"Mango Mama And The Big Surprise"

Today the husband declared me the hands-down winner in " The most disgusting thing to endure in India thus far" category (and believe me, he has dealt with such disturbing fecal-based horrors, courtesy of Dumps, that I'm surprised he hasn't yet hightailed it down to the hospital and begged for voluntary sterilisation).

Well this morning, yours truly sliced open a mango by the kitchen sink, and proceeded to slurp and gobble it down with ecstasy. Not the prettiest sight granted, but It was so perfectly ripe, so perfectly juicy, and so utterly delicious that I simply couldn't wait to take it to the table and devour in a more civilised fashion.

I don't know when it hit me exactly, but somewhere near the end of my feasting frenzy, a casual glance down at the plate revealed a confusing bunch of squiggles I couldn't quite get my head round. Paralyzed with disgust I realised I was eating real, live maggots. I wanted to throw up, but instead spent the next five minutes manically rinsing out my mouth over and over again, stopping only for occasion groans of despair, in an effort to elicit sympathy from the husband. I was sure I could feel them slithering about in my mouth.

URGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The husband duly distracted by my carrying on, left his writing desk to check it out. His sick smile said it all. Yep...maggots indeed.

So basically all of last week's diligent hunting for mangoes, and swiping them off trees has been in vain. Gone also is one of my favourite pastimes (eating mangoes), and one of the driving forces behind wanting to be in India (mangoes).

The husband chose this moment to tell me that on the weekend Egg's teacher had mentioned that in her experience, the local mangoes often had maggots in them.

I asked why he had not shared this information at any point - say, while I was shaking down branches and running to grab each falling piece of ripe fruit as it fell.

He shrugged.

Oh well, it ain't me who's going to be kissing a 'maggot mouth' for the next several months.

Serves him right.