Gone Batty

Some weeks ago, when Sam visited Okinawa, and joined Kerri and I on a tour of the place, we went to Okinawa World. Part of the tour included a walk through a tropical garden of sorts. It was mainly a collection of fruit-bearing trees (there's got to be a term for this, right?) laid out for a nice walk after the underground cave exhibit. I took note of a few of the trees, mainly because of the distinct shape of the fruits.

A few days ago at school, someone brought a plate into the teachers' room and implored us all to have a bite of the fruit that it bore. I asked what it was. "gu-ah-ba," the person replied. Ah, so that's explains the bat living in my tree.

And so, I have discovered that I have a treasure in my back yard.

I got home today, and with the typhoon-influenced winds pushing hard through my village, a fruit from the tree right outside my door had fallen to the ground. I went to pick it up, took a look at it, gave it a whiff, and sure enough, it's "gu-ah-ba." Guava. I have a guava tree in my yard. I am super-excited!

Why? Well, not only is it a little awesomeness of the rural lifestyle that I've come to inhabit, but it's also a sign that good things can be grown in this yard of mine. I started a compost pile some months back, but the complete lack of rain has made things very hard and compact lately. And the tree I started to eliminate, in just a few weeks time, has made a startling comeback (though a friend recommended cutting it all down, drilling into the stump, and pouring gasoline into the hole; not sure if I want to try lighting it, too, for fun's sake). So I've got a lot of work ahead of me if I want to actually turn this yard into a decent place to grow things. Right now, the wild grass and weeds are owning it.

But think of the possibilities! I'm going to take a few of the less fortunate fruits, the ones rotting on the concrete nearby, for example, and try to plant them in a place where they'll prosper. So while I'll have to settle for one guava tree, who knows what my predecessors to be will have in store for them.

And just to reassure you, these guava taste really good.