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| "Chandelier" made from mangoes - they were so creative! :) |
Guimaras mangoes.... the best in the whole world!!
We first tasted Guimaras mangoes in November-December of 2010, when we were here the first time in the Philippines. I had never been too crazy about mangoes, but these really were so sweet and I just loved them! Guimaras is a small island about 15 minutes by boat ride from Iloilo.
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| On the boat to Guimaras |
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| The sign at the dock |
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| Mangoes! |
We were told about the mango festival which happens once a year in April and how people from all over come to the island, pay a small fee and eat all the mangoes they can. There is a competition to see how many mangoes people can eat and the winner for the past 3 years in an Adventist student from Mountain View College in Mindanao. He ate 14 kilos (about 30 pounds) of mangoes in one day! Of course, we were impressed with the stories, but soon forgot about it.
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| More students enjoying mangoes! |
This time, since we were here in April, I wondered if we would be able to go to the mango festival or what it might be like. We asked lots of questions about it and discovered that it would happen on April 23, 2012.
After some consideration, we told our students that if they got all their homework done (we were almost at the end of PAFCOE), we would take them to the mango festival. That provided some amazing motivation and they all started working really hard to finish on time!
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| Niegel and Zenia - the 2 PAFCOE kids |
Some had not managed their time well earlier, so it was impossible to get everything done in time, but about 5 students (out of the 25) finally finished and we all went together to Guimaras Island. We took the 15 minute ferry across the channel and landed on the island. Then we had a 20 minute jeepney ride and at last arrived at the place.
There were mangoes, mangoes and more mangoes! I had never seen so many before! We walked around, just looking at all the mangoes for awhile and then went to eat them. We paid around $1.50 and were allowed to eat all the mangoes we could hold. We hadn't had breakfast and so made our whole meal from mangoes. I couldn't hold very many and Michael, Dad and I could only eat 2 kilos (about 5 pounds) of mangoes - this amounted to 6 big mangoes a piece. The students did about the same - more or less, except for the Indonesian man who ate 11 or 12.
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| Our group |
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| My family and students enjoying mangoes! |
It was so fun! I had never eaten so many mangoes! We had a nice time visiting with our students and friends and came home later in the day. It was so enjoyable!
It made me look forward to the day when we can eat the fruit of the tree of life and how delicious that will be -
even better than Guimaras mangoes!
