One of the kids whom Rachel has grown particularly fond of, an 11-year-old boy, has a mother who is a hereditary (fortunately not mean and nasty, but…) alcoholic–and also about 4 months pregnant. Rachel tries to tell her that the drinking will harm the unborn baby, but the point is very hard to get across.

The son [whose name T has not been able to understand] has taken to staying later than the other kids in the evening. The others will get called home to dinner, but this little guy doesn’t get called… One night this week Rachel had cooked rice and marinated fish to fry for herself. When she was ready to eat, the little guy was still sitting there, avoiding eye contact but obviously hoping that she would share some of her food. When she put a big bowl of rice and a piece of fish in front of him, he dug right in. By the time he had finished, another kid, Nivo, was there, having a share as well. Rachel asked the 11-year-old whether he would like more rice or more fish. He didn’t look up, but Nivo answered for him, “He wants some more fish!” Rachel gave him more and it disappeared rapidly.

The next evening Rachel made soup for her dinner. The two kids were there when she was ready to eat and in Malagasy tradition, you can’t possibly sit down and eat in front of someone. So she dished up a quarter of her soup for each kid. Before she could sit down to the rest, M-I came over and said, “Is it ready to eat?” Clear indication that she wanted some, so Rachel resignedly divided what was left into two bowls and sat down with M-I to eat. [Rachel is VERY fond of M-I at this point.] Rachel had a piece of bread and as she was about to bite into it, she realized that M-I was eyeing it, clearly expecting Rachel to share that as well. Nothing for it but to tear the bread in half. After a spoonful or two, M-I observed a bit querulously, “Rachel doesn’t like salt!” Rachel got up, plunked her plastic bag of salt on the table and set to eating the quarter of the soup that was left. Even though she was still really hungry, she didn’t have anything else to eat, so went to bed.

At 2 am Rachel woke up hungry. She would have liked to call home, but there was no reception. Not wanting to try and cook anything at that time of night, Rachel suddenly thought of a little box of Fruit Loops that Sarah had brought as a Christmas treat. So Rachel sat in bed and ate the cereal and read Clan of the Cave Bear until she was able to fall back to sleep.