Vanishing Act

So, for about a week now, my host family's friend has been commenting something about my appearance, but the only word I understood was the word "thin." I thought that she was commenting on the fact that I try to eat not to abundance here, which is a battle I don't always win.

Cultures in which food and hospitality are intertwined are really only fantastic in theory if you have a stomach like mine.

I had to have several conversations with my first host mother, Sveta, that yes, I like her cooking, but get sick easily, and yes, this happenings in America too, all the time. Her husband, Sasha, only understood this as a diet, and truthfully, I didn't care to explain to him as long as he got the general idea that I did not want to eat a lot. So I just assumed that this was the same case here, and that the host family friend thinks that I want to get thin. Whatever.

Then my new host mother started commenting on it and finally, yesterday, my host father and I had an extended conversation about it as he made me eat a breakfast of potatoes and chicken in a sort of stew. I've told them fifty times I never breakfast (sorry, but in Russian, breakfast is a verb). Not in the States, not since I was little. Never. My stomach is incapable of processing foold early in the morning. Thankfully, I had been up reading for a few hours and it was after 11am, so I figured fine, I'll eat. And again, I explain, "listen, don't give me a lot, I'll get sick." His response? Hey, you're at home, there is the toilet! Awesome. Just what I wanted to hear. Such sympathy.

So I do eat. And I proceed to get a stomach ache and he then tells me about all these thin comments using hand gestures.

Apparently, when I visited them in November, I was fat.

Then I come to them in late December and they think that I've lost a lot of weight. So now they take it as their personal mission to feed me till my pants fit again. I tell him, "well, my mom is sending me clothes that should fit," but unfortunately I only know the words for "my mother," "me," and "clothes," so the rest is gestures. Needless to say, they better get here quick before they will no longer fit!