Nablus day off

Nablus knaffeh is the country's best

The last Sunday of the Chinese Lunar year ... and we're all looking forward t our Reunion Dinner on Monday evening. I think there'll be 16 or 17 of us ... the largest group so far in these recent years.

This morning I had to travel back to Nablus in Samaria to celebrate Mass for the MC sisters. The ride was surprisingly smooth ... only one hour to reach there. Usually the traffic at the border from Israel to Palestine is clogged and would take hours to pass. And the road was relatively empty. I had to bring 5 bags of used clothes and 8 boxes of canned food to the sisters for distribution among the poor in the neighbouring cities of Jenin, Zebabdeh, Tubas and Ramallah. It was heavy work loading them and unloading the donations.

Curry, rice and
chutney lunch

After Mass the sisters cooked a lovely curry lunch with chicken and beef and veggies ... plus their fabulous mango chutney. It's really very good and when I had my previous operations and lost my appetite, it was the chutney with rice that kept me going. And by the way ... any one coming to the Holy Land? Please bring green/unripe mangoes so the sisters can make more chutney. It's very difficult to buy unripe mangoes here. Then the sisters bought knaffeh, an arab dessert made from several types of cheese steamed in honey or sugar. Nablus is famous for the best knaffeh in the country. It was fantastic but because of the pistachios which I think I'm allergic to, I could dare eat more than one.

Locally there was an attempted stabbing in Hebron. And Israel went ahead to build a high metal fence to cut off Gaza infiltrators. Other than that, it was a quiet Sunday. Let's hope it remains so for the rest of the week.