1st AFC of the year

AFC dinner last night

The weather continues to plummet .... snow blizzards in the north, heavy showers in the central plains ... and here in Jerusalem it's like 3 degrees at noon time. It'll get colder tomorrow. And I don't look forward to it. I might just stay indoors all day.

Last night during the distribution of our protector saints, we were having dinner at the same time. It was a great dinner except it was all pork and I don't eat pork. Well not absolutely ... sometimes (rarely) I eat bacon or ham but definitely not pork chops and such. So I was pretty hungry by 9pm. Luckily I had a hunch dinner would be pork (which is very expensive because pork is not kosher in this country and difficult to buy) so I bought an AFC pack (Arab Fried Chicken)  of 2 chicken pieces, chips, bun, coleslaw and garlic mayonnaise with a can of coke (all for 35 shekels). That was my first AFC this year. Yummy.

Flags in the gusty winds

This morning I cleared up the Christmas decorations from our refectory (= dining room) ... alone ... like I set it up a alone last week. It was minimalistic ... the decorations ... very simple but nice. And clearing up was easy. Then I had to travel to Bethlehem and transport 11 bags of clothes and daily items to the MC sisters. The cold is affecting many poor families who can't afford heating or clothes or food to keep warm.   

The traffic in and out of Bethlehem is heavy because tour groups are still coming to visit during this Christmas season. But soon this will trickle as the cold and dark envelope us in a few weeks and we enter the depths of winter. Then the low season of tourism hits us ... and the Chinese New Year comes.