mango season.

When we live somewhere long enough to notices changes in our environment, such as seasons turning or children growing, we begin to feel a sense of belonging, an attachment to the place as it becomes our home.

Consequently, I remember waiting with great trepidation for my first spring in Missoula, Montana, a place where the winter sky hangs like a soggy wool coat over town for about six months. Every morning throughout that long month of April, I would anxiously study the gray branches of the bushes outside my house, hoping to catch the first bud springing forth to offer the promise of summer. One mild evening, walking to dance class, I spied the tiniest tender green bud, barely emerging from a branch! It was then- and only then- that I began to feel an attachment to that beautiful mountain town.

Similarly, I could only fully appreciate the desert around Tucson, Arizona after waiting alongside the Saguaro cactus and Palo Verde tree for eight months until those awesome, dark monsoon clouds came, bringing rain and color to the barren landscape.

Here in Madagascar, mango season has finally arrived, and that means I have come to witness a new season and experience a newfound sense of place.

It also means devouring those fresh, succulent fruits, sometimes up to four or five, per day. Why not? The trees are heavy with hundreds of them, so much so that they fall from their branches day and night. In turn, this leads to me needing to floss four or five times a day. If you are trying to get your kids to floss more, simply feed them mangoes. I don't know why every dentist visit doesn't end with them handing you a mango as you leave the reception area. People in Madagascar don't have much floss (or teeth), so they just use twigs or little pieces of whatever is laying around to pick out the mango bits.

There is a place I like to walk to outside of my village around sunset. The forest consists only of dark, full-leafed mango and tall coconut trees, and is surrounded by prickly pear cactus. It is an aberrant cross between some of my favorite parts of Australia and Arizona combined. I have taken to retreating to this place every night around five to watch golden sunsets. And the cows. It seems they too love this part of the forest, maybe more than me.

During this season, it is quite the sight to see cows waiting patiently under trees for fruits to drop. They stand around chewing their cud until a ripe mango falls with a thud on the forest floor. Whichever cow is close by will saunter over to find his or her new favorite snack. Have you ever seen a cow eat a mango? It is wildly entertaining. (Okay, maybe I have been living in a village a little too long.) Their tongues go sloshing in and out of their mouths as they manipulate the hard-to-eat fruit, closing their eyes blissfully. Every time I see this sight, I wonder how delicious a hamburger might taste from a cow that's spent it's entire life eating organic mangoes and grasses. This is an unusual thought for an ex-vegetarian of twelve years.

When you travel around Madagascar during mango season, each roadside village is lined with little stands loaded with mangoes for sale. Women and children collect them and then sell them for 100 Ariary a piece (about 5 cents). I like to think we could do this in America too... just wander off into forest or field and sell whatever we can collect that grows wildly and organically. Sometimes living in Madagascar feels like I'm in a summer camp from my childhood: full of possibilities and makeshift dreams.

I recently found out there are six types of mangoes that grow in Madagascar, and I am allergic to one of them, though I know not which. I kept getting the itchiest rash on my belly until one day I had to practically force myself to stop eating mangoes, to see if the rash cleared up. This is harder to do than you might imagine; everyone loves to give me mangoes just because. Plus, now that mango season is here, mango salad and mango slaw and mango chutney are a part of my every meal. Sure enough, when I stopped eating the littler, more tangy mangoes, the itching went away. I have one friend in America who is deathly allergic to mangoes; I am glad that I am not, because life here would not taste nearly as good.