One day to Yom Kippur

Tomorrow evening Yom Kippur begins. Ultra-orthodox Jews have been waving chickens over their heads to cast their sins away despite the rabbis' call not to. And tensions are rising in the city - soldiers and police presence is building up.

I happened to meet the Greek Catholic bishop along the Christian Quarter this morning. He remarked how thin I had become and asked if I was ill. Well, he wasn't very well either: he was limping. I offered to accompany him back to his home but he said he could manage alone. He's a very nice and prayerful man.

These few days as the holidays are quickly passing, the few students here are taking advantage of the quiet to study and research as much as possible. But today we all felt out of sorts, No one could concentrate or simply had the will to study. One of the problems is the renovation going on downstairs and upstairs simultaneously - the library is being enlarged; and rooms are being renovated due to leaking toilets (namely mine). I'm getting stressed out by this. I want them to finish by Saturday (10 days) but they want 20 days - which I flatly rejected. How many days do you need to repair a bathroom that measures 170 cm by 160 cm?

Lorenzo said he couldn't study and I suggested we go take a walk - away from the stress, noise and dust. Well we did - separately. I don't know where he went, I decided to go visit some arab friends who run a hamburger shop in the New City. We had a nice chat, and along the way also met one of my (former) arab employees (as I'm not the boss now) with her sister. She's a good girl, just graduated from Uni. and I offered her her first job. I hope she'll gain experience and move on from there. We had a short chat too - all in arabic, which was good. I need brushing up.

On the way home I thought about Wahib, a Druze friend from the north. Almost immediately my phone sounded - it was Wahib calling! Like coincidence? How about last Friday when I thought about Christine and 3 days later she said she was thinking of me at about the same time and day! Chilling. Mind you I haven't heard from her for almost two years! Coincidence?