Everywhere I look, there are huge mango trees casting much-needed shade. The mango trees are much bigger, more stately than the mango trees in Malawi. Here, they loom like giant oak trees, except with a much tastier seed pod.
With the hot weather comes mango season, and with mango season comes mango-gathering season. Everyone seems to pick up a part-time (or full-time) job at procuring mangos. The low-hanging fruit and deliciously ripe fruits are all gone, but more fruit ripens every day. There's an intricate game theory of calculation going on as people weight accessibility, ripeness, availability, time of day, and other factors, to decide if they're going to harvest a mango or not.
There are various methods of mango-procuring, including sling-shots, climbing, boosting a friend up, and throwing rocks (watch out when you walk anywhere near a mango tree!). The preferred method, however, seems to be the long stick. There are different genres and types of long sticks, but some are enough bamboo lashed together to reach 10 meters in the air. Some have bags on them to reduce the loss to scavengers (or to pick fruit hanging on the other side of a property-line-wall). But mango sticks are common and ubiquitous. In mango season, everyone becomes a mango fisher.
With the hot weather comes mango season, and with mango season comes mango-gathering season. Everyone seems to pick up a part-time (or full-time) job at procuring mangos. The low-hanging fruit and deliciously ripe fruits are all gone, but more fruit ripens every day. There's an intricate game theory of calculation going on as people weight accessibility, ripeness, availability, time of day, and other factors, to decide if they're going to harvest a mango or not.
There are various methods of mango-procuring, including sling-shots, climbing, boosting a friend up, and throwing rocks (watch out when you walk anywhere near a mango tree!). The preferred method, however, seems to be the long stick. There are different genres and types of long sticks, but some are enough bamboo lashed together to reach 10 meters in the air. Some have bags on them to reduce the loss to scavengers (or to pick fruit hanging on the other side of a property-line-wall). But mango sticks are common and ubiquitous. In mango season, everyone becomes a mango fisher.
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