Sometimes we get invited to have dinner at the homes of friends and colleagues, which has been wonderful.
One of the charming parts of family life here is that meals are often served on the floor like this. I knew from experience on previous trips that I didn't have the flexibility to do this comfortably for even ten seconds -- or any of the other socializing that is routinely conducted while crouching or sitting on the floor -- and I really tried my best to do a lot of stretching in advance and while we are here. But I'm not smiling in this picture -- I'm grimacing in pain. And we haven't started eating yet. I was hobbled for about three days afterward.This meal a couple weeks ago was at the home of one of the young faculty Ilene works with. She and her husband, a college instructor in another field, share a small apartment --3 rooms the size of the one you see here in a remote district of the city-- with the wife's college-aged sister, a new baby, and a live in nanny, who is a widow from their hometown. That tells you something about the relative costs of real estate and labor here.
All the food shown here is terrific. The salad seen in closeup I want to mention especially. I forget the name, but we have it pretty frequently. The gray pieces that resemble pork are actually the inside of the rind of jackfruit, fried along with the shrimp. There's usually something cool in it like lettuce, along with peanuts, onions, hot pepper slices and some fish sauce. You eat it by spooning some onto the white crackers, which are made from rice flour.
-Robert
