The harvests continue
on Andrew Sacret (Zambia), 01/Feb/2011 17:26, 34 days ago
As I hear of friends and family shivering in the -33C weather back in Ottawa/Toronto, I can't help but think how different my February looks.Case in point: this evening as I approached my front gate, I found a small gaggle of children brazenly munching on the ripening guavas from the tree outside our wall fence.  I'm not quite sure what the law says about trees in the boulevard, but Rob and I do feel some sense of ownership over the guava tree... and its fruit!I wanted a few of the guavas too - just to try.  So at my signal, the kids clambered back up in the branches and started pulling off fruit and throwing it down.  They pulled at everything so I said, "Stop taking the green ones!  Just the yellow ones!"  Their reply was a bright and typically childlike, "Yes!"  It was obvious that they didn't understand me very well.  Eventually I asked them to come down and tried to explain that I didn't want them coming back to take ALL the fruit.  I don't mind the kids taking some of them, but naturally we want a few (preferably ripe ones) to enjoy too!Sadly, the mango season ended a few weeks ago.  While we had far too many mangoes on the trees for our modest household to consume, I have a strong suspicion that the kids got into our compound and pilfered a few.  There were so many and then suddenly very few.  Where could they all have gone?  I figure some might even have been sold in the market.I'm actually rather amused about the situation.  And on the upside, if we contributed some vitamins and income to some local kids, all the better!