Why play Russian Roulette when you can play Colombian Tejo?

May 30th, 2009: As the five of us walked into the bar I could mentally hear a record scratch as silence swept the room…even though it was brief, I could tell the locals were not use to seeing the bleached white cracker folk in the bar that often. We found this place by the great directions we love to get in small towns…go two blocks down the hill to the fire station, take a left and go down a bit, veer right, then left and veer right some more and it will be on the left hand side - it doesn’t have a sign but you should see it…if it is open. The reason for our quest was to play with a fine blend of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate - also known as gunpowder. Playing with gunpowder can be foolish if it is a game of Russian roulette…but the Colombian game tejo, is much safer – injuries are not typically life threatening…just typically painful.

Tejo lanes (sort of resembling a horseshoe pitch) seem to be placed in the back of the bars for obvious reasons. On these lanes a heavy metal disk is hurdled great heights and greater distances through the air, with the intent to have it stick into the center of an angled clay filled box – or perhaps, a former loved one standing too close. The center of the clay box has a package of explosives resting on a metal ring, flush with the clay. When the metal disk makes contact with the gunpowder, sparks emerge ripping away from the packaging and an explosion is released, startling the drunken patrons briefly into soberness. There is a point system, but that didn’t interest me much…my goal was solely to hit the middle – explaining on how I could never remember my score.

The locals were extremely helpful on explaining the rules and getting us started. Being beginners we were so fortunate to have the luxury to be able to use the weaklings’ court. This court is about a third smaller than the full size lane which is meant for just the experienced drunks. Even though being on a smaller lane…ours was much more hazardous to sit or stand behind – yet we were the only sober ones. We had zero skills – let me emphasize zero skills - explaining why we would miss the clay box quite frequently, bouncing our beginners disks across the dirt as if we were skipping stones indoors – quickly clearing the sober tables near us.

This bar game didn’t cost anything to play except for the informal rule of needing to drink. So as you can see, this game could potentially involve a massive amount of drinking. How the lanes are right next to each other and how high and long this heavy piece of metal has to travel, it is slightly frightening on when other tejo players are facing you and throwing in your direction. This is especially true as you need to compensate for when the box splits into multiple boxes while the night ages and more and more brain cells are massacred by the alcohol.

Tejo, might be the game that is going to help save our economy. It could help get the unemployed out of the house by giving them a new yet exciting way to network, boost the governments tax revenue from the spike in alcohol sales, increase the need for emergency room employees and assist in advancing new and exciting treatments for gunpowder burns and head trauma patients. Tejo, anyone?