Mail from Malawi: Battle of the Papayas

Once upon a time, Talea decided she wanted a papaya, so off she went through the yard on a hunt for a ripe papaya.

Papaya hunting is an all-out battle between the hunters and papayas. So far, the papayas are winning.

I tried climbing a papaya tree once, but it was really strenuous and painful. Papaya trees are not meant for climbing. The tree was next to a brick wall, so that aided the climbing process to get me high enough to pick the papaya. It works, but only for that one tree in the yard.

Tonight I decided I wanted some papayas to make some fresh papaya juice. There was one really tall tree that had three obviously ripe papayas gracefully hanging from it. Now, this tree was too tall to climb, not next to a wall to help the climbing process, and I was not up for the struggle and pain of trying to climb that tree. It was time for an alternative: a really long pole.

Now, this pole is AT LEAST three times my height. Bianca (one of the children of the Guarino family, the family whose compound we live on) had demonstrated the use of this pole earlier. It can’t be THAT hard, right?

Wrong. Dreadfully wrong. By the time I decided that I wanted papayas, it was already dark. Yet, I was determined to get some papayas, so I dragged Laurel out with me to help me conquer this task. We took flashlights out with us, but they were not strong enough to do anything useful in all practical purposes. Laurel went first, trying to knock the papayas out of the tree with the long pole while I was waiting to catch the falling papaya.

Splat!!

Okay, so I’m not an athlete…. I took over the “pole operation” when Laurel was not getting the papaya down. It’s hard. And the papaya did not gracefully fall down to Laurel’s patiently waiting hands. Instead, a different papaya than the one I was trying to get down fell and met it’s doom on the ground. Oops. Finally, the one I was working on came down. And it landed on a branch of the tree that split it right in half.

Can you say “entertaining”?

Did I mention that it was dark when we tried to do this? Laurel and I obviously need to practice, and continue the battle in daylight. Thankfully, there are many more trees in the yard, some of which are short enough for me to pick the papayas with my own hands without any climbing or poles!!