confused

The thing about cultural difference is, you keep getting surprised by what you don't know. I expected that the children would be served different food at lunchtime in their school cafeteria. I did not expect that there would be NO LUNCH in their new school, which is what I learned today. School starts for them at 7:30 am; they will catch the bus at 6:45 am. They are dismissed at 1:50 pm, so "there isn't time for lunch," my fellow school-mom explained. There are two breaks during the school day for snack time, each about 10 minutes long. They can buy something in the canteen, if they want to take the time, but this is also their only recess/playtime. My fellow mom advised me that it works best this way: the servant rises early and prepares dosas and other from-scratch, labor-intensive foods for breakfast. The children eat half of their breakfast, and pack the remainder for their first snack. For their second snack, they pack a piece of fruit or a cookie. When they get off the bus around 2:45, they are met with a hot lunch cooked by the servant; the mom (a fellow college professor) gets home around 4 pm, and by that time the children are all "sorted." That still doesn't sound ideal, since they are going their whole school day with only small amounts of food, but without a servant cooking from scratch morning and noontime, it doesn't work at all. How will I feed my children?

Come to think of it, when do Indian people eat or sleep? Last night was New Year's Eve, and the hotel next door had a raging party going until 12:45 am. Fireworks were exploding all around the bay. But today, New Year's Day, is not a holiday. The workday at the college began at 8:30 am. We knew the college reopened today, so we showed up around 11:30 am and found our way to the library as a place to work, until our liaison team members were free and could talk with us about some of our upcoming obligations.

We got some good work done, but meanwhile we got hungrier and hungrier. Lunch is usually 12:30-2:30 here. Finally our colleague arrived to brief us and we had an animated chat until the nun/librarian came over at 2:30 and told us that the library was closing. It was the end of the workday.

Yet as we walked out, we saw students clustered around a few computers in the anteroom to the library. Was the library not closed for them? or was that room not the library? When and where do they study, if the library closes at 2:30 pm? Does everyone just work through lunch and then go home? Restaurants usually open for dinner at 7 pm, so what do people do between 4 and 7? are they napping? Why do they eat dinner so late and go to work so early? How am I going to feed hungry children who get off the bus at 2:45 having not eaten all day, when I'm at work till 3:30 or so and the restaurants are closed between 3 and 7 pm? 

I'm confused. And hungry.