proceeded to the office to meet with the principal. At the time the principal was walking with someone I recognized and know for more than 25 years. I invited her to join in on our meeting. She was familiar with the game and even obtained an Oware board when she had travelled to Ghana. She did not know how to play and neither did the principal. The opportunity could not have been more perfect for me to teach and old friend, the school's vice principal and the principal at the same time. So Kwabena and I got down to the business of delivering the rules of the game. We spent more than half an hour together with commitments being made on both sides. The Principal has committed to setting up a meeting in September where Kwabena would be able to introduce the game to a larger group of principals. Kwabena, on behalf of MACPRI , has offered to do some in school sessions to train the teacher how to use the game and apply it to their lesson planning. While I was unable to lock in a sale with the principal the meeting turned out to be very positive and promising...

Saturday June 26, I attended the 3rd Annual Knowledge Fest at Knowledge Bookstore in Brampton Ontario. As usually it was my job to teach and entertain young and old alike with Oware. It was a very raining day and many people did not come out, so in addition to poor sales I did not have a lot of people to teach. Melissa and Stacey were my first two plays. I had them sit across from each other and I taught them as they played. Stacey caught on to the game a little quicker than Melissa. I did not believe that Melissa was unable to understand the concepts of the game but she appeared to have approached the game as being more difficult to understand that it was. Once she understood the basic concept she became very comfortable in her zone and the competition began. You could only imagine the intensity on Stacey's face once she saw that Melissa was now ready to give her a serious challenge. Yes, I was happy to walk away and go and look at the Ghana verses USA games as two more people were now able to play Oware with out me. (Ghana won 2:1).

The second group I played with was a mother and son - another Melissa and her son Tarhik. Tarhik had learned the game before from one of my colleagues and has come out to my event to get a refresher before teaching his friends. I played a couples of games with Tarhik, Oware (Abapa) and Mancala and then Oware again. After finishing the third game with Tarhik (15), I asked him to teach a 7 year old boy how to play. Before leaving the Bookstore Tarhik challenged his mother to a game and bet her. It was a sweet ending to the day for me when Tarhik told his mother "I will play you again when I get home." This is just one example of how the great game, a socially engaging activities can help to increase the bonding time between family members. The game is not only got for schools and classrooms, but great for homes and communities as well.


On Saturday June 19 I attended the Annual Driftwood Festival. On this day I thought Oware to children from many cultural backgrounds. I remember the little Chinese girl called Eva who sat in her mother's embrace as she heard the instruction from me in English and the mother translated to her in Chinese. They decided on the moves together before playing. They played the game from start to finished and then politely got up thanked me and walked away. I had 3 Somali children who came back every 20 or so minutes to play and every time they came the brought a new friend. I thought so many different people at the Driftwood Festival including MP Judy Sgro. But the most exciting memory for me of this day's Oware session was that even Elmo - you know the children's cartoon character Tickle Me Elmo? Yes even he was fascinated by the game and instead of doing his job playing with the children, he was rather watching them play Oware. I am not kidding, I have the picture to prove it.

I will be going to the Canada Day Celebration at Amesbury Park on Thursday to continue the Oware Canada Campaign and to sell my "Made in Africa"art. I will update you.

That all for now.

OWARE INTRODUCTION BY MACPRI FOUNDER

June 20, 2010

OWARE INTRODUCTION BY MACPRI FOUNDER

As the founder and chief of MACPRI – ASO Services International, an educational art enterprise, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our product to you. Please see attachment for our teaching resource package.

OWARE: is a “A MATH TEACHING TOOL & ORIGINAL AFRICAN ‘PIT & PEBBLES’ BOARD GAME”

MACPRI is presently working on contracts with carvers in Ghana, West Africa that can see us becoming the main distributor of this product in the country. We presently have a modest 2300 units left in stock. While we have omitted the optional extra hole at each end of the board, this basic board is cost effective and adoptable for playing numerous pit and pebbles games including Mancala. Our retail outlets sell the board (playing pieces included) for $35.00 each plus tax. MACPRI’s direct purchase retail price is $25.00 each plus GST. Special rates are available for quantity orders while supply last. The MACPRI team also conducts demonstrations at affordable rates for schools and community organizations based on the number of games purchased per order.

Oware as you may have learned from our marketing representative is not just a game; it is an educational tool, hand made art and a living history artifact.

A Brief Description of the Oware Math Tool

Oware and approximately 300 other "pit and pebbles" board games incorporate agriculture principles, a math base (counting and strategy) and technology (ancient board used in accounting - debts and credits.) into its playing rules. Online you can find a vast storehouse of cultural and historical information about this under publicized original African concept. As an advocate of Africa in an inclusive classroom, MACPRI continues to seek all opportunities to expand the knowledge and use of one of Africa's gems - the "pit and pebbles" class of game which has been played in Africa for thousands of years. The "pit and pebbles" class of games of which Oware (Ghana), Mancala (Egypt), Ware (Antigua), Caye (Haiti), Awale (Togo) and Ayo (Nigeria) belong has been proven by James Masters and other scholars to be ‘the world's oldest board game’. It is therefore the prototype of such games as chess and checkers. It also makes sense that the most complicated, most sophisticated and most strategic versions of the game come from East and East-Central Africa: Uganda (Omweso), Ethiopia/Eritrea (Gabeta), Tanzania (Bao) and so on. While some 'experts' trace the game's origin to Egypt and refer to it and all other ‘pit and pebbles’ games with the Arab word "Mancala" meaning to count, we are yet to uncover the Ancient Egyptian epistemology of Mancala. Needless to say the ancient game played today all over the world and in such countries as: Germany, France, England, Haiti, The Philippines and India has its origin in Africa

The game has been incorporated into school curriculum in Antigua, Australia, Great Britain, France and Sweden based on the reports from England’s Oware Society. The game as a math tool is applicable at all grade levels: at the primary level as a basic counting device; at the primary/junior level to develop the skills required in the mathematics process; at the junior/intermediate/senior level the games can be applied in developing thinking skills and strategic planning. In extra curricula activities and newcomer educational development the game board is an excellent tool as well.

This teaching tool has already been adopted in some TDSB/TCDSB schools and is used in community organizations across the GTA. Most GTA students who know the game have been introduced to the Mancala (Egyptian) version of the game.

While MACPRI presently teaches three different games (Oware-Abapa, Rounders/Namnam and Mancala) in our demonstrations we are particular about Oware-Abapa because it is very popular globally; it is used for international competition and is much more strategic than Mancala.

MACPRI presently teaches the game to anyone interested in preparation for our First International Oware Tournament to be held in Toronto in the Summer/Fall of 2011. Schools interested in ordering our product, booking a demonstration or receiving additional information can call Andrew Martin, Deputy Chief of MACPRI at 416-230-8301 or email macpri@gmail.com. All emails should be cc to deputyofmacpri@gmail.com.