Scrabble Kenya
August 7, 2019
Remember the time ,you first laid your eyes on a scrabble board ,the anxiety and excitement to learn a new game . Then you learned that it was all about words , technically ,that was in your lane ,considering you’d gone through a rigorous curriculum during your time and words ,words were plain ABC. So ,scrabble became your favorite passtime , when at home or even with friends. The wordplay limited to mundane words such as cat , axe among others . During this time ,you were the ‘scrabble guy’,the ‘champ ‘. With ludicrous rules such as swapping a blank tile with the letter it represented and limiting a triple word score to 21 . This kind of ‘prowess’ ,if given a superhero name ,you’d probably go with wordsmith . Little did you know ,what fate had in store for you . Learning of an organisation of scrabble players in the country ,you wondered ,why not . This was your chance to show off your cool and ,might l say ,prolific mastery of the game. Shock was on you ,when you were demoted from ‘wordsmith’ to the iron being pressed or rather smashed on to . You learnt that , scrabble had a world of its own ,with weird two letter words such as xu and za . The thrashing received on the first day , was bad enough to make you want to banish the game from your household or even from your peripheral view ,it was that bad ….Yet, you still went ahead and tried to learn the game…A severe case of choosing one’s poison and sitting comfortably ,to sip it .This kind of determination, could only be a testament of how much you wanted to win and reclaim your glory ,your throne …as the Wordsmith . But then again , nothing comes easy … The scrabble world unveiled to synchronised divisions ,with different ratings and prowess levels. Here you were ,just a newbie ,with a dream to become the master of the game ,yet the journey was filled with hurdles. You could have just thrown in the towel and retired back home to your ,’ small throne’ ,where you’d play the new two letter words you’d learnt and scared the whole lot. However , you still pressed on. Still held on to your fading dream ,to make it to the top . So ,you took up cramming new words that only sounded more weird as you continued and more profound than your basic dictionary. With this urge driving you , you managed to surprise a few , garner some points and now …we all await to see how good you are in the approaching Machakos tournament.
Joan Wangari – Daystar University
