HOLY MANGOS!

Our brief return to Manado this time (on the way to the CUSO Cooperant Conference) was full of action and fun and MANGOES … more-so even than our recent holiday!

Other than hanging out with the Latin Contingent most days, and ‘clubbing’ with them a few evenings (lucky for me the theme was ‘beach party’ since club wear isn’t really part of my wardrobe!), we also took them to see the mini-monkeys, and introduced them to the wonders of reflexology and ‘the cream bath’. They don’t really go outside their norm… they spend their days going from the hotel to the stadium to the mall… they’re not really explorers, so they like it when we force them into new experiences.

The previous week when we had blown through Manado, our friends at Bintang Laut said that mango season had begun, but I was disappointed when I went to the market looking for them, but came up empty-handed. But on this trip I found myself pleasantly surprised to see overflowing bins of SIX different types of Mangoes in the produce department on a quick visit to the supermarket! I didn’t even know there were so many different shapes and sizes and smells of mangoes… so I bought one of each, and brought them home to try. The names range from Mangga Madu (Honey mango) and Mangga Harum Manis (Sweet aroma mango) to some that aren’t very descriptive (have no meaning) such as Mangga Kuini, Mangga Dodol and Mangga Gole.



Then when I got to chatting about mangoes with several different folks around town (and in Jogja as well), I found out there actually may be hundreds of different types of mangoes!!! YUMMM!!!!

Upon arriving at the house, we saw our neighbours’ mango tree… exploding mangoes!



I guessed that they would no doubt be by later to get the latest gossip on us, under the guise of bringing us mangoes.... and I was right! See, not only are mangoes sweet, delicious treats, they also bind together society!