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Cambodia: Culture: Games How to Play Mek (building houses) 
1. Use chalk to draw a court like this, made up of blocks and a "roof". It is usually 2 blocks wide and 10-12 blocks long depending on the space available. 2. Play "stone, paper, scissors" to see who goes first. 3. The first player places their "korn mek" (usually a jandal, but anything flat will do) into the first square (Point A). Standing on one foot behind the first line, he/she hops and kicks the jandal with his/her grounded foot forward within the 'court'. If the jandal stops on a line or goes outside the court then the player goes back to the beginning and waits for another turn. If the player's foot lands on a line, they also lose their turn. 4. If the jandal lands in a square, the player must hop to that square without touching any lines. Once there, he/she has another turn kicking the jandal. The aim is to get the jandal to the "roof" of the house. There are two possible tactics: either kick the jandal as far as you can and progress quickly but risk the jandal landing on a line, or kick the jandal from one square to the next which takes longer and is more exhausting but gives greater control. 5. Once at the roof, the player can put both feet on the ground and pick up the jandal. He/she places the jandal at point B and follows steps 3 and 4 on the way back. 6. A player finishes their go when either: (a) they make a mistake and the jandal or their foot lands on a line, or (b) they successfully get all the way around the court and back to the beginning without touching any lines. 7. When a player achieves (b), they pick their jandal up, turn their back to the court and throw the jandal backwards over their head so that it lands in a square. (If you want the game to be easy, they can throw the jandal as many times as it takes to land in a square. If you want it to be difficult, they only get one turn to get it into an unclaimed square). Once they have claimed a square, that square belongs to them - they "build a house" on that square by marking it with a cross or circle (this can be marked on a piece of paper drawn in the court shape for scoring).  
8. After a player has built a house on a square it is the other person's turn until they either make a mistake or complete the course. Each person continues taking turns. The game ends when all of the squares have houses built on them.9. The winner is decided by counting how many houses each player has built. In Cambodia, the prize for winning is decided before the game begins. Often the winner gets to slap the loser's hand 10 times for each extra house they have built (for example, if Player A beats Player B by 8 houses to 4 houses, Player A gets to slap Player B's hand 40 times). More Cambodian games
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copyright worldvision 2003
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