Growing up, we had a beautiful garden that my mom kept nicely manicured. All the vegetables grew in rows with tags to show what each row was.
Our community garden does not look like this at all. It has a crooked path down the middle where the kids walk to our back door; it has laundry hanging on the fence and soaking by the water spigot. There are weeds everywhere.
But it continues to grow! We currently have lemongrass, eggplants, bananas, moringa, papaya, red sorrel, and a new mango tree! And those are just the things we know of–the neighbors come to gather some things that I have no idea what they are.
Last week some new fruit showed up a tree, which the kids are always watching for. Yuh Meh Oo and Yedi came running to tell us when we got home. They pointed it out, but we weren’t sure what it was at this young stage. It looked like a small lime, so Stephen looked up a photo on his phone. They shook their heads no and started talking up a smattering of Burmese between each other.
Then Yuh Meh Oo turns to me and says, “G…”
A few moments go by.
“G-U…G-U-A! Kelli, G-U-A?”
“Oh! Guava? G-U-A-V-A, guava?”
We showed them a picture again. They beamed at the success of communication. And I guess we have guava on the way, too!
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