The Earth

Seeking and harvesting wild and cultivated (long escaped) Ginger in the earth of Toledo District, Belize, Central America. Along the fencerows of Oxlaju Inn grow, in wetter times, Yellow, White, Red and Torch Gingers. The yellow I seek for spicing and seasoning.
Soils here are of a completely different substance than elsewhere I have lived. The top soil has a square-ish dice like texture when dry, and when wet, allows the rains to just pass through unencumbered. Some days in the rainy season, (this is true Rain Forest) rains exceed twenty inches overnight. Morning comes, and on this place not even a puddle remains as witness.
Beneath the surface are two layers of clay. The first, red or Yellow, looks like the clay in all the world, but if shoveled out onto a bank it falls into those same square pieces, like spilling a Yahtzee cup.
Farther down the clay is a gray and heavy subsoil, with just the same difference as the yellow. Internal consistency, internal fortitude, forces it into dice like pieces moments after removed from the excavation.
There is a small city on this land, buried beneath the newest top soils and decaying trees. A Mayan site on the tail of the acreage here. Finding it while searching the gingers out. At least four large buildings of stone wait for a shovel and time to see the sun again.

Vanity, Shear * Vanity.

Rapunzel Rapunzel you half hearted fool
could have let yourself out with the use of a tool,




Even this tree when naught was available, climbed itself from a dark place.
A pair of Shears * (I suppose it was a pun) could have cut your stay short.

Fruits of Belize

Malay Apple.

The ripe fruit is eaten raw though many people consider it insipid. It is best stewed with cloves or other flavoring and served with cream as dessert. Asiatic people in Guyana stew the peeled fruit, cooking the skin separately to make a syrup which they add to the cooked fruit. Malayan people may add the petals of the red-flowered hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L.) to make the product more colorful. Malay apples are often cooked with acid fruits to the benefit of both. They are sometimes made into sauce or preserves. The slightly unripe fruits are used for making jelly and pickles..

In Puerto Rico, both red and white table wines are made from the Malay apple. The fruits are picked as soon as they are fully colored (not allowed to fall) and immediately dipped in boiling water for one minute to destroy surface bacteria and fungi. The seeds are removed and, for red wine, the fruits are passed through a meat grinder and the resulting juice and pulp weighed. To this material, they add twice the amount of water and 1 1/2 lbs (680 g) of white sugar per gallon, and pour into sterilized barrels with the mouth covered soon with cheesecloth. Yeast is added and a coil inserted to maintain circulation of the water. The barrels are kept in the coolest place possible for 6 months to 1 year, then the wine is filtered. It will be of a pale-rose color so artificial color is added to give it a rich-red hue. In making white wine, the fruits are peeled, the only liquid is the fruit juice, and less sugar is used, only 1 1/4 lbs (565 g) per gallon, so as to limit alcohol formation over a fermenting period of 3 to 6 months.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/malay_apple.html

In Malaya there are many local names including jambu merah, jambu bar, jambu bol, jambu melaka, jambu kling and jambu kapal. In Thailand, it is chom-phu-sa-raek or chom-phu-daeng; in Cambodia, chompuh kraham; in Vietnam, man hurong tau; in Indonesia, darsana, jambu tersana, or djamboo bol; in the Philippines, makopang-kalabau or tersana; in Guam, makupa; in Tahiti, ahia; in Hawaii, ohia. In the French language it is jambosier rouge, poire de Malaque, pomme Malac (corrupted to pomerac), pomme de Malaisie, and pomme de Tahiti. Among Spanish names are: pomarosa, or pomarrosa, Malaya (Puerto Rico); manzana (Costa Rica), marañon japonés (EI Salvador), pomarosa de Malaca (Colombia); pera de agua or pomagás (Venezuela); and marañon de Curacao (Panama), though the somewhat similar plant in Curacao is S. samarangense Merr. & Perry, locally called cashu di Surinam, in Papiamento, Curacaose appel, in Dutch.

bark has been much used in local remedies. It is pounded together with salt, the crushed material is strained through coconut husk fiber, and the juice poured into a deep cut. "The patient must exercise absolute self-control as the liquid bums its way into the flesh and nerves."

In the Molucca, or Spice, Islands, a decoction of the bark is used to treat thrush. Malayans apply a powder of the dried leaves on a cracked tongue. A preparation of the root is a remedy for itching. The root acts as a diuretic and is given to alleviate edema. The root bark is useful against dysentery, also serves as an emmenagogue and abortifacient. Cambodians take a decoction of the fruit, leaves or seeds as a febrifuge. The juice of crushed leaves is applied as a skin lotion and is added to baths. In Brazil, various parts of the plant are used as remedies for constipation, diabetes, coughs, pulmonary catarrh, headache and other ailments. Seeded fruits, seeds, bark and leaves have shown antibiotic activity and have some effect on blood pressure and respiration.