Hot season in Mali is intense. We have temperatures over 100 degrees every
day for a couple months. Soaring
temperatures with no air conditioning and frequent power cuts is brutal. Thankfully there is an immediate reward for
this suffering: Mangoes! I don’t know
why mango season coincideswith hot season, but I’m glad that it does!
Mangoes can be found for sale everywhere for 10 to 25 cents each. Or you can get them for free if you have a
mango tree in your yard or if you have a friend who does. There are many different kinds of mangoes and
I have learned the names of a few of my favorite varieties so that I can be
sure to buy the really good ones. A
really good mango is huge and perfectly ripe so as to be juicy but not squishy
and it is sweet like candy but somehow healthy because it is fruit.
If you take a trip on the road, there are many places to stop
along the way where there will be long lines of ladies selling piles and piles of
mangoes. I am looking forward to one day
getting a chest freezer so that we can cut and freeze mangoes and keep having
them throughout the year. For now, I
just eat as many as I can handle during mango season.
There is a paved road near the house I am staying at and in
the evening there are ladies with tables on the sides of the road. Some of the ladies have vegetable tables with
lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions.
And some of the ladies have fruit tables with mangoes, bananas, and
possibly some oranges and imported apples.
I have made friends with one of the fruit sellers. In Mali you have to greet before you do anything else. It would be ok just to do a basic quick greeting and then get to business. But since I wasn’t in a hurry and there were no other customers waiting, I started chatting with the fruit lady. She doesn’t speak any French, so it was good practice for my Bambara. I learned that her name is Aissata and she is of the Dogon ethnic group. I can’t really remember what all we chatted about, but she was a nice lady and we talked for a few minutes before I asked about the prices of fruit. I chose a pile of 4 premium mangoes for $1 and I picked 4 not quite ripe ones at 10 cents each from the back of the table. Aissata put the mangoes I chose into a plastic bag. Then she looked at me to make sure I was paying attention and she grabbed one more of the 10 cent mangoes to add to my bag as a present. Then she went a step further (and ensured my repeat business) and put a free banana into my bag as well. I have gone a few times since then to buy fruit from her.
I have made friends with one of the fruit sellers. In Mali you have to greet before you do anything else. It would be ok just to do a basic quick greeting and then get to business. But since I wasn’t in a hurry and there were no other customers waiting, I started chatting with the fruit lady. She doesn’t speak any French, so it was good practice for my Bambara. I learned that her name is Aissata and she is of the Dogon ethnic group. I can’t really remember what all we chatted about, but she was a nice lady and we talked for a few minutes before I asked about the prices of fruit. I chose a pile of 4 premium mangoes for $1 and I picked 4 not quite ripe ones at 10 cents each from the back of the table. Aissata put the mangoes I chose into a plastic bag. Then she looked at me to make sure I was paying attention and she grabbed one more of the 10 cent mangoes to add to my bag as a present. Then she went a step further (and ensured my repeat business) and put a free banana into my bag as well. I have gone a few times since then to buy fruit from her.
Here is what $1.40 worth of mangoes looks like. They are in these basins so I can soak them
in bleach water. The greenish ones will
ripen in a day or two on the counter. The
ripe ones go in the fridge.
I am jealous, but not of the weather! I might get one mango here for that price, and it wouldn't be nearly as good!
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