Being

 The time was the season for the picking and eating of mangoes. 

I stood at the front of our mud bricked, thatch roofed house in the village.

 

I looked out over the land before me and saw thirty foot tall mango trees draped with thousands of yellow mangoes. 

They made the trees glow, as if the trees themselves were saints with halos around their branches.

The mangoes hung on the trees as if they were giant drops of rain after a storm, frozen in time as they fell off of the leaves and began their descent to the ground.

I watched a child with a long, hook-ended stick.

There were two pieces of bamboo tied together.

The child used this homemade tool to pick ripe mangoes from the trees. 

I saw the stick dancing and weaving it’s way around the tree in search of the crisp, sweet fruit. 

Sometimes children climb into the trees and shake the branches until the ground thumps with the sound of falling mangoes. 

When a strong gust of wind blows, ripe mangoes fall from the trees to the earth. 

Groups of children scramble to the ground under the trees and search for the much loved fruit.

During mango season, women cut the mangoes and cook the fruit with peanut sauce and serve it as a meal. 

I love it!

My Malinke friends believe if you eat too many mangoes, you will sleep for a week. 

I know if you eat too many mangoes, you will do something for a week, but it’s not sleeping!

Even though it is the hottest part of the year, I love this time because it is mango season. 

One of God’s many kindnesses is to bring the hope of mangoes in the hopelessness of the dry season. 

One of my Malinke friends’ many kindnesses is to share these mangoes with me.