Indian hospitality part II

Dave beat me to telling you about how kind people were today when we visited their homes with the nurse and the home health aid, that jerk. So I will have to just give you my version as well! I have never felt so ineffectual at turning down offers of food and drink. No matter what we said, we were showered with snacks, sweets, beverages, etc.  The first offer we encountered was a man who brought us papaya as we sat in the car on the side of the road waiting for someone. We figured (hoped) this was freshly peeled and therefore safe to eat, so we obliged, and it was delicious. Then we stopped for breakfast at the house of one of the health aids. We had brought granola bars, bananas, biscuits and water for breakfast, and began to dig into that when all of a sudden we were asked why we didn't bring breakfast. This confused us until we realized that these things are not considered breakfast in India! The nurse split her meal of idly and spicy-peanut chutney into two and gave us half, and the mother of the health aid made us what I can only describe as crunchy fried dough and served us iced cold buttermilk. We couldn't refuse, they thought we were poor/starving. After switching villages and therefore switching health aids, we went to the home of an old woman who has known the health aid for decades. The woman, the health aid and several of their friends sat on the floor of the house eating banana flowers and gossiping. We were nervous we would have to turn down the banana flowers (side note: we can't have any fruits that can't be peeled, and even more so if it is not washed first! safety first.) but that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. One of the women then brought us each our own tray of biscuits, which we politely ate from thinking that this would appease their desire to feed us. But if you give a mouse a cookie, you also have to offer him a glass of milk to go with it. Buttermilk was poured for us, and after convincing them we didn't need it they then decided that meant that we needed tea. So the woman said something along the lines of "I just need to go get the milk for tea" and before we knew it she was out the door. Where did she go? To milk the cow, of course. Upon her return she made the tea, which we managed to convince the nurse and health aid to drink. But then she went out and picked us oranges to eat. Oy! We gave in and ate the oranges, which were delicious, and luckily after that hour we were on our way. We ended the day sitting in the jeep waiting for a patient near the center of a village. A woman came up to the jeep to chat with us, and then left to SHOCKINGLY bring us snacks. First she gave us chili soy beans. Then she left and came back again with spicy rice puff snacks. And then she left and came back for the third time with a fruit called zapota, which to me tasted like if a plum and a fig had a baby. By this time we were too tired to argue, and just graciously accepted the food.  Lesson learned: saying no will not prevent food from being offered, and saying yes will not keep more food from being offered. Better to be gracious and try to stick to safe foods thank to try to argue, which is next to impossible. And now we have mastered "nandri", which is Tamil for thank you :)