It's a team effort

Yesterday morning I was slightly disappointed to only see two slices of toast on my plate for breakfast. I guess I had gotten used to the variety of foods that was constantly being laid out in front of me. After some quick reflection I decided to declare my small breakfast a success. In total, I had two cups of chai, two slices of buttered toast, some biscuits and some fruit. I think my host family has finally realised that I really don’t eat as much as they expected I would. They’ve started serving me less for breakfast and offering me less food for dinner. At dinner today my host mother, Auntie Williams, placed the rice on a separate plate so I could serve myself. Initially I worried that my host mother was upset I wasn’t eating her food, but I think I was overreacting. She has been very nice about it and is always smiling at me, especially when we don’t have anything to say to each other, so I’m going to assume the best.

I also found out that, apart from the fact that this family has two sons and that their past two interns have been guys, their previous intern once ate 12 rotis in one sitting! What was he doing while he was here? Did he give his lunch to the street people or something? “So we decided to place you with them as a form of compensation,” Smita told me. I laughed with amusement for the thousandth time; these small pieces of information are so random, yet they explain so much of what goes on here. I relayed the message to Auntie Williams, adding, “I’m cheap because I don’t eat as much food!”

Today after throwing out the special trash, Auntie Williams and I walked around the neighbourhood and I realised that the stars were bright in the sky. I stayed outside for a while, craning my neck to look up at the sky in hope that I could locate some familiar constellations and prove to myself that my gruelling astronomy class last semester had indeed taught me something valuable.

I suddenly realised that the stars in front of me formed the Big Dipper, and from that I found Polaris.