On the Road

While traveling through the jungle, we encounter many things.  Some of my favorite things are the various treats Deo finds for us.  The jungle is where we get to experience the freshest fruits of the field.  We always are excited when Deo gets into the bush to grab us our newest snack. 

Deo has picked us some fresh guava a few times.  Apparently there are many different varieties of guavas.  I think we’ve only tried the sweet variety.  The best ones were the ripest ones that we ate and they were actually pink and soft on the inside.  The other ones were not so soft and sweet, but they were still fun to eat. 

Deo’s favorite fruit is jackfruit.  A nice lady we visited cut us some pieces of it.  Jackfruit is a really bizarre fruit.  It is larger than a football, greenish, and has spiny things on it.  It only gets weirder from there.  The inside has yellow fruit segments, filled with these gigantic, bean-looking seeds.  You pull on the yellow fruit part, and it slowly disconnects itself from the rest of the fruit.  It tastes vaguely reminds me of a banana, a real slimy banana.  The general consensus was not favorable for the jackfruit.  I think it has potential, and Deo said that the one we tried was a bit overripe. 

A familiar fruit we got to try fresh was a pomegranate.  It was definitely not fully ripe, the seeds were somewhere between pink and white.  They were a nice treat to snack on while we walked around to different businesses.

I also got to try passion fruit.  One of the people who have a loan has a passion fruit business, and luckily for us, there was one that was semi-ripe.  It is green and purple-ish if it is ripe.  You crack it open, and there are some orange-yellow seed things, like of like a pomegranate, but more gooey.  They are a bit tart, but very delicious. 

Many times on the road, we have seen small children gnawing on sugar cane.  The other day, Deo snagged us some.  He expertly peeled and chopped the sugar cane into edible pieces.  I ate so much.  It’s real nice, because you don’t really eat it, you just bite it and suck all of the sugary juice out, then spit out the rind.  I love it.

The best thing we ever tried on the road were these delicious little pancakes that one of our loan recipients makes for her business.  They are made out of the sweet bananas, which are littler than normal bananas.  They are sweet little cakes that are absolutely delicious.  I always ask Deo if we are near her shop, because I want to buy more and eat them. 

I look forward to trying more food on the road.