Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia XVI

On the backside of the grounds surrounding this mosque, I found a banana tree. It looks like the pipes of an organ, the way the bananas have arranged themselves.

Living in California in the early 2000s made me think about my food more than any time in my life previously. Never before had I felt so divorced from its production. Living on my own as an adult (and paying bills) for the first time, I finally saw how odd it was to eat bananas 365 days a year. Where do they come from? I thought. (Wikipedia nugget: "Bananas are grown in at least 107 countries.")

We take for granted the humble banana. It's nice to see real stuff growing. That's something I haven't seen a lot of in my mostly urban life.

Driving through the countryside of Malaysia, I occasionally spotted trees with paper bags tied to the ends of the branches. Only later did I learn, reading a Malaysian memoir, this is common practice to preserve mangoes from bats and insects.