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Went to Male Aduma, a settlement in the west bank, for Shabbat. It's in a range of desert hills just west of Jerusalem, surrounded by arab villages. The landscape looks like southern california, but drier. Half the town is religious, the other half secular. In the morning the hillside facing us was covered by a herd of camels grazing. The local arabs also graze sheep (we saw some), and we also saw two antelope of some type darting down the hill.

They gave each of us a schedule that showed who we would be staying with and eating with for each meal; they mixed it up so we would visit different families during the visit. After shul on Shabbat, the lunch schedule showed that my classmate and I were due to eat with the Solomons in building 22, apartment 4. We walked up the road, and found the doorway to buildings 22-24. We walked upstairs to apartment 4, found the apartment marked "Solomon", and knocked. A 10 year old boy opened the door, and showed us inside, and his parents warmly welcomed us and ushered us into the dining room, where the table was set but missing one setting (they quickly put out another dish).

The family emigrated from Columbia only two years ago, and they were obviously struggling. The father and son spoke only fair English, so we communicated in a mixture of Spanish, English, and Hebrew. The mother spoke no English at all. We had a kind of sephardic cholent, consisting of chick peas, meat, and chicken, and they offered us sweet wine with water, "to make it softer" the father said, and it was wonderful.

The family was obviously struggling financially, and culturally as well. Though he was a unix programmer in south america, he couldn't find work here, so he was cleaning floors in a yeshiva. Recently he's picked up a job working at a matzoh factory. "But my son has a much better education here, very torah!" he said, and he took out and showed us his report card. The son, 10, entertained us with juggling and magic tricks, and gave a short talk in spanish about what he was learning at yeshiva. The father told us he as blessed to have visitors for shabbat.

After lunch, we went out on the balcony and admired the view, then he walked us all the way back to the family that had hosted us the previous night, and who was holding our bags. I asked him how he was connected to the yeshiva, how he had come to host us. He said he didn't know about our yeshiva. I wasn't sure I understood, so I asked again, and got the same answer. Then I took out our schedule, and showed him his name and address, and he said "Oh, I know that family, they are in the next building over. That's not us."

So--two families named Solomon, same apartment number, adjoining buildings. This family didn't raise an eyebrow when two Americans knocked on their door and walked in for a Shabbat meal. I can only hope to achieve that mindset someday.