BARNGA by Intercambia, Malaga

We present a card game, which aims to make the participants solve conflict situations, adding the difficulty of not being able to communicate verbally.
This is intended to represent one of the problems that a volunteer may encounter when having to solve a problem in a country where the same language is not spoken.

We met this game at a Making Contact Seminar, we were working on conflict resolution during an ESC program.
Without knowing what to expect, we were divided into 4 tables in groups of 4-5 people.
On each table, there was a deck of cards and two sheets of paper.
When we were given permission, we took the sheets of paper and read their contents.
One of them explained that we were going to play a card game, that the person who won would move to the table on the right, the person who lost would move to the table on the left, and that everything had to be done in silence, no verbal communication was allowed.
The other sheet of paper was the rules of the card game.
They were simple rules and we were able to practice for a few minutes before starting the game.

We started the game based on winning tricks according to the suit and value of the number. The most valuable were the diamonds and the higher cards beat the lower ones.
I was lucky enough to be the person who won the most tricks during the time that round lasted, I confidently moved to the table on the right, and when I started to play again I used a diamond thinking I would win the trick, I reached out to take it when they took my hand away and pointed to another card on the table.
I tried to explain what seemed obvious to me “I used diamonds so I win”, but a part of the table pointed to another card and another person also had a face of not understanding anything.
At that moment I realized what was happening, the rules of each table were different.
At this point, I had two options, either to find an intermediate way to decide who won or try to learn what were the new rules of the game.
In some tables I managed to reach agreements, in others we set the rules of the table before starting and in others, I had to adapt to the pre-existing rules.
It was a very representative game of what it is like to arrive in another country with different cultures, social norms, and laws, and have to adapt or reach agreements when facing conflict situations or misunderstandings.