Fruit of the day: mystery fruit

The mystery fruit. Roughly a foot long, a slick smooth maroon skin. Slightly soft to the touch, and visibly rotting on one end. It smelled kind of sweet, and kind of rotten.

This has been a real puzzler. I found it in the garage, and couldn't get any worker to claim it or its origin. I carried it around the market, asking different vendor friends if they could identify it, all to a big fat nothing. It seems nobody had seen one before.

So I finally just busted it open for a taste, hoping that would help me narrow down my searching.

Inside was soft fruit flesh surrounding a central channel of wet seeds. It reminded me of cucumber, and the taste was slightly cucumber-ish too. Light and somehow cooling. Sweeter than a cucumber with more of a flowery taste.

In the whole wide internet, here is what I found:

Sicana odorifera- Family: Curcurbitaceae. Long vines with attract glossy green leaves. 2 inch bright yellow male flowers. Female flowers are a little smaller with a young fruit attached to the base; it develops if pollinated. Hard shelled fruits ripen to orange, red or black. Fruits are scented and have a melon-like flavor. Seeds are periodically available.       the source

Sicana odorifera, the only species of the genus Sicana, is a large, herbaceous perennial vine native to tropical South America, grown as an ornamental plant and for its sweet edible fruit. English names include cassabanana or casbanan, sikana, and musk cucumber. The fruit is large, up to 60 cm long, with skin of variable color. The fruit has a delicious, melon-like taste when it is ripe, which needs high temperatures to ripen. The sweet, aromatic, yellow-to-orange flesh of the mature fruit is eaten raw or made into preserves. The immature fruit can be cooked as a vegetable.     the source

this picture I didn't take, might explain why the end was kinda nasty

I've been meaning to write...

I have moved a bunch of times in my life. And moving around the country has left me with various relationships scattered around the map which it seemed I always maintained better right after a move. Something about moving has always brought back all the emotions of other "moves".  Moving to a new place always makes me think not only of the people I have just left--but all the places I have been before--and all those people--afresh.

Back in the olden days of handwritten letters in the mail box--it seemed I would begin every letter with some version of: "I'm sorry it's been so long, but I have been thinking of you often." or "I've really been meaning to write, but..."

I feel that way now, as I sit down to type. I really have been meaning to write. And I really have been thinking of friends and loved ones in all sorts of places that I used to be. Probably in no small part, because we just moved--but I just haven't been able to let my mind settle in one place long enough to know quite what to say. 

As I mentioned, moving always makes me reflect on other moves. There is a certain brand of nostalgia I associate with moving. I can't help but think of our last move: from Texas to Jinotega, and the drama, change, and growth that it produced. I spent some time looking back through this blog, and thinking about the physical process of packing up, and yard sale-ing, and all the trucks and boxes and work and the generosity of  people who helped. 

abundance     happening so fast     off hand remarks  

There is a phrase you hear a lot here when someone is thanking you, "Dios te lo pagará. God will repay you." I renew my thanks for all of you who helped during that crazy transition and who continue to make this strange new life possible for us. I never can, but God will repay you

I've moved a bunch of times. (more than 30 times, which feels like a bunch) With help, and all alone. But I have never, ever, ever moved in one day.

It was a Tuesday and we were standing with the agents from immigration in our living room, showing them that we in fact had an established household, and really did live here, every doo-dad on its shelf and decoration in place. 

Wednesday morning, I started packing our stuff. Do you see what I am saying? Started. Wednesday at lunch some guys from the mission helped us haul it to our new house. We were done by 2:30. Seriously. The very first thing got packed that morning, and we were all done in time for Jonathan to start building some furniture before it even got dark. That's crazy! And as much as I worry about the contrast between our high standard of living compared with our some of our brothers here, and as much as I bemoan all the stuff we keep accumulating and must manage, I was reminded what a blessing we have received in being liberated from the sheer amount of work that moving has been in the past. One day! Can you imagine?

/new kitchen, unpacked and ready to go. fresh lemons on the counter

no closets? no problem, Jonathan will just whip one up

The following Wednesday, we were throwing our first big house party. We asked all the church members, mission workers, and neighbors to join us for a giant pot of chili and a wash tub full of cabbage slaw. Our new house was blessed by at least 80 friends who came to celebrate with us.

Living in a neighborhood is opening my eyes to Nicaragua again. There are so many new sights and sounds that I feel in many ways like I did when I first moved here two years ago. Waking up to the sing-song call of the milk man pushing his cart down the street each morning, stepping out the door to pick some lemons for dinner, washing clothes in a bucket, and hanging them on the line in the evening while fruit bats circle overhead, listening to the guitar maker across the street tuning up, passing water through the window to thirsty kids running from school. Just a short walk away from the market center where we've been living, but it feels like a whole new country around us. 

Even working at the mission feels different, as I learn to manage time differently, and see new progress in projects that have quietly simmered on a back burner. I've had a much greater focus on time in the vision clinic, on teacher training, and on curricular resources--which has been re-energizing. 

Like each time I have moved, there is a sense of the bittersweet. The excitement of the new is not completely without the shadow of loss. Change of any kind can be disconcerting--and while this move is just across town-- it has coincided with some other difficult changes in the Church and its work. While we are physically in a time of evaluation, ("Where should we keep this frying pan? Do we need more towel hooks?") we as a family of believers in Jinotega are in a time of spiritual evaluation, ("Why did that happen? Is that a good or bad thing? What should our response be?") 

I don't know if moving affects you this way or not. I don't know if it makes you inexplicably pensive. I don't know if it makes you long for contact with old friends, or if mental movies of years past flash behind your eyes when you tape up boxes. I don't know if change in one area of life makes you feel more sensitive to changes that may be needed in other areas. I don't know what types of experiences make your eyes blink and look around as though you've never seen anything before. But that's kind of how it is for me. 

And if I had blue flowered stationary I would say; 

"I have been thinking of you, and I'm sorry that it's been so long, I really have been meaning to write."