200 dollar passion fruit in the 55 year Republic

 

200 dollar passion fruit 

"Why de hell dem aint want buy it if dem asking de price" the market vendor shouted to her neighbour after I asked the price of the passion fruit and she shouted 5 for $1000.. "Write up de price and put pun de basket so nobody aint got fuh ask" the neighbour suggested.

Passion fruit more expensive than the imported apples in the 55 year old oil Republic. Nuff oil flowing and being found but only two vendors have the bags of the crushed brownish firmish fruit which I used to eat every day as part of the wellness regime until they were no longer available.

I remember a school friend with her land proposal to plant passion fruit on the highway at a time when people were now planting and how she explained you just leave them and they bear , and another friend who had glut and was sharing from her yard, and one time I cooked the leaves as bhajee.

Her vine withered up at some point as the seasons changed and like so many other things where prices gone up and things seem rarer and the only glut is oil.., difficult to understand what happened to people's vines.

Another woman sees my hesitation and offers me 3 for $500 and I take three cautiously as passion fruit can be like people too, cut and there is not much inside, or cut and there is the rich golden fullness of seed and pulp and fragrance which lingers long after the fruit is eaten.. I can still smell the fruit and I wonder if I should have said to hell with it and spend the money because more money might come from the oil.

I used to eat passion fruit instead of oranges when the orange went out of season back in the day when oil was not there and seasons seemed to work. Passion fruits were always there.. making drink, cake. 'Cheap' and lovely.  Vendors throwing in extras and so.

Passion fruit apparently good for mental health too, and gut health as the seeds are gentle on the stomach.

And while I ramble about spending money on the humble passion fruit whose benefits could be one a day I realise that it is about value as I have hidden in the bag the $1800 junk food therapy whose fix would be more temporary than say if I bought the same thing in passion fruit.

So this new reality in the 55 year old republic, valuing the things which once were cheap, taken for granted..