Turpentine mango madness

Some of the mango was stuck on the stubble around my mouth. I looked at the mirror, a bit of shame because I had just collected an invitation from a well dressed guy and I wonder how I must have looked to him.. look at dis big man .. he cyan eat mango good .

Thing is.. wiping off mango from stubble is difficult.. and the casual swipe with a hand which might have some juice is also useless.


The turpentine mango is useless when it is green - it tastes awful, like turpentine.  Mother Nature works a miracle because the ripe one though, is sweet, juicy, no strings and no turpentine taste. And the colours on the skins are bright yellow/orange/pink/purple/red shades that are probably meant to draw all species of mango lovers.


The trouble with turpentine is that you cannot pick it green or 'turnin' ' to ripen like say how they do it with Spice mangoes.  You have to leave on the tree until there is some point.. when there is no taste of turpentine.

So you look at the mango on the tree as it ripens.. and you wait until it looks just right.. except that the next thing you know is that you are reminded of Nature/God's bounty and there is some blue saki or kiskadee eating your mango. Or there is a big hole and a marabunta is burrowing into the mango in the hole left by a bird.


So 2013, for some reason, the tree has been shedding the ripe mangoes.. probably from its parts hidden from the birds.

Hygiene considerations are fleeting.. because the space under the tree floods so after every flood you have to clean up and put the mangoes which were floating in the water 'one side' and then look out for the others which will drop.

Mango I would have eaten but left for the animals.. the day after like dem aint want it

Then you wait..and it is like gifts from this tree.. sometimes one, sometimes, two, sometimes none.

I shared once with neighbours but not now since the tree dropping one at a time so not enough to go around.

Sometimes the mango falls with bite marks. I would say okay.. this for the animals and throw at the root. But then.. when the animals have not left any for me, I have started to take their joota, and washed it (recently washing the mango with soap too because of the flood thing) and eating around the marks without thinking of the bird bat rat and just hoping no germs.

I would not do this for any other variety of mango.

And I have washed off some ants and now and then a slug.. which has not made any indent in the skin (I know because I examine carefully ) and so far so good.. I aint dead yet.