Kelosian seems to be a logographic language. The teacher, Mr. Ansel, writes very fast and then does a circuit helping the other students before coming back to Kyeo and practicing pronunciation and sample sentences. They can pass quite a while this way. 

At dinnertime the teachers encourage him to come out by the campfires to join everyone else. He doesn't have to, but most people eat outside together for dinner most days, and it's the most special meal of the day. There's roasting meat and stir-fried veggies and fresh warm bread and half a dozen different dipping sauces and jelly and jam and biscuits and fish stew and more weird fruits and spicy baked beans and creamy sweet marshmallow paste for dessert, all in big piles on the tables outside around a bonfire, buffet style. Close to a hundred people dot the clearing laughing and joking and a few people singing, it's pretty crowded. Kyeo could grab food and find an out-of-the-way table if that's more comfortable, Ansel suggests.

He is not used to the self-serve thing; he follows Ansel through the line and takes the same amounts of everything. Doesn't go and sit alone, though.

Ansel sits at a table on the fringe. People say hi to Ansel, he introduces them by name to Kyeo. Doctors, custodians, cooks, medical students. Someone brings over a game board of some kind and asks to play a round, Ansel politely declines, so she asks Kyeo instead. One of the doctors (the cat-like man) who administered the mental tests earlier sits next to them and starts chatting with Ansel about his students and tells Kyeo that word came back from the relay to Old Birch, where the largest library in the nation is- They have no records of Ibyabek or interplanetary travel, either. He's sorry that Kyeo is so lost.

"I'm afraid I don't know the game," he says rather than address the loss of his planet.

"Oh, that's okay! I'll teach you, it's not that hard!"

"All right. How is it played?"

The game-loving woman (who Ansel introduces as Caffa, or more properly Catreffa) expounds on this at length!! It's a tile-placing game where you put down tiles with different kinds of lines on them and try to make long chains of your color and block your opponent from doing the same.

They can play the basic version. Without all the special-case rules. Even though the full version is better.

Sure. He is mediocre at this game.

Caffa seems to be having a lot of fun trouncing him and offering helpful tips to be better at it. The dinner conversation flows around. Ansel goes back for seconds and asks if Kyeo wants anything.

Oh, well, if Ansel's having seconds. "The meat was very fine."

"Yeah, it's not just rabbit today, good treat!"

Ansel fetches some bread, more meat for himself, and a refill on the 3 sauces he likes: Gravy-ish, spicy, and savory-sour.

"How's the game treating you?"

"I am performing poorly."

"Is it any fun, though?"

"Yes, it's pretty good."

"Glad to hear it. Having fun with what you're doing is helpful with learning, if you want to try taking off the disk and playing... Though I don't know that this game involves much talking, actually. Nevermind."

"I'll bear that in mind if one that does comes up."

"Your diligence will serve you well for learning either way. Oh, I talked to the housekeeper and you can just sleep in the same room you were in earlier, tonight. I think they're not going to fill an entire day with tests again tomorrow though, just some quick observations."

"Very well, thank you."

"Let someone know if you need anything- And I'll leave you to your game now." Ansel munches on his seconds.

The dinner goes on, but it does seem to be quieting down over time. A bunch of people are dancing, with some sort of holographic light show all around them, and also torches or something. One pair of people are arm-wrestling, and lighthearted accusations of cheating with magic are flying back and forth. A couple of people are starting to pack up some of the buffet, and people leaving are stacking their dishes high on one table.

Caffa completes a long chain, using some of the tiles Kyeo laid down thinking they were safe.

Ah well. He loses. "Again, or are you done for today?"

"Oh, I can keep going all night." She waves a hand flippantly. "I might want to switch to a different game? I've got lots. And I don't want to drive away a new combatant right away, if you're done say so."

"I'd like to learn another."

"Sure, one sec! Pack channels up while I fetch academy?"

She runs off. She has a cat's tail sticking out of a hole in the back of her shirt.

Caffa is back with a different game a bit later. "This one works best with three or four, but it still works with two. The idea is, we're both playing a band of students at a school, competing with each other for the merit of honor..."

This one is a fairly complicated token placement game, taking turns assigning students to the limited facilities at the school, many of which are described as magic in some way. Caffa plays aggressively, deliberately taking up things she thinks Kyeo needs even if they're useless to her.

"This implied school is very strange."

"Is it? I mean, it's an academy, not a temple-school, of course there's going to be sabotage and stuff. The teachers actively encourage it, so you build faster."