It's called Mancala, it's a type of board game that originated in Northern Africa, and at some point became a popular game for urban kids to play while waiting for mom to pick them up from school.
The game is basically you place a certain number of jewels into each groove. The player going first picks a groove from their side of the board, picks up all the jewels from it, and then goes around the board, dropping a single jewel into each groove along the way. If your last jewel drops into a groove that has jewels in it, you pick those up and keep going. Your turn ends when you drop your last jewel into an empty groove.
In the area where I grew up, you got mancala (aka, won), when you rid your opponents side of all jewels (thus leaving them with no moves to make).
A very simple game at it's core, but there are some regional rules that spice things up a bit. Fun game.