Sweet and Sour

Tonight, I experienced something completely amazing.

It’s called “Sweet and Sour,” and it’s allegedly a type of apple. This African fruit looks, however, absolutely nothing like an apple. It is bigger than an apple, probably about twice the size, and it doesn’t really have a shape, like a roundish beanbag that someone has recently sat on. It is green, slightly lighter than an avocado but much darker than any apple I’ve ever seen. It is covered on the outside with soft, curved, matching-green spikes.

Sister Dorothy had cut off a slice of the fruit and invited me to do the same, so I carefully cut a slice the size of an egg and it collapsed/flopped onto my plate. Inside, the fruit is an off-white color. I don’t know how to describe the texture. It is softer than a pineapple. The inside is almost wispy, I guess. The center of the fruit is slightly firmer, but still melts in your mouth. The seeds hide inside the wispy part of the fruit like a child wrapping herself up in sheer curtains during a game of hide and seek. The seeds are a similar shape to an apple’s seeds, but much, much bigger, darker, and smoother. I’ve never seen anything like it... but the taste!

Oh, the taste! I don’t think it is possible to describe the taste. The first two seconds the fruit was in my mouth, it tasted familiar, but before I could figure out which fruit it reminded me of, the taste changed completely. With each bite, the tasted changed! And after the first two seconds, the changed taste was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I laughed out loud with delight at the amazing, magical fruit in my mouth. Then I bit into the center of the fruit, and the taste changed drastically. It was so surprising that my eyes widened and Sister Juliana asked me if I had bitten into the center. I nodded, and when I swallowed, I couldn’t stop talking about how amazed I was by how the fruit changed in my mouth. “That’s why they call it sweet and sour,” Juliana explained.

It was such an incredible experience that I had to write about it. I haven’t had time to write lately because I’ve been SO very busy. My room is a complete mess and I have no clean clothes because I haven’t had time to clean or do laundry. On Friday, some inspectors are coming to grade the school, so I’ll spend the rest of the week getting ready for that and for the PTA meeting on Saturday! Hopefully once I get caught up on all the marking and lesson notes and everything I need to do I’ll have more time to enjoy life.