Picking COCONUTS!!!!

So I was laying by the pool Friday afternoon when all of a sudden I hear this huge CRACK!!!! I jumped and looked around to see that a coconut, yes a coconut, had fallen from the coconut tree above the pool and splashed in about five feet from me. Now, imagine if I had been in the pool where that coconut had fallen...I would have been killed! Or at least knocked unconscious! So I am thinking that I may wear a helmet from now on when walking around Jamaica (Tim Rich's wonderful advice) I wonder how many injuries are caused by blunt force to the head from a falling coconut.....geez, this country sure is dangerous.

Well anyway, here we had this coconut and had no idea how to open it, so we found our dear friend Frank, who has worked at the hotel for at least the past fifty years. He knows everything about this place and we figured, would probably know what to do with this coconut. So we asked. He took the coconut and said "soon come", only to return five minutes later with a machete and a cracked coconut, ready for us to eat.

Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with eating coconuts from a tree, as I am now, I will give you a little lesson. When the coconut is picked from the tree, it has coconut milk in it, which you can drink, and then jelly inside that is delectable when scooped out and shoveled into your mouth. It makes a great little snack when you are hungry and dying of thirst and can usually be bought on the side of the road at a fruit stand for less than an American dollar. That is my favorite coconut and here I am drinking from one:


The one that fell from the tree into our pool was ripe, which meant the center was hard and is usually what we grate up into shaved coconut, but is good to chomp on as well. I told Frank how much I enjoyed the coconut jelly, which then caused him to again reply with "soon come", which meant he was going to climb a coconut tree for me to get me the jelly. Frank is certainly "the man!" Next thing I know, I see Frank, who is by no means a young fella, in a coconut tree, picking me a coconut with the water and jelly. This picture was taken in my "backyard", from my our roof/patio... if that is what you want to call it....haha




My favorite. He sure does take care of us, and we are blessed to know him and have him around. The next thing I knew, we had about six fresh coconuts in front of our house, ready to be drank/eaten or saved in the fridge for a cool snack later. I saved him some of our dinner and gave him some juice to show how grateful we are, because in this country, people show gratitude in food and I love it!

And here is the man himself, Frank, in a picture with Betsy and I with our matching PVI T-shirts! Yea monnnnnn