Kukuruku!

One of the activities I got goin' on 'round here is a Youth/Game Club - basically I meet with a group of young people every week and we hang out, play games, talk, all around have a good ol' time. I have amassed a small collections of games in my time here (most from past PCV's), and every week I try to switch it up with what we play. For a while we were pretty much only playing UNO, which got old real quick. UNO sucks. Then I introduced another classic game - Pick Up Sticks... which the group renamed "Terpendin!" (which basically means 'you moved it!'). This has become surprisingly popular, and we now play it at least three times every week.

But on to the title of this post... so a few weeks ago, I was especially tired of the horribleness that is UNO so I made the kids teach us another card game. What they came up with has now become one of my favorite group card games evah! I present to you... KUKURUKU!

Everyone gathers around a table and places a deck of cards in the middle, face down. Starting with someone of your choosing, each player turns over a card from the deck. When a card between 2 - 9 is overturned, nothing happens, and it is the next person's turn.
When a 10 is drawn: every player must shout KUKURUKU!
When a Jack is drawn: every player must grab their nose.
When a Queen is drawn: every player must touch their hand to their heart.
When a King is drawn: every player must make a salute.
When an Ace is drawn: every player must slap the pile of overturned cards.

The last player to do the given action must take all the cards from the overturned pile. The game ends when there are no more cards to overturn. At this point everyone must count how many cards they have collected, and the person with the most cards is the loser. Now the fun part begins! The loser must get up from the table and face away from the group. A leader from the group must point to each person and ask the loser what he/she should do. Basically it's like the loser is blindly choosing dares for people to do (including him/herself), without knowing who is doing what. Once everyone has been assigned a 'dare,' its time to watch everyone do them! Here's an example of some of the things the group has come up with:
- run laps around the building
- do push-ups
- recite a poem
- sing a song in front of everyone
- dance for a minute
- do jumping jacks

We played Kukuruku today... I had to jump on one foot fifteen times, and then I had to do three forward rolls on the hardwood floor. It was awesome! The best part is that we always play this game in a mixed gender setting, and since the dares are random sometimes the boys are the ones that must sing or dance and the girls must do push-ups or run. Since everyone is assigned a dare, it's really inclusive because the 'loser' isn't the only one that has to do a random task; we can all laugh at our common ridiculousness!