My Banana Tree and Lillianne’s Pink Pommelo Tree

I like to grow fruit trees, so the first thing I did when I moved into the house in Pointe Noire was to plant a banana tree.  Our house overlooks the ocean so there is a limit to what we can plant. I know that we will be in that house only for 4 years, so I am not too sure if we would ever have  a chance to eat the bananas from that tree or not. But I planted it anyway. I also planted other fruit trees and we got to harvest the passion fruit and sugarcane right away. The banana tree grew very slowly because it got hit constantly by the salty breeze from the sea, but it grew nevertheless and I never felt the need to transplant it somewhere else.

The last day of my stay in Pointe Noire after I packed the house completely and said good bye to everyone, I went for a walk in the garden to say good bye to my garden. And to my surprise, I saw the first banana bunches of this garden. I knew that it was not for me. It will still need to stay on the tree for at least a few more weeks before it can be eaten and I will not cut it even though the gardener told me that he can cut it the next day so I can take it to Brazzaville. Better leave it for the next occupant of the house as a welcome gift from the garden, I told the gardener.

Then we moved to Brazzaville, the capital city of the republic of Congo on the bank of the mighty Congo river. I can grow anything I want here. I am not limited by the proximity of the sea like in Pointe Noire. Our house search in this city is quite an ordeal (read Looking for Home). I almost had a nervous breakdown and needed the help of the company psychiatric emergency hotline when we lost one hard-to-find-decent-house to someone else because we were too late in responding with a written contract.

When I visited my friend Lillianne at her house in Brazzaville, the first thing I saw walking in through the gate was a big pommelo tree overflowing with plump, heavy fruit. The huge pomelos hanging from each branch are so abundant and heavy that they need to use sturdy wooden poles to support each branch. Lillianne offered me some pommelos from the tree and I swear I ‘d never had any pommelo as sweet and juicy with no trace of bitterness like most pink pommelo has.

But this particular pommelo in front of Lillianne’s house is a special tree. She told me that the first time it gave fruit, there were only three pommelos. She picked all three and brought them into the kitchen.  After she cut them and tried to eat them she found out that she picked them too early and that all were dry, hard and pale like ones we usually see from the market.

So she took all the fruit back outside and told the tree that she was sorry that she didn’t know not to pick the fruit too early and also to not take them all at the same time.  With respect, she offered the fruit back to the tree by burying it in the earth under the tree and also asked the tree to let her know when can she pick the fruit and next time she will respectfully follow the indication.

Within 6 months the pommelo tree produced countless fruit on each branch. Not only were the fruit perfect and juicy, but also the ones that were ready to be picked always hang down to eye-level, and ones that are not ready always stay a little higher than adult reach. So she always knows which ones she can pick. I love looking and greeting the old pink pommelo tree in front of Lillianne’s house each time I go see her.

Now it looks like with Lillianne’s help, I am going to get a newly built house across the street from my husband’s office which miraculously has just become available. Timing is everything and I hope my husband will react quickly to do all the paper work to get it. One thing that makes me feel almost sure that this will be our house is that when I walked to the front yard, I saw two mature banana trees overflowing with banana in full bloom. Somehow I wonder if this can be classified as the saying, ‘ What’s goes around comes around’.

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