Harvesting Mangos

I thought that I should share how my people harvest the mangos that the gods are so kind to bless us with. I shall begin with a little about the mangos themselves.

The people of my village have, for generations, grown the humble "Alphonso" mango. This variety grows only at the very tops of the Chanini trees which can often grow as tall as Rosie O' Donnell is wide. Many a brave soul has perished trying to reach for these mangos. But we must keep to tradition! And also Alphonso mangos taste very good! And they are nutritious! And have a 6% alcohol content! And so, we continue to harvest the mangos despite the dangers, for the sake of the clan, for the sake of our faith, and for the sake of getting drunk off of fresh fruit.

Our day begins long before the sun rises for its slumber, when we get up off of our clay mattresses and begin the long voyage to the mango farms which lie 60 horse intestines away. The journey is dangerous with many obstacles along the way which test a man's ability to survive; rocks that are very pointy; bugs which give you big boo boos when they bite you; and mud that is gross and slimy. But we survive and continue to survive for we are the strongest clan!

At the farms, we separate into our groups of three. Each man performs his own job. The first, called the monkitakashiti, places the sharp blades of god rock on his feet and climbs up the trees, dropping the mangos down, one by one, using a long stick to knock them off of the sturdy branches. The second man, called the nachinilikai, catches the mangos in a basket that is padded, carefully weaved from the hair of the horny monkey. And the third person...with the most important job of all...he has a very special name indeed. He is known as the "scapegoat". If anything at all goes wrong, the climber falls, the mangos are rotten, the monkey hair basket tears, if anything goes wrong at all, we simply blame the scapegoat. This is very important. Scapegoats are in short supply, but are the very body and soul of the harvest itself.

After the day's work is done, we load the carts with the mangos which we have collected and slowly begin the journey back home to wives which will scold us, children who will neglect us, and the drunk hobos that will kick us in the balls.

My people have lived in this way for many moons. Forgive me, as I have left some details of the harvest out. I would have to sing the song of the mango to do include everything. Perhaps at a later time, when I figure out how to put the moving pictures on the mighty blugger machine. I must depart at this time to pray to the mighty Mangore. The mango lord sees all!