Mango Face
Please pardon mom while she usurps this blog for a moment 🙂
When I lived in Jamaica (94-96) I fell in love with mangoes. One of my favorite stories is of this little boy I met while eating mangoes after school at St. George’s (boys’ high school where I taught biology). He couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 and he wasn’t a student (probably a neighborhood kid — and the school’s neighborhood was one of the poorest in Kingston). His face was covered with mango (and if you’ve eaten mango, you’ll know that this is part of the experience 🙂 so I started calling him "mango face." Turns out, I ran into him a year later at the Notre Dame Jumpball Basketball Camp and I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before, but realized his face was familiar. His memory was better than mine, thankfully, and he smiled and said "Mango Face, Miss." 🙂
Upon returning to the US, I was saddened when I realized that they would never taste as good here as they did in Jamaica….sigh. For some reason, maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me, maybe it’s the opportunity to reconnect with some good memories, I still buy one each season.
So I smiled when I saw baby food mangoes — and bought a few jars 🙂 And Sam loved them.
Mango Face II