Heatwave

Coming home from work yesterday I had a terrible sense of deja-vu ....  it all seemed like the 1st and 2nd Intifada again. I was warned about the volatile situation in the Old City and I had better go home early because walking in the dark might be dangerous. Yusuf insisted on driving me back for safety, at least to Damascus Gate as his car probably won't be able to enter St Stephan's Gate. But Damascus Gate - the market place of the arabs - was deadly quiet. A couple of old men selling fruit and bread ... no one was around to buy their stuff. Inside the Gate, shops were closed, a dozen Bedouin women sat by the steps selling their vegetables. All along the street from Damascus Gate down to my house, and up the Way of the Cross - all the shops were closed due to the strike to protest against the attack in Gaza. It looked and felt so much like the 1st and 2nd Intifada ... strikes, curfews, empty streets.

Yesterday afternoon a friend Habeeb came to see me and announced his wedding on the 27th. He came all the way from Haifa ... like 3 hours drive away from the northern end of Israel! I told him a telephone all was enough but he insisted on coming. Zaki, our common friend (Habeeb's best friend) also came along. I brought them to lunch at the chinese restaurant, and had the terrible temptation to eat fried rice. Tasted real good. Have stayed off carbos for the past 4 weeks. Suffered the consequence later in the evening. Nausea, dry throat, thirst, dizziness, ended up with diarrhea.

The heat is just overwhelming. Not just during the day which was like 32 degrees. In the night it was so hot I couldn't sleep. Had to turn on the fan, which didn't help. Went out on the terrace to grab some fresh air and noticed several other guys were also awake (3am) with their lights on. The heat must have got them too. Either that or the muezzin had waken them up ... the first call to prayer (muslim) begins at 3am ... real loud.