week 8 – visiting the Browns

Here’s an English post – especially for Karminder and Randy Brown.

I met Karminder when I was 18, in a summer camp in Virginia, she was my group’s guide.
2 years ago I was looking for her in facebook (and manage to find her by her first name!), and when I told her we were coming to California, she was generous enough to invite us over for a few days (after not seeing each other for 25 years!).

Anyways, we arrived at their place at Hollister, last Saturday afternoon.

We had a long talk, with many funny memories, during which we showed each other pictures from that summer, 25 years ago – we couldn’t believe how funny we looked!
(oh well, it was the 80’s…).
When the boys (husbands and sons) went to sleep, we stayed awake, putting chocolates, stickers and other surprises in colorful plastic eggs for the kids to hunt the next morning (the Easter bunny gave them to us…).
We were working for about 2 hours, when we ended we tried to guess how many eggs are there, there were actually 112 (for 6 kids to find!).

On Sunday morning the kids were really excited!
The Browns had some friends over for brunch, so together with Tino (14) and Reno (11), their sons, Rotem and Or, and the guest’s kids, there were 6 kids running in the big garden looking for eggs, with baskets in their hands.

It was a wonderful day!
The kids got lots of chocolates, the parents lots of wine, and when brunch ended the kids were enjoying themselves in the pool.

In the afternoon, after the guests left, and the kids felt more comfortable together, something magical happened – they started to communicate.
Reno and Tino know 0 Hebrew, Rotem and Or know (maybe) 20 words in English, but they manage to communicate beautifully!
At first they draw some pictures and said the word each in his language, including instructions of how to write and read the word with arrows pointing the right direction.
Then one of them came up with the idea of google translate, and they wrote each other funny silly sentences.

On Monday we all felt like one big happy family, the kids were playing video games, parents doing lots of nothing.

That’s the right moment to mention that in their back yard the Browns have a farm. They grow lettuce, radish, Kale, artichokes, plums, cherries, apricots, potatoes, and many more kinds of fruit and vegetables.

On Monday afternoon all four of us (parents) went to get artichokes for dinner.
Karminder was pointing at some weed saying something about how difficult it is to get rid of them, when Shahar and I got really excited – it was HUBEZA (חובזה)!
in English it’s called Malva, and we keep seeing it here in California.
We started to pick it, and eat it, and bla bla about how common it is in Israel, and how the Arabs make all kinds of food with it. Randy and Karminder were shocked!
For years they are throwing it away, and treat it as the enemy, and all of a sudden those weird people actually eat it!
Eventually we made a malva omelet for dinner, to make our point. It was actually nice.

On Tuesday morning Reno went back to school and Randy got back to work, after their spring break ended.
We were going on a ride with Karminder, to see some of Hollister. We saw the library, went to an apricot jam factory, and end up at Reno’s school.
We asked the principle’s permission to visit the class rooms and speak to a teacher. It was very very interesting!
We, in Israel, have a long way to go…
In the evening we had a last dinner with the Browns, and said goodbye to Randy and Reno.

On Wednesday morning we said goodbye to Karminder and Tino.

Karmminder gave us some greens from the garden, we had them for dinner.
It was a lovely visit!
Thank you Randy, Karminder, Tino and Reno!

Here we are at the front of the barn, where Randy and the boys fixed a luxury suit (that’s where we slept while being there).

And here’s the note we left them, on the barn’s bathroom door:

p.s. fridge looks good. lots of organic stuff 🙂