Thursday in between feasts

Pickled olives sold
in the streets

Last night's muslim feast of Laylat el Qader ... was as expected. Lots of people in the mosque and streets. And prayers were chanted the whole night at the Al Asqsa Mosque well into 2am. Loud. And then the pre-dawn call to prayer was called out and the canon fired to signal the start of the Fast. I had the double windows closed in my room and turned on music to drown out the noise from the street ... for the whole night. Things only became silent at 4.30am.

But before that, hawkers lined the sides of El Wad street - the main artery that leads from Damascus Gate down to the Wailing Wall, passing by the entrances to the Al Aqsa Mosque. They sold everything ... from candied apples to potato chips to pickled vegetables and arab pastries. Everyone was buying and eating anything and everything. That's what Ramadan nights are all about.

Today was rather calm ... at least in our Quarter because the residents needed to recover from all the feasting. But this evening the last Friday of Ramadan begins. Now that worries us as it usually gets very rowdy and spills into riots. So for the 2nd night running, police were on extra alert ... every few metres are 4 to 6 soldiers. No nonsense.

"Taliban" jewish woman

I had a full day running back to the bank early in the morning but still not resolving anything, then to a couple of meetings, then to meet a group at lunch time and after that a lunch meeting with a couple of belgian professors. After that it was back to work in the library for an hour before running off to the MC sisters for a bible conference and confessions. Today we had no Eucharistic adoration as the sisters wanted me to go home as quickly as possible to avoid the evening Ramadan crowd. But I had to go back to the other library one km away uphill to retrieve something and then go down to Mian restaurant because Billy boiled some herbal soup for me, then it was a quick rush back home through the alleys to avoid the crowd.

Well in the midst of my rushing from one corner of the City to another, I came across a "Taliban" jewish lady ... a new phenomenon in the ultra-orthodox circle where women cover themselves totally ... not even eye-slits. This lady was pushing a pram across the train tracks and I thought she'd better be able to see if the train is coming under all that cloth. It was like she threw a blanket over herself. Actually 5 minutes before I saw this lady, I saw 2 others further down the street, similarly covered. Most people think they're muslims but they're actually jews. It's quite a fad now.