Weekend visitors

We were actually invited out for dinner Friday night. Having few friends in our neighborhood, I immediately took them up on the invite. I said if Hubby isn't in Caveman mode, he'll be there too. The food was plentiful and Hubby mentioned my interfaith work to this very right-wing host of ours, whose mouth was agape most of the time we were telling him about this. All he kept asking was how did I get into it. I think he'll make a good candidate for our next interfaith session - except that it's getting warm here and the flies are plentiful. He'd better learn to not leave his mouth open even if he's in perpetual surprise, otherwise the flies will end up nesting on his tonsils.

Saturday I had a visit from a British woman who rang me up. She heard about me from Tamer, whom I had met at Eliyahu's birthday and was curious about me. I thought Tamer wouldn't be able to get through the checkpoint but he managed to, which was fine. I thought of setting up my Gypsy friend Amoun with Tamer, but then I realized, if he's from the West Bank and marries my friend with an Israeli ID card, what usually happens is that the Israeli bureaucracy will see to it that she won't be able to renew her ID and she'll be made to get a West Bank ID. Sad isn't it? So I nixed that idea for the moment until things get just a bit more normal around here.

My son was introduced to our guests and then he pulled me aside looking terribly frightened. "He's Palestinian???? They're dangerous!!!" he whispered to me. I realized I only had Israeli Arabs in my house like Ibrahim, not the "others."

"He doesn't look so dangerous" I assured sonny boy and he seemed to trust me somewhat.

I fed everyone our traditional Sabbath lunch. Tamer had only seen those Jewish rituals done on television, but here he was at our Sabbath table. As we walked back to the entrance of town so they can catch a ride to wherever it was they were going, Tamer was asking why everyone was inside when it was such a gorgeous day.

Well we don't have any patio furniture. My kids will be watching tv or playing computers.

He told me he doesn't need any furniture, him and his buddies will seek out the nearest rock and hang out there for a while. He's definitely got the right idea.

Today some other guy phoned me and I had no idea who he was. Abdullah. He had been calling me for a couple of weeks now, always asking me if he could visit, and I've always pushed him off because I couldn't recall where I knew him from. Hubby rolled his eyes with a "here she goes again" look mixed with a "I hope he's not a terrorist" glare. But today I figured I'm on a roll for visitors. Yeah, why not, come on up. Turns out I knew him from the Valentine's day Arabic class. I hissed at my daughter who was all over her boyfriend in the livingroom. "We have GUESTS!!!!" Guests are such a rarity here that she doesn't know what it's like to show a little decorum.

Abdullah was looking for a place to pitch a permanent tent somewhere near here with a bedouin flavor and dish out some great food, have music and have Jews learn about their Bedouin brethren. I thought if he finally had a place going, I'd go to some of the people I knew here in schools to see if they'd get classes to go on cultural trips to that place. I'm setting him up with someone I know who can perhaps help him with this - perhaps next week over some coffee or a nargila.