Mango Season

It's mango season. I love it. I've only found a few things that seem bad about mango season, the main one being that sometimes kids climb mango trees to pick the fruit and end up falling out of them. Then we get to clean them up at the hospital. Another thing that's not so cool about mango season is actually kind of humorous.

I used to think that it was awesome that we have worship every morning at the hospital under the mango trees. I mean, really, how many people can say that they do that? However, I do not have these same sentiments any longer. My former sentiments have now been replaced with feelings of anxiety. Why?

The mango trees are home to many very large fruit bats. Every morning when I come to the hospital for worship, I have to look very carefully before sitting down because our cement benches are absolutely covered in bat droppings. Once I find a place that is clean enough to sit down, I spend a good deal of worship time praying that the bats won't make any fresh marks. I have been very fortunate in escaping the bat droppings thus far.

Unfortunately, good grace ran out this morning. There is generally a great sound of flapping wings and rustling leaves to signal the oncoming bombing, and this morning as I heard the warning, I cringed. Moments later, there was a small shower from above- just about the only moisture during this dry, hot season.

As I sat there feeling rather gross, I had to comfort myself with the thought that at least it's mango season and that's all the bats have been eating.

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Just another short mango season story. Mango season can actually be kind of dangerous. As I said before, sometimes kids will fall out of mango trees because the branches aren't all that strong. Once, we had a woman come into the ER because a mango branch had fallen on her head. The other thing that you have to watch out for is falling mangoes. Mangoes will randomly just fall from the sky without warning.

Tonight I had to laugh because as Jason and I were standing outside the hospital gate talking to a local high school teacher, random mangoes were falling from the trees above us. There were a bunch of kids gathered around because Jason had brought out his guitar, and so every time a mango would fall from the tree, there would be this mad dash as the kids scrambled in the dark to find the mango first.