FIVE HOURS EAST

On Apples and Adjustment

Brenda Hartman-Souder

I just impulsively crunched down an apple. I almost never do this. But I can tell you it tastes EXACTLY the same as every other pale-green, exported-from-South-Africa apple here.

When eaten soon after bought at about 45 cents each, they are crisp, fairly sweet, and firm in texture. But they lack any significant, variety-confirming taste. They’re grown for import. Our early delight at discovering apples here in Nigeria quickly turned to disappointment that these apples were, despite their expense, so ordinary.

Some of the oranges here are out of this world, their peel a deep lime-green. I carefully weigh each one in my hand and select heavy ones bursting with juice. They each cost about seven cents. Slicing them open reveals bright orange and juicy flesh, sweet and refreshing, reminiscent of the naval oranges flown into Syracuse from California during the winter but free of dyes and fresh off the trees.

The apple’s peel is slightly more green than a Yellow Delicious green. When bought by a reputable vendor, they’re bruise- and worm-free—boring, safe apple with the imperfections bred right out of them.

Where are the Lodi and Early Transparent? The Paula Reds, Crispins, Cortlands, Macintoshes, Empires? Where are the Galas, the Jonathons, the Jonagolds and the Gala Golds? The Pippins? The Red and Yellow Delicious? Where are the Granny Smith? Braeburns? Fuji? Northern Spy and Spy Gold?

I know, I know, these varieties need a cold winter. We should be grateful for what we can get—carefully crated, kept cool, flown-in apples.

Guavas are beginning to grow on the kids. Greg likes the sauce, cooked and strained like applesauce. Val will pop an entire peeled half in her mouth. The yellow, bumpy skin, when bruised or cut, is reminiscent of cloves. The pink-peach centers are full of seeds, but this fruit is addictive—grainy, almost sweet, mysterious.

I rarely eat apples here—they’re too expensive. We buy enough so the kids can have one each at bedtime. Upon arrival, the green apples immediately became a bridge between the world we’d just left and the one we landed in. A bedtime apple in Syracuse, a bedtime apple in Jos.

The fruit of the papaya ranges from pale gold to bright, bold orange, the texture a little like cantaloupe. They are stood up on end in the market stalls and fruit vendors can tell us which day they’ll be ready to cut. We follow their instructions, then pick up the firm slices with our fingers and chow down.

Once we bought a bunch of the small green apples here and they all tasted like moth balls. (No, I’ve never actually tasted a moth ball.) Val took one bite and traded in her apples for banana slices.

Bananas are grown abundantly and are as predictable here as they are in any western supermarket, except that Mama Ayaba (Hausa for banana) used to bring them right to our office, the round tray carefully balanced atop her head. She had to give up the business because traveling to the wholesalers’ part of town was getting dangerous and expensive with continued interreligious violence. Bananas are basic, except for the petite fingerling that hides hints of vanilla and flowers I can’t name.

Small green apple. Not good for stewing, cooking, baking. Only good for stretching memories and holding onto rituals and maybe a little fiber thrown in as well.

Pineapples can be dicey—you never know if you’ve bought a good one or not. But if you have, you thank your lucky selection and eagerly cut the dripping, sticky sweet fruit into chunks that are often snitched before supper. At half the cost, they surpass even the Dole Gold variety back home.

Green, small, antiseptic apple. If I live here yearning for New York apples, the taste in my mouth will always be bitter. Fullness of life in the present cannot be bought with imports from the past.

The coming of the mango is cause for celebration. By late March, they arrive in the market from warmer parts of Nigeria —a small, moderately sweet variety, but eagerly welcomed. Then Mercy, my favorite fruit vendor, starts to sell the "pineapple" or Peter mango from Benue State. They are huge, the size of a small cantaloupe, and when perfectly ripe their taste is unrivaled—an exotic, intoxicating blend of pineapple, coconut, and mango all in one fruit, a piña colada that needs no rum.

By April, Jos mangoes are ripe and luscious, the trees as common and their fruit as prolific as the apples we used to anticipate each autumn. I discovered that a former resident had, along with numerous orange, grapefruit, lemon, and avocado trees, planted a pineapple mango tree in our front yard. To win the annual competition with the birds, we pluck early and allow them ripen on the kitchen sill. The kids squabble over who gets the most and slurp the juice at the bottom of the bowl.

Did you know that green mangoes make a great apple pie or crisp? That guava sauce goes perfectly with pork? That papaya can be diced and mixed with hot Scotch bonnet peppers, onions, lime juice, salt and basil for a sensuous salsa? And let me add that all this fruit, often growing freely in neighborhoods and fields, supplements and adds vitamins and nourishment to a sometimes meager diet for many Nigerians.

The fruits of Nigeria beckon us from countless road side stands. A dose of familiar comfort food at bedtime continues; we can’t entirely pass up those green apples on their perfect pyramids at the fruit vendors. But grounded by old rituals, we now partake and are nourished by new flavors, by the diversity, taste and texture of the juicy, sweet, succulent fruits of Nigeria.

—Brenda Hartman-Souder, Jos, Nigeria, serves as co-representative of Mennonite Central Committee Nigeria and, along with spouse Mark, as parent of Valerie and Greg.