23“I AM NORA, daughter of a rice farmer. My father is also a fisherman in the months between the planting and harvest seasons. That is how hardworking he is. Now I realize as I tell you this story that he has to be, because he has three young daughters to feed. I am only considering what we his girls eat, because what my mother consumes doesn’t count. She eats like the chickens roaming around our village, picking on the little amount of rice she can take from the plate of my third sister. They share a plate, while I do with my second sister. My father, because his big hand occupies the whole plastic plate when he picks up his food, has one all to himself. I can see it clearly again, the whole family squatting on the bamboo floor, hovering around the pot of rice while our small plastic plat
