Just a quick little aside: we have bananas coming out of our ears. We were reminded of that age-old maxim (or is it a Bible verse?) this week, “Ask and ye shall receive.”Or, in the paraphrased words of Paulo Coelho: “When you desire something with all your heart, all the powers in the universe conspire to help you achieve it.” This week, what Roushy and I desired with all our hearts (besides, of course, the flourishing of activities and growth of the Bahá’í Faith in the Carib Territory) was bananas—known here as “ripe figs.” This totally confused me at first, by the way. I kept thinking, “Where are the figs? I don’t see any figs. Why do they keep talking about figs and pointing to those bananas?” I can be astoundingly slow.
Anyhow, we had a kitchen full of grapefruit, babadeens, fresh ginger, and young coconuts, but nary a ripe fig. They’d been scarce lately, and we really, really wanted a bushel of ‘em. No sooner had we expressed this yearning, than ripe figs nearly began falling from the sky. In the course of one day:
While walking down the Carib Territory road, we noticed that the elderly gentleman they call “Taco” was selling more than just bags of passion fruit at his little roadside stand today: ripe figs! We bought as many as we could carry, and proceeded down the road on our way to a study circle, feasting on figs as we walked. Upon arrival, Mr. Gabriel, with whom we’re studying “Reflections on the Life of the Spirit,” presented us with a beautiful bunch of ripe bananas he’d just retrieved from the jungle. Fortunately, we’d already eaten enough of the figs from Mr. Taco to allow some arm space for this next batch. After dropping off our loot at the house, we headed back out to the river. Ms. Belle, who weaves baskets by the side of the road, ran to meet us as we passed, and tucked three ripe figs into our laundry basket. “To snack on by the riverside,” she said with a grin. Arriving home again in the early evening, our neighbors Titus and Aishema mentioned that their uncle St. John, a friend of ours from St. Cyr, had stopped by for a visit, and had left a gift for us. They handed us a heavy plastic bag, filled with….yup. You guessed it.
Anyone wanna come over for some banana bread?
that’s hilarious! and how awesome that the world around us responds to our innermost longings 😉