Feast of Mangos

It started harmlessly enough.  Faced with a long layover, I stocked my carry-on handbag with dried mangos. Sunkist brand phillipine mango that was ridiculously expensive at about $6 for what was to be only several slivers in the bag.

On the almost three hour drive from Montego Bay Airport to Treasure Beach, we passed by many roadside traders with their array of tropical fruit.  Fascinatingly enough, the first fruit I indulged in by the roadside was sugarcane. I even enjoyed a banana while admiring the mangoes fly by my window.

On arrival at Jakes Resort I was offered a refreshing drink. Would you like melon, orange or mango? Of course, you can’t parade a mango-anything in front of me and think I won’t catch the bait. Appetizer contains mango? I want it. Mango-something cocktail or martini? Decision made. See, it’s that easy. So I had the mango drink.

The next morning for breakfast again I had mango to drink. At Dougie’s Bar I had his special rum punch on good advice. It was nothing special and just as I thought I was done with the bar on this trip, someone let me know that there was mango daiquiri to be had.  What?! Mango daiquiris exist at this bar and I just wasted my first $5 on a rum punch?  Correction made and for the rest of my stay it was mango juice for breakfast and mango daiquiris for an alcoholic foray.

But see all this time I’m still quite in control.  I even had the occasional breakfast or lunch with friends and their two young boys where the children would be offered chunks of mango being sliced up at the table by mother or father; and they would run off with it and once in a while drop a piece in the sand during their rambunctious play.  Did I snatch mangoes out of their hands? No.  Did I pick up the mangoes from the sand and wash it of to eat myself? No? Did I even eat the seed left on the plate properly? No.  All this composure despite the fact mangoes were calling my name left, right, and center!

Then we went to the market.  Ooooh chile! Big mangoes. Little mangoes. Round mangoes. Oblong mangoes. Red mangoes. Yellow mangoes. Green mangoes. I was like a child in a candy shop.  Actually I was me in a candy shop!  All around me. All ridiculously fragrant!  But still I was in control. For you see, this impromptu trip to the market was just a few hours before the wedding I was in Jamaica for, the wedding for which I was to help as an usher and tie-loose-endser. Even though my fellow shoppers trusted me with the lion share of the bundles of mangoes we had bought and took just a few to enjoy right away.  That is how much in control I was. When they rejoined me a few hours later, I knew I had made the right decision for after enjoying this heavenly fruit, my friends had entered some other ethereal world and it was quite difficult to bring them back to earth.

But soon it was my time to eat slice and chunk of mango after mango as the kids watched me.  My turn to scrape the seeds clean of any trace of sweet pulp.  Don’t worry, I still know how to share. So great is my heart that I didn’t devour the whole stash myself, that I actually waited for the friends I had bought them with to be ready to join in, and that we actually opened up the feast to several more!  There I was peeling and slicing mangoes for others to enjoy.  So proud of my selfless myself.

The mangoes were the perfect finishing touch to my trip to Jamaica. I mean beyond being simply delicious they were so comforting. Can you believe that? Mango = comfort food. So true!

So now of course I am back home and going crazy! Crazy! Crazy! Crazy craving mangoes! Oh my goodness!