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Something caught my eye the other day on the streets of nairobi. i almost couldn't believe it and i looked at it for longer than a glance just to make sure of what i was seeing. One of the many women who sell produce along Nairobi's streets had laid out in front of her a pile of...oh!...mangos!
Mangos! maembe! i love you so! nazipenda sana, sana!
It only comes but twice a year - it's officially mango season.
i don't know when my love of mangos came into being, cos i sure didn't eat many during my childhood near detroit or seattle. they were a fruit so rare and exotic (and expensive) it was a special occasion to find them, let alone tasty ones. maybe it started when earlier this year i went through a phase of making fruit smoothees for my breakfast every morning - and to brighten the usual apples and bananas i'd buy a bag of frozen mango chunks at trader joes and add those to the mix. yuuuummmmmm! i couldn't get enough.
that was good, but the mangos i'm buying everyday here are, well, sublime. now they're being sold everywhere, on every street corner, the usual ones from the coast or from western kenya, minature ones from nyanza province, the 'apple' variety from eastern kenya...so many. now there are venders guys with trolleys full of them on the street who will slice and sell one to you to eat on the spot.
i ate one this morning for breakfast that was the best ever. i sliced it down both sides and then chewed on the fruit next to the pit. it was so sweet it was like CANDY! and the fruit was perfect. i kid you not. then i took each slice that i'd cut and sliced it in cris-cross fashion to make squares and then turned the skin inside out and then ate each individual chunk in rapid succession.
Jabez chuckled at me - he knows how much i love them but had never seen my enjoy one this much. easy for him to laugh - he grew up with mango trees all around. when it would be mango season near kisumu, where his family home is, he'd hide out in a tree and gorge himself on them. when he returned home his mom would scold him for spoiling his appetite - he couldn't hide the evidence - the juice would be all over his face and shirt.
must buy more tonight...
- Marta
November 2, 2002 • Nairobi, Kenya
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