A board game born in Mexican prisons is bringing together people from all walks of life

MEXICO CITY (AP) — On a Sunday afternoon in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, Rosa María Espinosa joins nearly 80 men under a park pavilion to play poleana, a board game requiring mental dexterity that was born in the city's prisons nearly a century ago.

Espinosa blows smoke rings with her cigarette and laughs with the others. Today she will be the only woman playing.

Though the game's origins still carry a stigma, it is having a moment as people from diverse backgrounds discover its appeal.

“It’s a lot of adrenaline,” said Espinosa. “But sometimes the dice aren’t lucky.”

Poleana is played on a square wooden box with a sunken center for dice rolling. Four players, each with four pieces, race to navigate the board, using specific dice combinations and calculations to move their pieces from their starting positions, around the board, and out through their designated corner, while strategically blocking opponents.

The board symbolizes the confines of prison, and getting out before the others, winning freedom — even if just metaphorically — is the game’s goal.

“People used to say ‘these folks know how to play because they've been to prison,’” said the 62-year-old Espinosa. “Thank God I’ve never been, but I like to play.”

This afternoon’s tournament marks the first time she’s competed against anyone outside her circle of relatives or friends she usually plays with on Tuesdays and Sundays in the small chapel of her apartment complex.

Alejandro Olmos, an archaeologist and anthropologist specializing in Mesoamerican games at the National Anthropology and History School, has studied and played poleana for years.

He traces the game’s origins to the Indian game chaupar (or pachisi), with archaeological evidence dating back to 600 A.D. After British colonization, the game spread to various Western countries under different names, including Ludo, Aggravation and Parcheesi.

In the United States, game maker Parker Brothers marketed a similar game, which was based on the 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter “Pollyanna.”

Sometime around 1940, the game spread in the lockups of Mexico City, with Lecumberri—a prison whose very architecture echoed the geometry of the poleana board — likely serving as its initial breeding ground. It was here where it was renamed poleana and received a new set of rules.

“All cultures have a process called adoption-transformation,” Olmos said. In Mexico, “the game reflects the roughness of prison life: mistakes are not pardoned.”

Six years ago, Jonathan Rulleri started a family business promoting poleana with the goal of bringing together people from different walks of life.

One of the early challenges was establishing common rules for the game, "which has been spreading from below, from prison to the street and from the street into neighborhoods,” said the 37-year-old Rulleri, who learned to play while incarcerated in the State of Mexico, outside the capital.

After his release, he struggled to find work, a common problem for those who have been imprisoned.

He launched a taco delivery service alongside his wife, but the business proved unsuccessful, leading him to reluctantly accept a commission to craft a poleana board for an acquaintance. Then came another commission — and he began to post his creations on social media.

“We dumped the taco idea and started making poleanas,” said Rulleri.

The resulting business, Poleana Cana’da Frogs — a name derived from a slang word for prison and a description of the way the pieces hop around the board — has so far organized 55 poleana tournaments in public spaces, emphasizing a family-friendly atmosphere and explicitly excluding betting, a practice common in other poleana events.

“We want to remove the game’s stigma, that it was a game for prisoners or slackers,” Rulleri said.

In the 1980s, the game began to spread beyond the prisons and found purchase in many of Mexico City’s rougher neighborhoods.

Tepito — the capital’s cradle of street commerce and boxing — is one of the neighborhoods where people can almost always be found playing poleana. At a handball court where men of all ages smack a ball against a wall, others on the sidelines play poleana late into the evening.

Fernando Rojas, 57, learned poleana when he was 18, but it was in prison where he honed his talents. The games, which can last for hours, in prison happen back-to-back.

“It really helps you escape the reality of being a prisoner and that’s how it started,” Rojas said. “No one can understand what it’s like to be a prisoner … you don’t see the end of your sentence. There are people who have to do drugs as their way to escape. Poleana is very important in prison.”

Now the game serves as Rojas’ therapy: a way to relieve stress and avoid family conflict. He carries his dice and pieces in a small plastic bag, religiously joining his friends at the handball court to play.

“We all have problems, in prison and in the street,” he said. “So a lot of people come here for a distraction.”

In Poleana, plays and number combinations have names. For example, a roll of six is a “six pack,” because that’s what it looks like when seen from above. Rolling doubles prompts celebratory shouts of “pares y no pares," a play on Spanish words for pairs and not stopping. With luck, you could get a piece three-quarters of the way around the board.

While chance plays a role, mathematical calculation is also key.

That’s why Diego González and Dana López are thrilled that their 7-year-old son Kevin is learning to play poleana. He has fun and he’s getting faster with his calculations.

González, 33, also makes poleana boards through his family business, Poleanas Iztapalapa, finding a creative outlet after serving a three-year sentence a decade ago. He crafts personalized boards with details like strobe lights and Bluetooth speakers.

His boards are popular gifts for weddings, birthdays and Christmas. Some special commissions have included requests to include images of deceased loved ones in the sunken area where dice are tossed. Others want playful characters to decorate boards they give to their children.

Sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were shut in their homes and found poleana to be a good way to pass the time.

“Two, three hours counting and tossing, and all that was really nice for them,” he said. “They realized it’s not a bad game, it’s a game of strategy and getting the family together.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Residents play Poleana, a board game invented in prison in Mexico City, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Diego Gonzalez, center, holds a pack of tokens for poleana, a board game invented in prison, alongside designer Carolina Duran, left, and Dana Lopez, his partner, with their son Kevin in the State of Mexico, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Dana Lopez, right, paints a board for poleana, a board game invented in prison, while her son Kevin plays in their workshop in the State of Mexico, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Participants play Poleana, a board game invented in prison, during a tournament in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Jonathan Rulleri, the founder of Poleanas Canada Frogs, holds up a poleana board, a game he invented in prison, to be raffled off before the start of a tournament in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

A player moves his piece in poleana, a board game invented in prison, during a tournament in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

From left, Salvador Espinosa, Rosa Espinosa, Diego Castillo, Erik Cisneros and Ulises Tiscareño share a joke while playing poleana, a board game invented in prison in Mexico City, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Residents play poleana, a board game invented in prison, in Mexico City, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

Dana Lopez sands a wooden token for poleana, a board game invented in prison, in his workshop in Mexico State, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

People play poleana, a board game invented in prison, before a tournament in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Chipo Benhure started saving early for a holiday season to remember in Zimbabwe, but it wasn’t for a party or vacation. The highlight is a graveyard ceremony to unveil her late mother’s tombstone.

The generations-old rite has come to be associated with long holidays such as Christmas in the southern African nation, where the weakened economy leaves many people struggling to do their duty of honoring the dead.

“I didn’t want to be found wanting come Christmastime, so I was putting aside a few dollars each month,” Benhure said, standing at a crowded and dusty ground on the outskirts of the capital, Harare. Workers used grinders and stone polishers to make tombstones. Others chiseled detailed portraits, referring to photos shared by loved ones.

Soon, a $450 black granite tombstone was added to the flower bouquets and sacks of groceries as Benhure and about a dozen relatives squashed together in a minibus traveling to their rural home for the ceremony. The cost represented more than twice the average monthly income for an urban household in Zimbabwe, which is about $200.

Zimbabweans traditionally use long holidays such as the Christmas season to hold often joyous graveyard rites that include song, dance, Christian prayers or invitations for ancestral spirits to protect and guide the living.

Many believe such ceremonies can bring blessings — but neglect them too long and a curse could result. Until the ceremonies, graves are marked by simple metal signs or nothing at all.

In Zimbabwe's urban areas this holiday season, household yards and other open spaces have been turned into makeshift tombstone manufacturing zones by people trying to eke out a living.

Prices range from $150 to $2,500, and some people pay in installments. Delivery vans and trucks are on standby for hire.

One tombstone provider, Tafadzwa Machokoto, attended to a stream of customers and called this his busiest time of year. The computer science graduate now employs almost 10 people for making or marketing tombstones.

“Our customers take tombstone unveiling very seriously. They would rather spend on the ceremony than on a Christmas bash. They need the blessings,” he said.

Machokoto recalled a businessman who once ordered 11 tombstones because his transport venture was struggling. The businessman said he constantly had dreams of his late father instructing him to spruce up the family cemetery.

“It rained just after the ceremony and everyone took it as a sign that the ancestors were now happy," Machokoto said. “He even bought me a smartphone months later as a present, saying his business was now thriving.”

On a recent weekend at a cemetery on the outskirts of Harare, Zororo Memorial Park, several graves were covered with white cloth, ready for unveiling ceremonies.

The family of the late Kindness Ziwange said it had spent over $2,000 on the ceremony, including $900 for a tombstone. Afterward, close to 50 relatives, friends and neighbors feasted on fried potatoes, fried rice, grilled chicken, stewed beef and vegetable salad.

“We will lay low on Christmas Day. We already had our big day today as a family. Some traveled through the night for this event,” said a relative, Isabel Murindagomo.

While some in Zimbabwe regard the ceremony as an essentially Indigenous ritual associated with the ancestral cult and reactivation of the spirits, others view it as a Christian event to remember deceased relatives, said Ezra Chitando, a professor in the University of Zimbabwe’s religious studies department.

“The majority of people are hovering between the two positions. Some try to moderate by contributing financially to the process but do not attend the ceremony,” Chitando said, highlighting the religious complexity of local beliefs associated with the dead.

Although the majority of Zimbabweans profess to be Christian, experts say many combine the faith with traditional practices.

Benhure, with the tombstone for her late mother now in place, sees little difference in the end.

“Honoring the dead brings blessings to the living irrespective of one’s religion,” she said.

A worker cleans a tombstone at a cemetary in Harare, Zimbabwe, Wednesday, Dec. 4 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

People walk past tombstones at a cemetory in Harare, Zimbabwe, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

A worker cleans a tombstone at a cemetary in Harare, Zimbabwe, Wednesday, Dec. 4 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Friends and relatives of the Ziwangwe family, during the unveiling of the tombstone of late Kindness Ziwangwe at a cemetary in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Dec 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Friends and relatives of the Ziwangwe family, during the unveiling of the tombstone of late Kindness Ziwangwe at a cemetary in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Dec 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)

Friends and relatives of the Ziwangwe family, during the unveiling of the tombstone of late Kindness Ziwangwe at a cemetary in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Dec 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)