GIFTS

I’ve been feasting on them since I got here. Discovering guava has been one of the special treats for me.

We had guava trees at home. The trunk of the most popular fruiting tree at home was very wobbly. The tree would have shouted if it could, it’s fruits were never left to ripen, as we used to climb it after school, to pluck it’s moorish fruits.

Guava is very special, it has a crunchy, pear-like taste. As a child, guava was a treat. Very often, we made do with the unripe fruits because if you did not pluck them someone else (one of my siblings or cousins) would. We convinced ourselves they were full of vitamins therefore it could be eaten at any stage.

I’m not sure what happened, but as we were growing we did not see the tree “bear fruit” ! There were no guava being sold either. Sometimes my Aunt would bring us juicier guava than the ones that grew on our tree. This stopped in my teenage years and guava become a distant thought.

Maybe in the rural areas they had the fruit, but in the capital city where we lived, they had become rare.

Pexel.com- Photo by Any Lane

When I got to Hanoi and discovered guava was one of the common fruits, at this time of the year, I have been feasting on them ever since. I wonder if they have become extinct in Ghana? That should be my next research question.