Tourist boom

Bedouin women carrying their
veggies into Jerusalem for sale

Yesterday I was so busy ... I worked for 18 and a half hours non-stop. When I reached home to eat my "dinner" at 10.30pm I almost fainted from exhaustion and hunger. I hate Mondays. Why can't we have Sunday and then Tuesday?

The weather has warmed up a little but still locals wear hoodies and jackets. It's the tourists who wear t-shirts and shorts ... and then fall ill.

There are so many pilgrims and tourist groups there are no more hotel rooms available in Israel and groups have been putting up in hotels in Palestine. That actually costs cheaper and there are some very fine hotels there. Well at least tourist money is flowing into the arab sector so they can earn something. Almost every evening now I've to go to different hotels to speak to groups who request for me. Usually it's an hour's conference but with questions and answers, it stretches to 2 hrs. It's tiring but it's always great to meet with people from all over the world. This month is a record-breaking month for tourist arrivals ... an all-time record high. And this year saw the highest number of tourists in a decade or so.

This morning was another challenge. Class at 8am which meant I had to walk to school by 7am ... but this morning I had to meet a pilgrim group coming to my house to make the Way of the Cross. After class it was a series of waiting and running from one dept. to another for documents, signatures, phone calls etc... because some packages of books arrived from Europe. The whole bureaucratic machine has to be cranked up so we can receive the books without paying extra taxes and charges, and more importantly it's not returned back to Europe.

Well I'm so exhausted today I fell asleep in my office. Couldn't get 5 mins sleep because people kept knocking on my door ... at least 3 times. This is my experience of torture ... sleep deprivation.