At Salapia, by the far right corner of the concrete pad that served as our lunch table/bed, there was a wild fig tree. I had never seen a wild fig tree, and to be honest I don’t think I had even seen a fig before. It’s a rather strange fruit. The first time Andrea went over to the tree and plucked off a green and brown orb that looked sort of like a rotten pomegranate, I was naturally rather skeptical. I was even more skeptical when they opened the fig and the inside looked vaguely like slimy tadpoles mixed with octopus tentacles. The first time this strange fruit was offered to me, I politely declined and watched as many of the others munched blissfully on their weird looking red-orange-ish-pinky fruits. The second time someone offered a fig to me, I underwent an intense internal dialogue that went something along the lines of:

“Um no thank you I refuse to eat something that looks like…like…that.”

“But it’s a fruit, and you really haven’t found a fruit you truly don’t like.”

“But…look at it.”

“Goodness gracious Casey you eat tofu on a regular basis and everyone knows that’s disgusting. You can handle a fig.”

I ultimately decided to have a sense of adventure and try something new. None of the others had been poisoned by the pomegranate-tentacle fruit so I figured it was probably a low-risk gamble. I am so glad I did take the risk because it paid off.

For such a strange fruit, the flavor was milder than I thought it would be. It was sweet but watery, and extremely tasty. Those first bites were incredibly surprising and I believe I enjoyed the fruit even more because of how taken aback I was. I savored my fig until it was all gone, and obviously, it made a lasting impact on me because months later I feel compelled to write short stories about how proud I am that I tried something new and how wonderful it ended up being, even though I was scared at first.

Maybe this fig is a metaphor for my experience at the dig and my time in Italy? I didn’t know what to expect, but what I got out of it was even better than I ever imagined it could be. I didn’t really know what the fig would taste like, but it was significantly better than I hoped it would be.

Yep, sounds like that could definitely be a metaphor to me.

And, truly, the fig was absolutely incredible. I really enjoyed eating it, even if the inside did look a little bit like a whole bunch of little slimy eels.