it's raining avocados

I love Mexican food. There is no doubt that this is the thing I miss the most when living outside of America. I don't just mean when I'm in Africa. Even in Paris I couldn't find something as simple as hot salsa. What they call salsa is actually tomato sauce.

I do my best to satisfy my cravings by making what I call queso (I'd rather not tell you the recipe—unless, of course, your pity inspires you to send me packages of hot pace picante salsa and meltable cheese). Now that I have an oven, I can also bake my tortillas into some kind of chip. Not the same as regular tortilla chips, but they crunch and they scoop queso and I'm happy.

When I lived in Madagascar before, once I year I would supplement this self-Mexican-medication with guacamole. For a brief period of time, avocados were in season. A certain merchant would get them, and he'd call out to me during my daily market trip—and I would promptly purchase every single avocado he had, which usually meant 4 at most. And then I'd have a few glorious meals of guacamole. Every bite was heaven. This was no fake queso. This was the real thing. Better than most Americans eat. For a few days every year, I had my moment in Mexican sunshine.

I'm about 5 months into my second tour of the island, and needless to say, the Mexican cravings are strong. Here is the general schedule: First 2 weeks fine—you haven't realized yet what you've given up. Weeks 3-7 so so much pain—you never knew you could dream about tacos or that they would feel slightly like nightmares. Weeks 8-10 fine—you appreciate where you are and you know you'll be eating free chips and salsa while waiting for your meal in no time. And then weeks 11 until the end are depressing. You know you love Mexican. You know you can't have Mexican. Even the last handful of weeks are hard—you are so close yet still a half a world away.

Note: If during the course of this reading you at any moment pity me or decide to eat Mexican some time soon—please feel free to send me something as simple as Taco Bell hot sauce packets (I mean, they're free, right?). It's the little things that count. I'm told to just make sure to package them in such a way that if one bursts open the rest don't get messy. No, scratch that—I'm not that picky. A little pre-cleaning will only prolong my possession of those little spicy packets.

As I was saying, I've reached the point where Mexican is among the top ten things I think about every day.

And then it hits me. The avocados. They have arrived.

I heard rumors while I was still in Senegal (oh sorry—I'll explain that some other time). But I played it down, not wanting to get my hopes up. And then our first weekend back in Fianarantsoa, we walked to the market.

And there. Row. After row. Pile. After pile. Avocados. Everywhere.

I guess I always knew that a city like Fianarantsoa—large, near the rainy East Coast, the whole shebang--receives a larger variety and larger amounts of food. In Mahabo (my village on the West Coast near Morondava), I had rice, tomatoes, onions, bananas. I'm exaggerating, yes, but only slightly. I left out potatoes and mangoes. My apologies. Oh and beans. Dried beans. But in Fianar? In less than 5 months I've encountered so much more than I did in my 2 years before! Endless pineapples. Passion fruit. Litchis. Pumpkin. Grapes. Apples. Oranges. Green tomatoes. Random things I don't recognize. It's unreal. We eat so well here! Sure, we'd get a token handful over on the hot and dry West Coast. But usually in Morondava, not Mahabo. And usually expensive and already half rotten from the travel. So I've known and appreciated that my taste buds will be infinitely more satisfied now than the first time around.

But I never imagined the impact it would have on avocados. If anything, I was just crossing my fingers I'd get as many as I did before. But seriously—my old tactic of just-buy-them-all could never work in a million years here. I couldn't afford it—and I'd need a semi to transport them.

I can't think of a better scenario—cheap and giant avocados (10 to 20 cents each, depending on size) and an unlimited supply. I can literally eat guacamole until I burst. It's incredible. If I don't appreciate this experience to the maximum, shame on me—I don't deserve Mexico or her cuisine. So I will count my days in avocados and be grateful for every one.

Do I still miss queso? Obviously. Do I continue dreaming of tacos? Absolutely.

But my abundance of avocados makes the wait a little bit easier.