Making Sense of Mangos

Fruiting trees are pretty rampant in the savanna.  However, compared to the fruit producing forests of the south, where pineapple farms are aplenty, the fruits of the north serve different purposes.  Some fruits are valued for their flavor and some for their seeds, but few for their flesh. 

Fruit stand in Accra

Pineapple farm in the outskirts of Accra

As a lover of fleshy fruit, I’m having some difficulties adjusting to the fruits at my disposal.  February was dominated by cashew fruit. Cashews produce a beautiful fruit that is also quite tasty.  However, cashew fruit did not a fruit hankering quench.  Mangos, however, hit the mark.  Mango trees, though not indigenous, have been around a long time and are a very common tree. They provide great shade and great fruit.  And they just came into season.

Cashew fruit sitting on top of the cashew nut

Chiraa-a fruit I can only describe as being kind of like a pomegranate if a pomegranate only had 1 big seed inside that was not very juicy. 

Mangos are the reward for enduring the hot and dry season.  I like to think that every day the temperature climbs past 105 is a day that makes mangos extra sweet. Not surprisingly, mangos are valued as a food source. In my most recent round of surveying households on their food security status, it’s apparent that many households are already running out of their stored food from October’s harvest.  Many are employing meal cutting strategies to make the food last a bit longer before they are dependent upon purchasing food.  As such, mangos are valuable hunger quenchers and vitamin boosters. 

Surprisingly, I'm also learning a lot about social relations and dynamics with the mango boom. Ownership of mango trees is difficult to parse out.  The very large trees around the borehole seem to provide communal mangos.  After school, these mango trees become battlegrounds.  Previously I would have described mangos as something that one foraged for.  Now I’m convinced that mangos are indeed prey that require sleuth and strategy similar to hunting.  Long sticks are employed as weapons to knock them out of the trees.  Children also climb into trees to get the finest pickings.  

Mangos fit much better in bike baskets than watermelons

Two weeks ago a young boy fell out of a mango tree and pretty severely injured (probably broke) his arm.   In visiting with the boy and his parents I learned that they were not going to take him to the local hospital even though they had health insurance to cover the hospital fees. Instead they were going to rely on local medical practices to for bone setting and healing.  In inquiring a bit more about this decision making process, I learned that the local hospital is not able to take care of broken bones. Rather, they refer patients to distant hospitals that require expensive transportation fees that are above and beyond what people in this community can afford.  Even with relying on more affordable care options, these parents were pretty stressed with the situation as even localized care requires fees or in kind that can be pressing for households with minimal income. 

Smaller trees, where the fruit dangle not meters above your head but tantilizingly in front of your face, are claimed as owned. These trees are often adorned with items such as a turtle shell or ram horn to make potential thieves think twice about crossing the spiritual forces guarding the fruit. Just as mangos are good food sources, they're also good money sources.  When you don't have a surplus maize crop to sell, a surplus mango crop can provide an income boost. 

Mango trees growing inside courtyards makes ownership easy to decipher

Last week a young girl of about 10 was out in the bush collecting mangos.  When she saw someone approaching her, she assumed it was the owner and went into panic mode.  She dropped her toddler sister in fear and ran off.  In a country where spirits are protecting against thievery and where and theft is punished with vigilante justice, panic mode is the only mode for being caught in the act. Unfortunately, when she got home she wasn't able to relay where she had left her sister, thus initiating the localized form of the Amber Alert. All men in the community came together to form organized search parties to cover the expanse of the bush.  Luckily the child was found. When she was returned to her parents, everyone in the community went to the family's house to receive her.  I guess sometimes it does take a village. 

I value being witness to such effects of mango season because I'm reminded of how social undercurrents reverberate to both create and solve problems. Mango season is important for its nutritive contributions, but  negotiating the risks involved in accessing those mangos requires understanding more about social relations and social dynamics. This is, ultimately, the lesson that the world of philanthropic development continues to learn.  Just because a mango tree exists does not mean everyone will have equal access to mangos. Just because health insurance is activated and a local hospital exists does not mean that the provision of basic service will be available.   And that is why nearly every anthropologist's conclusion is "but it's more complicated than that."