This is my entry to the new contest about one's favorite childhood game that's initiated by @strecoza.

I have so much in mind when talking about favorite games on childhood days. These were outdoors as most of my spare time then was spent hanging out with my friends in the neigbourhood.

Since there's a lot, I would just be sharing here my most favorite one, the Tumba Lata.

Tumba lata or Tumbang Preso is one of the most popular traditional Pinoy games, which is mostly played on open areas like backyards, parks, and most commonly, streets. The name of this game is derived from the Filipino words Tumba which means "to fall", and Lata which means "can", translating to Fallen can.

It makes use of a tin can as the target to be hit and slippers as the players' hitting tool.

The game’s primary objective is to knock the guarded “can” down. Ideally, it involves a maximum of 9 players. Although during the days, we didn't mind how many participants were we, as long as we could still comfortably and enjoyably move.

One of the players serves as the guard or “It”, and the rest are the hitters.

The can would be placed inside the circle and guarded by the "It" while the hitters stand ready behind the drawn toe-line. At the go signal from the "It", the hitters start throwing their slippers at the can. Once the can is hit and knocked down, the "It" retrieves it and puts it back up again inside the circle, then runs after the hitters and tag those who're trying to retrieve their slippers before they reach the toe-line.

On the other side, if a hitter fails to retrieve his slipper that stays close to the "It", he should wait for the other hitters to knock the can down, so he could have the a greater chance of retrieving his slipper that he could not be tagged by the playing "It".

And if in the case the slippers land on the circle but did not knock the can down, the guard "captures" it by putting the can over the slipper which signals an exchange of role between the guard and the owner of the "captured" slipper.

We usually played this on a nighttime, especially when the street isn't busy. And most of the time, it would end to talking about horror stories while taking comfortable squats on the wide empty street.

Playing the game, we were barefooted and we didn't care. We congested the wide space of the street, and we still didn't care. We made giggling noise yet still, we didn't care. For it was all fun and our moments together that we only cared about.

Well, that's all for this post. See you in the next one. Keep safe!

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