Although Bawo/Bao has a rather simlpe rules-system of counting and capturing, the constant application of the rules is quite confusing for beginners.

It uses a 4x8 board and 64 seeds, with two seeds for every playable hole. The object of the game is to empty your opponent's front row, or deprive him of any legal moves, while still protecting your own front row.

When I was in Malawi in the year 1999, I asked some of my Malawian friends (Assan, Mwase and Temba) to help me writing down the bawo-rules. I overworked them recently and I still think this is a very acurate and compressed (two pages) instruction leaflet that is easy to print out and use while playing: Bawo Instructions PDF

The Malawian Bawo rules can also be found on:
www.gamecabinet.com