Ida teaching tourists to play an ancient traditional game from West Africa is this week’s travel snap. I love the expressions on their faces. Can anyone beat Ida?

I first came across the game of wuri when I saw a family playing it in a back street in Mindelo on São Vicente, one of the islands of Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa. A year later, this time on the island of Sal, some locals challenged me to play wuri with them. Most of the games I apparently won even though I didn’t have clue how!  Before I left the island I bought a wuri board as a souvenir but was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t understand how the game was played.

It wasn’t until a few years later when I was on an excursion in The Gambia, ‘Cooking with Ida’, that I discovered the simple rules of wuri. It was fun to see how the game brought out the competitive streak in all of us and while we waited for the fish benechin to cook we had a mini wuri tournament!

In case anyone else has bought a wuri board whilst on holiday but is uncertain how to play here are the rules, as explained by Ida.

Wuri rules
This is a game for two players. The board is divided into two parts, one side for each player and each side has 6 holes or pots. Before the game starts 4 beans are placed in each hole.

Players take it in turns to pick up the beans from one pot and place a single bean in each of the next pots in an anti-clockwise direction. Each player can only play with beans picked up on their side of the board.

If the last pot they put a bean into then contains 2, 4 or 6 beans (whether it is on the players side or their opponents side) the player wins those beans and puts them to one side.

If there are no beans on your side to play then you miss a go and continue missing a go until there are beans on your side again.

When neither player can play anymore each player counts up the beans they have won. The winner is the person who has collected the most beans.

A while ago now I spent a very wonderful and very hectic three days rushing around Senegal on a photography trip for The Senegal Experience.

Here’s another photograph from that trip of some traditional textiles in a market in Saly. I love all the colours, patterns and pictures used in these textiles and I think it is no coincidence that I started wearing a lot more bright colours myself since I started visiting West Africa.

You can read about my visit to Bandia Nature Reserve near Saly in my post ‘A close encounter of the wild kind’.

And see more photographs from Senegal on Flickr.

Photograph on the right (me shopping in Senegal) courtesy of Louise.

If you’re using uencounter.me I’ve pinned Saly’s location.

This week’s picture comes from Senegal. I spotted these three ladies pounding grain while driving around the Sine Saloum Delta region. Millet is the most common grain eaten amongst the poorer community (where as rice is more popular with the more affluent and doesn’t need to be pounded). Millet, sorghum and corn are all pounded like this in a large wooden bowl and then boiled and seasoned with spices to make a mash. This is their basic daily diet with different sauces added to give some variety.

This is a new feature for my blog as each week I’ll share with you one of my favourite photos from my travels, the first being this young man in Brikama, The Gambia, West Africa.