Two men quickly distribute a handful of gray stones among the twelve holes in the wooden board that lies between them. Manuel Conseiçao (66) and Herminio Varela (“almost 60”) play a game ouril† Sometimes they laugh, but most of all they are very concentrated.
Alex Soares (39) looks on: „It is a math game. There are four stones in each hole. When it’s your turn, divide it among the other wells. This ‘sowing’ has to comply with all kinds of rules. Ultimately you want to ‘eat’, collect as many stones from your opponent as possible.”
Sun falls into Club São Nicolau on the Rotterdam Admiraal de Ruyterweg. The Cape Verdean community has been meeting here since 1979. Chairman Soares introduces us to volunteer Jimmy Almeida (53). Behind the bar who serves grogue (rum) and ponche (a liqueur based on grogue), the special glasses upside down on a tea towel.
Almeida: „In the past, Cape Verdeans who came to the Netherlands were given this address. Here you got tips where you could live and where there was work.” At the age of seventeen, Almeida came to Rotterdam from the village of Campinho. “This place was like my grandfather’s house to me.” Like many Cape Verdeans, he found work in the port of Rotterdam. He cuts large slices of the cuscus, high cornmeal cake. “We pass on the culture. Last week before cachupa night I made cachupa, a thick soup with beans and pork.” As a child, Almeida played ouril in holes in the sand on his island of São Nicolau. Now every Cape Verdean family has such a game, the pebbles, hard, shiny seeds of the marble nut, clatter in the bank transfer†
The pride of the Cape Verde archipelago is the music, with Cesária Évora as the figurehead. When they show her on the screen, Soares points to the Rotterdam musician Toy Vieira who played in Evora’s band. Soares learned to play the guitar from him in Club São Nicolau. Almeida says that next week they will have the presentation of his cousin Armando Almeida’s new CD. “But we also watch Feyenoord together,” says Soares: “You know: Rotterdam!”
Conseiçao and Varela slap each other on the shoulder. Varela won two games. “I am strong.” He grins. They quickly go to the conference room downstairs, where their football club Tarrafal (from a Cape Verdean village) prepares for the legendary tournament at FC Maense in Rotterdam-West. It was canceled twice due to corona, but the party will soon be on.
New men take a seat at the gaming table. Close to a box where cards are stored for the popular bisca. Soares: „All traditions. I also have ouril at home. If I throw a barbecue, my uncles are going to play it.” He also wants to teach his nine-year-old son: “But first I teach him to play the guitar.”
A man hides a seed between his fingers: “This is how you can cheat.” But of course he never does that himself.