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The Tyre Gang 2

(All photos and videos courtesy of Google)

Playing with tires was a way of life and I believe in some ways was a form of expression, or better art. The largest tire would be used for to do somersaults (Back flips and front flips).

We would use it as an elevation device, whereby you jump on it, gain air, flip and then land (unfortunately, I never managed one). The most bizarre thing, nobody got hurt or worse died after a flip (We must have been tiny super humans). We would always use a tractor tire for our amazing stunts. Maybe we should have started a circus, “Come watch the amazing children of Msaponi Court Sector one do flips.” We would have been a hit.

The big tires were also used to ‘ferry’ people. Of course the biggest kids pushed while the smaller ones went for the roller coaster ride. The small one would go into the middle of the tire and sit in an arc position. The tire would then be lifted up and pushed. The child inside would go around and around, and when he or she got out, would be dizzy for a while before coming back for another ‘round the world trip’. There were a few fails, when the one kid would accidentally be thrown off with the tire rolling, but again there were never serious injuries (someone needs to go back in time and find out why? We can help kids today have fun and survive to tell others about it.)


As said earlier there were different types and sizes of tires, and if you could not find any, you would get the lids of empty cooking fat containers and you could still join the gang. Of course the lids also had different sizes.  For more efficiency a small wire would be use to push the lid (Eve if we had tine hands, pushing a thin lid was not easy.) We would call this contraption ‘Mung’ari (to this day, I do not know how to translate that). If you did not get a lid you would use anything that was circular in shape and would go around.


At time we would use sticks to push the tires. It looked more like a wheelbarrow, but it was harder to push and to control. This was an expert level type of pushing and so not many people did it. The other brilliant innovation was putting water or soil inside the tube of the tire. This was also not common, because you had to make sure you were not going to be whooped or were ready for the thrashing of an angry parent or mboch (House help).





Sometimes we would play basketball, tennis or football with the tire. This was achieved by bouncing the tire for a long time (basketball), hitting the tire with a stick to and fro (tennis) and kicking it left, right and center (football. Woe unto our legs).


I actually saw some of the equipment we used to play with like paper balls in the Kenya National Museum, maybe we should include the tire and have a portrait of the famous “Tire Gang of Msaponi Court” alongside it. 

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