The Stinking Mango Dilemma

Imagine walking to your next class. As you pass Hale Manaʻo (AA Building), you notice a nasty smell. It’s the old mangoes that have fallen from the tree above you. Suddenly, you realize that you're going to be late for class, so you start running so you don’t get marked tardy. Out of nowhere, you slip and fall over. A spoiled, pulpy mango is ground up under your shoe. Now, you're late for class, there are old mangoes all over you, and you have a big bruise from falling.

Mango trees are located all over the Lahainaluna school campus. By the bus stops, agriculture classrooms, and sidewalks, they attract insects like flies and ants, creating a sticky, slippery environment for students and staff. What is interesting is that everyone agrees there is a problem, and everyone has their own solution.

The problem may be new, but the mangoes aren’t. According to Keyla Jimenez and other reporters for Ka Lama, it was once customary on campus “to have people carry away bags full of mangoes on every commencement day” since there were so many. This was all the way back in 1928. Back then, she adds, the Lunas were “unaware that a century later the only thing people would do with the mangoes is step over them.”

Nathan Pallet, the agriculture teacher, says that the mangoes used to be cleaned up by the boarding students, but now the custodians are responsible. But this can be a lot, he warned; the custodians have other responsibilities and their best efforts aren’t enough.

“The Lahainaluna custodian department was never built to take on this massive campus, especially when it comes to landscaping,” says Head Custodian, BJ Alvarez. “Before, the Boarding department was strictly the caretaker of our land ever since our school was built. Now, the majority of their workload is on us. So right now, we're in a building stage to eventually hire more custodians so we could keep up and stay consistent with our responsibilities.”

“Lahainaluna has a very unique landscape and is probably the only school in the state with this many historic trees that are protected and can’t be cut down,” Alvarez added. “The campus you see today is built on years and decades of hard work. We get asked a lot by our community—for example, Lahaina families would ask to come and pick our mangoes or gather and pick foliage for their baby luau parties—and we would never turn anyone away.”

The Mess

Freshman Francheska Vhiel Misay says, “In my opinion, I think the mangoes around the school campus mess with the students as they walk to their classes during passing times.” She thinks a solution to this problem would be “to have a once a week mango clean up to prevent them from rotting and messing up the walkways.”

Freshman Aria Kahula thinks, “The mangoes should be cleaned up more just because it’s a safety hazard to many people.” Kahula also complained about the smell and claimed she has “seen a few injure themselves by falling.”

“Personally, I think the mangoes everywhere are gross," said freshman Kaili Silva. “They get stuck on your shoes, slippers, etc., leaving a stinky residue afterward. Sometimes it tends to get on your actual foot, which is nasty and gross! The smell reeks and it's not a delightful scent to smell at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. They do clean them up, but only when it gets really bad. Instead, they should clean them up more often so it doesn’t get to that condition.”

Junior Safirah Ladore says, “The campus-wide problem of the sticky mangoes is an extensive and complex problem because of three defining factors. Firstly, they are in the way and often cause students to trip. Secondly, the smell is not pleasant for both students and teachers to traverse the campus. Finally, they make the physical appearance of the campus to be unsightly as the mangoes continue to rot.”

Senior Tauvana Nui Niles Cantaro says, “If you ask me, the mangoes are nasty. They would always get on my feet when I would walk past to get to class. One time I was running to class and I slipped and fell on a rotten mango, so I was late to class. Because of this, I changed my route to get to my class now. I hope they start to clean up the mangoes more often than they do to prevent more people from getting injured.”

“My experience with the mango trees in my classroom is too much to bear. No matter how much I clean up, it is never enough,” said Bradley Mason, an agriculture teacher. “One day I could spend hours clearing up our agricultural space by throwing out 10 pounds of mangoes. Then the next day, it would be like no progress was done."

The inconvenience Mason describes is common all over campus at our bus stops and sidewalks. “The custodians try their best to keep up with the mess,” said Mason.

History teacher Sarah Eubank thinks, “It's unfortunate that perfectly good mangoes are left on the school campus to be wasted.” She adds that putting the burden on the custodial staff is unfair since they “have so many different responsibilities to maintain cleanliness on such a big campus.”

Math teacher Michelle Brummel doesn't really mind the mango trees. But, in her first year of teaching here, she claims to have been hit in the head by one of the mangoes falling from the tree.

The Solutions

Mason has a fix for this situation in mind. “We should gather up the people of Lahaina who make pickled mango and other mango treats to come up to the school once a week on Saturday or Sunday and have a harvest day.” Mason would have community members pick all the mangoes they want, free of charge. “By doing this, we would have less waste, more money in our pockets, and enjoy more local scrumptious treats.”

Ladore came up with a different possibility to consider. “We can utilize the agriculture class to collect and use the mangoes for their composting needs.” Like others, Eubank also had a solution: “The school should start a program where students would go to all the mango trees and pick them before they have a chance to go bad.”

Pallet's solution to this dilemma would be to compost the rotten mangoes into vinegar to turn the mangoes into a herbicide. A herbicide is a substance that is made to control or kill plants and weeds that you don’t want anymore. The downside of this is that the school would have to be really careful making this substance because there is a certain process that has to be done to make it safely. Also, if this gets into the wrong hands, students could get drunk off of the substance.

“We could also pick the mangoes early to make snacks like pickled mango,” Pallet added. Kumu Eva, the Hawaiian Studies Kumu, suggests that when the school gets pigs on the farm, the agriculture class should pick up the mangoes that fall on the ground and give them to the pigs as feed. Until then, Kumu Eva shared with the school that as a part of detention, the kids should use their hours to give back to the school and beautify the campus. Unfortunately, the school declined her request.

We as a school need to look forward to the future and settle on a fix for this problem. Several people had different opinions and solutions to say about this topic. Also, we need to acknowledge all of the hard work that our custodians and boarding students put into beautifying our school campus. Isabella Canbilla Okano suggested that “we as a school should come together and bring this problem to our principal, Richard Carosso,” because he is the one who can act on the issue.

Or, we could come together and maybe have a meeting or answer a Google Form during Poʻokela on what to do next to take the next step on resolving this dilemma. By doing this, we can all find the best way to make our school a better and safer place for all of us in the Lahainaluna High School community.