May is for Mangoes

This is the end of Mango Month. 

We've harvested mountains of mangoes since April and it's been wonderful. We've had them in smoothies, juice, popsicles, mango crisp, even fruit leather (think fruit roll up!) It's a fun season that we can share from our bounty with our neighbors. We even take them in buckets to Sunday service so people can take them home after church.

Today reminded me that mango season can also be very dangerous. Many many children get injured and have even died falling from the trees while climbing high up to pick the perfect mango. This morning I was over visiting a friend when we heard something heavy hit the ground nearby. We heard shouting and a teenage girl was saying a boy's name over and over like she was trying to wake him up. I rushed over and discovered that not only had this 7 year old boy fallen from high in the tree, but he'd had a whole mango, seed and all in his mouth when he fell and it had lodged in his throat so he couldn't breathe. Y'all in those moments adrenaline kicks in and somehow your mind can think even when you're panicking. I flipped him to his front and worked for a while and finally got the mango out to where he was breathing again. Then I called Eli and asked him to come quickly with the car; there was an emergency. Eli arrived and we sped off to the hospital with his older sister and other siblings in tow. Thankfully the doctors didn't find any broken bones, blood or even head trauma. They gave him a very firm talking to about not climbing trees anymore and we were able to take him straight home. The most dangerous part of this story was the mango almost choking him.

I'm not really sure why I'm sharing this story. Maybe as a way of processing the intensity of the experience for me and that awful feeling of being the one responsible to save his life. But it also shows that here in Uganda, we NEVER know what crazy thing is going to come up in our day. Never!