Mangoes were one of my favorite things to eat when ah was younger - from chow to curry - we tried almost everything with mangoes. To be honest I even remember cutting up and using the mangoes that were barely full - the seed still soft inside. I guess when you are young you are not picky and any mango is a good mango especially when it comes to making mango chow.
I can tell you that I can relate to quite a few mango stories but there is one story that stands out and triggers my memory whenever I think about eating mangoes. This was a scary situation by at the same time turned out to be the most fun. So let's go back in time to a place that only children could find themselves. As I can recall now in the back of our house (on land that was not ours) there were all sorts of mango trees. It is amazing but when I reflect, I have to conclude that we were very fortunate. The mango variety ranged from long mango to Starch, to Julie and mango 'Doodouse'. There was one big problem though the owner of the mango trees/land did not like it when we went to get "our" mangoes - get my drift here? One Saturday morning after mama left for the market we decided to get some mangoes before 'the sun heated up the place'. So we (my brothers & I) 'round up' the neighbor kids and headed out to have fun.
Now those trees were tall and big so the boys used to climb and the girls will pick up the mangoes they threw down. Well, yes you guessed correctly, there were days that I wanted to climb. This did not go well with my younger brother (we were always competing). They said, "if I go up" they will help me to come down (how hard could this be) if my younger brother was doing it? They call me a 'tom boy' but this was my moment and I had to prove that I was just as capable - 'monkey see, a monkey can do too!
Well, I got to the lowest branch on the tree that was a few feet well up from the ground - this is as far as I got because the next thing ah hear is, "GORILLA" which is what we used to call the owner of the property. Every man jack started scaling down the tree except me because this was my first time and I was not fast enough and scared as hell. I was so scared that I could not move. I really tried to but nothing worked! With "Gorilla" approaching fast, I wrapped my arm around that tree, took a deep breath, and for dear life with one big effort scaled-down that mango tree as if it was an Olympic event. My heart was pounding as I raced away from the mango tree with "Gorilla" on my heels. No one told me that the tree bark was that sharp...oh Gawd no, meh skin! The skin on my legs was scrapped (more like ripped)and all those @%#@#&@ (add cuss words) companions could do was laugh their butts off. "Gorilla" gave up his chase (he was not a young man)and we headed back to the house. My younger brother could not contain himself, he probably laughed for 2 days. However, that did not stop me... I still climbed those mango trees and I have the scars to show for all my tom-boy days!
I can tell you that I can relate to quite a few mango stories but there is one story that stands out and triggers my memory whenever I think about eating mangoes. This was a scary situation by at the same time turned out to be the most fun. So let's go back in time to a place that only children could find themselves. As I can recall now in the back of our house (on land that was not ours) there were all sorts of mango trees. It is amazing but when I reflect, I have to conclude that we were very fortunate. The mango variety ranged from long mango to Starch, to Julie and mango 'Doodouse'. There was one big problem though the owner of the mango trees/land did not like it when we went to get "our" mangoes - get my drift here? One Saturday morning after mama left for the market we decided to get some mangoes before 'the sun heated up the place'. So we (my brothers & I) 'round up' the neighbor kids and headed out to have fun.
Now those trees were tall and big so the boys used to climb and the girls will pick up the mangoes they threw down. Well, yes you guessed correctly, there were days that I wanted to climb. This did not go well with my younger brother (we were always competing). They said, "if I go up" they will help me to come down (how hard could this be) if my younger brother was doing it? They call me a 'tom boy' but this was my moment and I had to prove that I was just as capable - 'monkey see, a monkey can do too!
Well, I got to the lowest branch on the tree that was a few feet well up from the ground - this is as far as I got because the next thing ah hear is, "GORILLA" which is what we used to call the owner of the property. Every man jack started scaling down the tree except me because this was my first time and I was not fast enough and scared as hell. I was so scared that I could not move. I really tried to but nothing worked! With "Gorilla" approaching fast, I wrapped my arm around that tree, took a deep breath, and for dear life with one big effort scaled-down that mango tree as if it was an Olympic event. My heart was pounding as I raced away from the mango tree with "Gorilla" on my heels. No one told me that the tree bark was that sharp...oh Gawd no, meh skin! The skin on my legs was scrapped (more like ripped)and all those @%#@#&@ (add cuss words) companions could do was laugh their butts off. "Gorilla" gave up his chase (he was not a young man)and we headed back to the house. My younger brother could not contain himself, he probably laughed for 2 days. However, that did not stop me... I still climbed those mango trees and I have the scars to show for all my tom-boy days!