For the Love of Guacamole

We love avocados!  On salads, in sandwiches, over eggs, in guacamole, even plain.  We frequently ate avocados at home and were excited to find them for a short season in Kathmandu.  But with our move to Tansen, where such precious food items are more scarce, we figured we were giving up on the soft, sweet taste of a good avocado.  And then, a few months ago, these appeared on one of the trees on the hospital compound:

 

 Beautiful, baby avocados!  Then came the waiting, watching them grow with anticipation.  Several of them disappeared early on during the monsoon rains, making me nervous that they would all disappear, but several hung on and continued to grow.  They finally got large but were still quite hard, so I waited some more.  But just when I figured they should be ripe, they were disappearing, and fast!  Finally one of the long-term doctors here told me that you have to pick them unripe and allow them to ripen in your home.

As soon as I had free time, Tim and I went scurrying down to the tree to gather some precious avocados.  Our chowkidar loaned us his fruit-picking stick, which has a handy Y-shape at the end to pry the fruit free.

Jack was very helpful.  Patients hanging out in the sun nearby were keen to watch us bedeshis (foreigners) trying to pick this fruit that they don't eat.

Then came some more waiting.

Then came the feast!

They weren't as good as California Haas avocados--easily the best tasting avocados in the world--but they certainly spruced up our taco night!  Now we must wait another year to enjoy the goodness of avocados.