I Cannot Look A Mango In The Eye

Living in Africa changed my perspective on some fruits and vegetables.

West Africans enjoy spicy food and they use peppers to make their food hot.  The markets are full of all kinds of peppers, but I never once saw a green pepper – the heatless, spice-less kind that are sold in American supermarkets, the kind that I grew up with.

I missed green peppers.  When I left Africa, I took a plane to Frankfurt, Germany.  It was my first time on German soil.  I did not go looking for a bratwurst or a pretzel or for a stein of German beer; I looked for a green pepper.

I found a grocery store, bought a green pepper, and sat on a park bench.  I bit into my first green pepper in years: heatless, spice-less, reassuringly bland.  It could have used some salt, but it was bursting with moisture, and I was happily transported back to my childhood.

West Africans generally do not eat potatoes. 

However, if you knew where to look, you could find potatoes for sale in the city where I lived.  Potatoes were rare and they do not keep well in a tropical climate; so, their price was escalated accordingly.  I learned to live without them.

Sometimes, I would splurge on a restaurant meal: steak and fried potatoes.  The fried potatoes were quaintly called chips, just like in Britain.  I considered it a luxury meal --- not because of the steak, but because of the chips.

Even today, thirty-five years since I left Africa, whenever I eat potatoes I think of them as a treat.

But mangoes are not a treat. 

In Africa, I was paid monthly, and I would often run out of money at the end of the month.  That was the time for mangoes.  They cost two pennies each, and I could fill up on mangoes very cheaply. 

The city streets were planted with mango trees, and children threw rocks at the mangoes to dislodge them.  The children, eager to earn some cash, did not give the mangoes a chance to ripen fully.

This meant I was filling up on mangoes that tasted faintly like kerosene because they hadn’t ripened. 

Today when I see a mango in the supermarket, I can’t look it in the eye.  It is a vivid reminder of the days when my money ran out.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com