Welcome to India
Chennai
My homestay host is Nandita Sreedevan, a yoga instructor who leads a very healthy lifestyle which is to my benefit as she does not believe that very spicy food are good for you (phew!) So my meals are delicious, full of tasty things I have never had before such as banana flowers and stems.
Considerately, Nandita bought a loaf of bread for me- I may have mentioned I was missing real bread so now for breakfast I sometimes get toast and jam, which the maid doesn't really understand. She tried to give me toast for dinner too.
Some of the food is very like things we eat in England, I tried some sweet deserts the other day that I could have sworn one was just candyfloss and the other fudge!
I mentioned the maid, she also lives in the apartment and sleeps on the living room floor. Her name is Sheela and she cooks dinner, cleans the house and makes cups of tea on (polite!) request.
Hired help is the thing to have in India, and although very strange if you're not used to it (which I'm not!) it is quite nice to come home and having your room cleaned, washing done and dinner ready. There are lots of people who are hired to do only one particular job, such as the gatekeeper who sits there all day and opens and closes the gate. There is a man on the street who irons people's clothes on the back of a wooden cart. He's out there all day and waves at me as I leave for work and when I return!