Shabbat at Oriah's House!

A couple of times a year, the Israeli girls in our program invite us over to their houses for Shabbat.  I went with Talia and Rebecca to Oriah's house in Karnei Shomron.  When we first got there, she showed us around the house and took us to our rooms.  We then went downstairs and asked if we could help with anything and they put us to work right away.  Talia and I made this kind of cookie/ cake.  We dipped tea biscuits into a coffee mixture and laid them out in a pan.  Then we put some kind of cream on top of it.  We did a couple of these layers.  Then we began on the vegetables.  Rebecca squeezed lemons, Talia peeled carrots, and I grated them.  Then Talia began chopping some kind of herb, I think it was parsley, I peeled potatoes, and Rebecca grated tomatoes.  We helped out as much as we could in the kitchen until it was time for Shabbat.
The shul  that they went to was right across the street from their house.  It was more like a boy's school then a shul because the woman's section was tiny and the men's section was like a library.  When we got home it was time for dinner.  Oriah's brother was also visiting with his wife and five kids.  Their family is Yemenite so when they speak, some of their letters are heavily accented and sometimes they pronounce vowels differently then the way I learned them.  It was interesting to see their customs and the different type of food that they made.  The food had something distinctively Yemenite about it, even though I had never tasted real Yemenite food before.  One of the interesting discussions that came up at the meal was the difference between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel.  They were telling me that they only believe in the Land of Israel and not the state because they don't approve of how the government is run and they believe that government should follow Jewish laws.
At the end of the meal, the little kids asked me to play with them so I did.  But the problem was that they all wanted to play different games.  Somehow I managed to play three games at once.  I played some kind of version of Go Fish with the older ones, at the same time was playing pick-up sticks with the middle one, and at the same time I was playing some made up game with the little one. I also invented a new game that they probably won't forget.  At the end of the night, everybody has tea but there were so many different types of tea that the kids didn't know what to choose.  So what I did was, they gave me their choices of tea, I put them behind my back, one in each hand, and then they chose a hand and that was the tea flavor that they had.
The next day, we woke up at around 8:00 and went to shul.  We got there a little bit late at around 8:45 because there was only about a half hour left.  For lunch, I went to the Goldschmidts because they live about three minutes away from where I was staying.  It was really nice to go there for lunch and I had a good time. After lunch, I went back to Oriah's house and explored a little bit.  She has a really cool roof where you can see her whole garden around her house and she told me that on a clear day you can see the sea.  In her garden they have so many different types of trees.  They have mango trees, pomegranate trees, lemon trees, fig trees, and a couple others.  After a while I went to take a nap for an hour.  I woke up for dinner which was really nice and similar food to the night before and then it was time to go home.    I had a really good weekend  at Oriah's house.  Shalom V'lehitraot!