Mangos and philosophy

                By far one of the best things about living in Honduras is the tropical mango season. I’d had mangos in the States before coming here but nothing like the ones I am eating now at the end of the season.  It is hard to find one that is perfectly ripe because they get mushy so quickly, but when you find ones that are maybe one day from going bad you can just cut one section of skin off and the rest will fall off by itself, as the mango falls apart in your mouth without even chewing it.  I don’t think I have ever tasted something as juicy, sweet or refreshing as a ripe mango in my entire life.

                One thing I love about mango season is that it feels like divine intervention that goes beyond our natural inclination to profit from and commoditize everything.  At the beginning of the season mangos cost about a dollar each for the big ones, and then 50 cents and then a quarter each, and every day through the season the mango stands seem to multiply until the mango section takes up 2/3s of the fruit market.  Now they are selling for 4 or 5 cents each and more often given away for free as there are far more mangos than there are mouths to eat them. We all eat them as rapidly as we can yet thousands and thousands go bad rotting in the street.  I love the idea that we have this huge organized capitalist system that makes a cup of coffee or a candy bar generally cost the same amount all the time, but that nature makes mangos virtually free for this month at the end of the season, which here in Juticalpa is also the driest and hottest part of the year.  I love the idea that all through Africa, tropical Asia, and Latin America the poorest people have this beautiful taste to look forward to all year and this one time where sweetness and nutrition are universally enjoyed, and can’t be denied to the poor.  I also like the fact that the mango season can’t be all year, and that’s its something you are forced to really enjoy while it is here rather than take for granted all the time.

                Another thing that I think is fascinating about mangos is that the mango season always comes at the end of the dry season.  Mangos are so unbelievably juicy and sweet, and yet it takes a dry season for a mango to form, as the water from the rainy season is absorbed and then takes several months to be formed into the mango.  I like to think this is very symbolic of life.  The dry season here in Juticalpa is just about the most miserable weather I have ever lived through.  It is often so hot and dusty that you feel like breathing is impossible as the air is so dry and heavy.  Everything is grey, there is no grass, and no birds can survive except the vultures that live off death and dirt.  Sometimes in life you may think you’re at the driest, deadest point you’ve ever been at, and life seems pointless in the darkness or greyness.  Yet is it often these seemingly terrible parts of life that shape you into something better or more beautiful.  So from now on whenever I feel like I am at my darkest I will think about how the mangos get their sweetness out of the dry season, and I will hope that something beautiful is being formed through my hardship.

11 year old orphans are great at manipulating me

                 At the bilingual school where I am teaching in Honduras, I teach mainly middle class Hondurans, which is an extremely relative term.  I also teach three orphans from a Catholic orphanage nearby, where children live either because they have no parents or because there parents are too poor to support them.

                One of them is a boy named Allan who at the beginning of the year was by far my worst behaved student.  He never sat in his seat and crawled around grabbing other students feet, and almost seemed to enjoy getting in trouble for the attention he got out of it.  I punish students by making them stay after class for 5 or 10 minutes, and when he got off without punishment he would often stick around the class annoying the punished kids until he ended up being punished himself.

                For whatever reason, he has started being better in class and I have been trying hard to get him to believe that he can get attention for improving his behavior rather than acting out.  I have no idea what happened but there are now days where he will sit in the front row quietly and pay more attention than anyone else.  But he still has days when he reverts to his old self.

                The other day in PE class he threw a rock at one of his classmates.  Rock throwing is one of those things that is viewed very differently in the developed and developing worlds, here it is very common for students to fight with rocks, and throwing rocks at dogs or cows is the accepted way to get them out of your path.

                Our class had just had a rock fight that sent a kid to the hospital however, and it was common knowledge that throwing anything, let alone rocks, would get a child suspended.

                I called Allan over.

                “What are you doing??  YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T THROW ROCKS.  DO YOU WANT ME TO SEND YOU TO THE DIRECTOR?  You want to be suspended?”

                “But I didn’t hit him.”

                “That’s not important you could have hit him.  We talk about this every day its so clear that you can’t throw rocks.  I don’t want you to get punished but come on man, we talk about it every day.”

                He sat and thought about it for a minute.  Then glared at me.

                “Look at you.  Always with the same shirt.  It's so dirty.”

                “Allan that's ridiculous.  I wear different shirts.  You have a uniform you have to wear every day.  So YOU always wear the same shirt!”

                “Yea but its always clean.  I never come with a shirt that dirty.”

                “That’s because you have nuns who clean your shirt for you every day.”

                “You’re so dirty.  Why do we have to come to school and listen to some dirty guy tell us what not to do?”

                “In the U.S we have machines that clean our clothes.  I am very bad at cleaning my shirt by hand.  I’m trying.  I also sweat a lot because its so much hotter here.  I have to bike to school and then I am sweaty from this all day.  I will try to clean my shirt a little better though.  OK?”

                He nods.  “Its ok. Just try a little harder.  No girl will like you if you walk around looking like that”

                He starts to run off to join the football game again.

                “Wait.  Stop!”

                He slows.

                “This wasn’t about punishing me for my dirty shirt.  Its about you throwing rocks at people and me punishing you, and even with a dirty shirt I can punish you.  Get back over here.”

                He smiles at how close he was to getting away with it.  I am terrible at this.