The Mango Tree, My Gym

There’s a mango tree that sits right outside my front door. It’s large, maybe about 25-30 feet tall, provides great shade for reading a book, and has many branches extending from its peculiarly small trunk. The mango tree has produced fruit for many years now, and this time of year the mangos are ripe for eating. It has become a common occurrence for Michelle and I to hear small thuds when mangos fall from the tree and land on the ground. The ground around the tree is littered with the small, red, yellow, and green fruit. I have come to find that the mango tree has another quality that makes it a great tree – it’s also a gym.

As one can easily understand, living in a small village means that there isn’t a gym nearby where I can work out. (I actually would find it weird if there was a gym). This hasn’t deterred me from getting exercise though. I’ve been able to run and do push-ups and sit-ups. Running is a particularly good workout because most of the roads in our area are sand, which adds an additional element to the run.

Me Hanging from the Tree

One day a couple of weeks ago I had just gotten back from a run. I was walking around the yard in front of my house cooling down. I looked at the mango tree and noticed a branch that was sitting just high enough that it gave me an idea. I walked to the branch, grabbed it with both hands, and picked my feet off the ground. It was just as I had hoped; the branch was high enough to enable me to do pull-ups. I did a set, which felt good and also amazing considering that I hadn’t done a pull-up in a few months (as I rock climber, I was used doing them almost daily). After that, I did some leg raises while hanging from the branch. It was a nice workout overall. Since then, I have discovered a place where I can do dips in between two branches.

When I first moved into my house, I thought the idea of having a mango tree outside my door was cute. It felt exotic, and it fit perfectly into my idea of what it was going to be like to live in another country; something different than I was used to. After a couple of months, I have come to find that the mango tree is more than what originally caught my eye. I also can’t help but smile as I think about the relationship I’m building with a tree. I told Michelle the other day that it would be cool to hang a hammock from two of its branches. I just need to find and/or make one.