Mango Trees, Fire, and Presents

Organic, pesticide-free, and locally grown.

Cooking beans over charcoal.

EVERYTHING'S UNDER CONTROL!

Written December 30, 2011
Fort Dauphin   

    “Well, the rain’s not stopping.  We’d best finish this.”
    Rodin and I jumped off the porch into the downpour to finish filling in the hole around the mango sapling we had planted.
    Two hours earlier I mentioned to Rodin that I wanted to transplant some volunteer saplings from his grandfather’s yard into mine, maybe later in the week.
    “Why not do it right now?” he suggested.
    So we got to it, gathering manure from a neighbor’s cow pen and digging a hole for the tree.  Elsie, an Environment Volunteer, had given a lecture about double-digging during IST and had told me that even a small tree should have a 1x1x1 meter double-dug hole.
    A couple of the local kids came to watch (of course) and I told them they could help if they went and got shovels.  I was hoping their desire to do something with the big kids would trump any indignity over being treated like free labor.  Bon Chance, who’s about ten, was the only one who came back with a shovel, but later on one of the girls, Silvie, who’s a little younger, did the same.  We sweated hard for a good hour, tearing at the tough clay.
    After we had transferred the sapling and were filling the earth back in it began to pour.  We all retreated to the porch to wait it out, but by that time it was almost 5:30 and I was damn hungry.
    Rodin and I finished the hole quickly and I went to dry off and cook dinner.  Rodin and Fafa sat just outside my door listening to my iPod.  I had just poured oil into the pot when Fafa distracted me.  Suddenly--
    There should not be that much orange light coming out of my house.  FIRE!
    The oil in the pot had ignited and flames were leaping two and three feet high.  I panicked and dithered, but Rodin grabbed a cloth and put the pot on the edge of the porch in the rain.  When the raindrops only provoked sparks and a loud snapping sound, Rodin threw water on it.  It took three cups of water to dilute the oil enough to quench the flames, leaving all of us startled but relieved that nothing else went up.
    The rest of the week has been pretty boring.  On Wednesday I constructed a cage for the sapling to protect it from livestock.  It’s a rickety thing made of mismatched sticks and string going all over the place.  It looks... well, frankly, it looks like something a poor African farmer would build.  But it seems to deter the cows well enough.
    But this morning I came into Fort Dauphin to pick up packages.  There were not one but two waiting for me.  The first, from my grandparents in Florida, contains candy and dried fruit and a beautiful Christmas card.  The second, from my parents, has clothes, a DVD of Avatar, a cookbook, and other things I haven’t seen yet.  And best of all, A FEAST FOR CROWS, the fourth Game of Thrones novel!  Thank you all!  These are fantastic Christmas presents.  And I still have ones from my girlfriend to look forward to.  This holiday gets better and better, even after it’s over.