The Philippine Mango - and the Stories it Has Witnessed

Or... just mangoes in general. I freaking love mangoes. Can't you tell? 🥭🇵🇭

Since I came back to my home country, the beautiful Philippines, there hasn’t been a day where I’ve sat with myself and thought “Huh… What a boring day.”

Similarly, there hasn’t been an article since coming here that I wrote which didn’t include my PSA that I came back home to the Philippines. So now, to annoy you further, I will try to insert that phrase as much as I can. This is a social experiment, to see how long you’ll stay reading my blogs 😈

And since coming back to the Philippines (BAHAHAHA 🤣) there’s been one constant companion that has followed me around every waking moment of my sunny tropical days. And no, it’s not stray cats. That may or may not be another blog post. Because since coming back to the Philippines, stray cats have been so friendly. To the point where my family has now been blessed by the Cat Distribution System by our third cat. We call her Nemo, because she was born with only half a tail. I also call her Lucky Girl. But before I get carried away - yes. My constant companion:

Mangoes.

mmm succulent mangoes 🤤

I’ve craved mangoes everyday since coming back to the Phi — okay you know what, I don’t think I can do it 🤣

I’ve craved it so much that I thought I was pregnant. I craved it so much, even my husband started getting sympathy cravings.

I would get it in any form - fresh mango, unripe mango, dried mango, mango in a smoothie, mango boba, mango dessert. If I could get it in a perfume bottle I would. Getting baptized in mango juice wouldn’t be beneath me, and it wouldn’t even matter what religion I’d end up in.

I never realized how much I loved mangoes until I flew back here (see? I have self control 😈). Because back in Calgary, mangoes were always a hit or miss. But in the Philippines, where mango is its official national fruit, the mango always slaps.

But why? Why this obsession with mangoes?

It’s not just flavor. Though yes, it tastes like sunshine got jealous of honey and decided to one-up it.

It’s temptation. Mango is temptation. It is biblical, and ancient. The kind of fruit that convinces you to open forbidden doors. It doesn’t wait for you to pick it politely from the tree. No. It falls. Loudly. At 2AM. And you think, surely no one is outside. But something is. Something always is.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s stay in the soft part of the mango for now. The warm, bright part. The reason why I feel a magnetic pull to it every day, as if my cells remember something I don’t. Because this craving doesn’t feel new. It feels inherited. Like a birthright. Like the mango itself is calling me home.

And it should. Mango is embedded into the very soul of the Philippines. Long before it became the national fruit, it was a living, breathing witness to the evolution of the islands. Before colonizers drew their names in blood on our soil. Before the roads. Before Wi-Fi. There were mango trees. Old, bent, stubborn, and… Watching.

Some of the oldest mango trees in the country are in Zambales and Guimaras. Over 200 years old. Which means some of them have seen wars. Famine. Burials done in secret. Children who never came home. Lovers who did.

Can you imagine the stories trapped in their roots? The things they’ve absorbed? The ghosts they don’t speak of?

Because mango trees don’t scream. They drop fruit.

Sometimes in the middle of the night.

Sometimes when you’re alone.

And sometimes, the fruit rolls just a little too far. As if it wants you to follow.

Anyway…

I wrote a story about that feeling. About a mango tree that knows too much, and is waiting to tell anyone the horrors it has witnessed alone in the dark. About a city where people say there are no ghosts. But we know better.

Click here to read There Are No Ghosts in the City. Let the mango tree show you.

And guess what? This story used to be for paid subscribers only. But I made it free. For you. For anyone who’s ever looked at a mango and thought, you’re hiding something, aren’t you?

🥭

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P.S. If you read through the short creepy story and came back here just to cuss at me and my mangoes, consider subscribing instead! 👻

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Still not convinced?

This took 4 hours, 2 existential crises, and one very dehydrated writer. If you liked it, support me by getting me something to drink. Swamp water has a weird aftertaste. Don’t ask me how I know. I heard Aquafina tastes slightly sweeter?