In the family

After the Purim party at the Kibbutz on Friday night, I went to stay with a friend's aunt. An entire set of extended family is all within a 10 mile radius, with three generations having houses on the same driveway. It's been a long time since I've been inside someone's familial house. It was pretty fantastic, and the whole Jewish-feeding-syndrome isn't exaggerated. All I did for two days was eat. Every conversation went: "Megan, are you okay? Do you want anything? a nap? some tea? a jacket? Do you want some fruit?" "No, no thank you." "Okay, so no fruit, how about an apple?" I liked it.

At the Purim party there was a little bit of a scene (not my fault) and my friend would wait until I was out of the room before telling the story to whatever family member was in front of her. Then when I returned to the room the questions changed slightly to "Megan, are you okay? Do you want anything? a nap? some tea? a jacket? Have you met any nice boys yet? I hear you were quite a hit at the party. They were shoving each other? It's that blond hair."

I went out for a drink with two of the twenty-something male cousins. While chatting, cousin #2 interrupts to tell me that cousin #1 is talking in Hebrew about me with a friend. They chat for a minute more, the friend walks off, and cousin #1 returns to the table’s conversation without saying a word.

Later on the friend I was traveling with told me this was the conversation I couldn’t understand:

“Hey, how are you? She’s American, right?

“Yeah.”

“Does she speak any Hebrew?”

“No.”

“My friend wants to meet her; can he come talk to her?”

“No, he can’t.”

“Oh.”

Absolutely hilarious.

I really have to get a handle on the language if men are ever going to get past the guards.