Mango Paradise

For about a year in a half while working in the Environmental Management Department of the Municipality in Arenillas, I heard about our boss’ farm on a daily basis. He was always disappearing from our office and going to his farm somewhere on the outskirts of Arenillas. It became a joke that the Ingeniero was at his ‘farm’ meaning really in who knows where, since no one had ever had the honor of being invited to his farm. My coworkers and I always suspected of whether there really was everything he said there was out on this farm and if he was always really there. I had asked a few times if he’d take me to his farm, and I always got the same respond ‘one day.’ That day never came, my two years flew by, and before I knew it I’d move to Quito for my third year.
Then the day came. There I was sitting in the Municipality stealing their free internet while I was back in Arenillas for a few days visiting before the Christmas holidays, and in walks the Ingeniero.
Ing: Hola Rosita! Ay chuta, you’re not Rosita! Sarita! What a surprise to find you here.
Me: Si, aqui estoy. Just here chilling, visiting Arenillas, hoping to go to this supposed farm you have. (being totally sarcastic… which doesn’t always come across so great in Spanish).
Ing.: Do you really want to go? I’m going in 5 minutes to fix a water pump and you can come.
Me: Really?! I can FINALLY go to your farm?
Rosita and Dani: Not fair, we want to go. Can we close the office and say we are doing inspections for reforestation.
Ing.: No. Human Resources is here today, we can’t do that. Sarita lets go.
Ecstatic, I quickly grab my bag and head out with the Ing. to his farm. It was like fruit paradise: banana, maracuya, guava, and mango trees galore. I learned that day that he had three types of mangos on his farm; and that the one I had always liked the most for its sweetness coincidently is called the Edward variation (obviously not the scientific name, just the local nickname). He also had another variation Ken. Who would have thought that types of mangos have men’s names as nicknames. I asked the Ing. if I could pick a small bag of mangos to bring back to Quito with me. Of course, he said I could. So as went off to fix the water pump, I started filling up my bag with the best mangos I could find. A few minutes later the Ing. returned and gave me a big old rice sack and told me to go ahead and fill that up. Now being that a sack can hold like around 100 mangos I assumed I must be filling this so that he can sell in the market. So, for the next hour I went from mango tree to mango tree picking out the ones that were ripest to fill the sack, climbing the trees to get the best ones at the very top, and eating lots of mangos right off the trees in the process. I was in mango paradise. Nothing but me and acres of mango trees. After a while the Ing. came back and we had to head back to Arenillas. When he dropped me off at my friend’s house I grabbed my little bag and was ecstatic to have some mangos to bring back to the sierra. Later that night my friend (the other pcv in town) got a phone call from the Ing. He was outside his house with my sack of mangos. Apparently, somewhere along the way the Ing and I had a miscommunication. That entire sack of mangos I’d picked wasn’t to sell after all, it was all for me to take back to the sierra!! Who would have thought. I mean it was extremely generous of him, but really what can one person do with a 100 mangos, and how can I bring the sack back to the sierra on a 14 hour bus ride and later a metro, if I can’t even lift it off the floor? So, the next day I was the Ms. Clause of Mangos! I divided the mangos into smaller bags and went and gave a bag to most of my youth group members’ families. I ended up keeping about a fourth of the sack to bring back to the city… and let’s just say I got a look or two on that trip home. Here I was dirty gringa (my clothes were filthy by this point in the trip) dragging a sack of mangos that I could still hardly lift all around the bus terminal and then the city. But hey, it was worth it, I was still in mango glory for the next two weeks!