Back to school

Easter sunset at Musrara market

It's Monday and back to routine. School has restarted but exams are soon round the corner so students have begun cramming. I slept only 3 hours last night as I was nervous about oversleeping and missing class at the morning. I had to postpone my Mass with the elderly nuns at the Ivrea Convent at 6am as class would just have ended and I can't reach the convent 1km away in 1 minute. Postponed it to evening at 5.30pm and then I received a message from the Archbishop who wanted to see me at 5pm. I had to find another student to substitute me for the Mass. What a clash of busy schedules on Monday. I must have been very very tired because at 2pm while writing I fell asleep. Woke up to find a half written message. Anyway finished an afternoon class and rushed off for the meeting with the Archbishop. Now back in my office feeling hungry but not really wanting to eat.

On Holy Week which coincided with Jewish Passover, we had an invasion of locusts not unlike the biblical epic account. Today we have an invasion of huge black beetles. At the Patriarchate while waiting for the Archbishop there were numerous beetles flying and crawling around.  https://www.timesofisrael.com/beetles-invade-israel-but-ministry-says-to-let-them-be/?fbclid=IwAR3G52H8sjFYgyAygPGDPywe4d8NIo5MuUng_xB9rZd5vJV5HBGe62HbUO0

Easter eggs/buns

I bought some traditional greek easter buns and eggs which were being sold in the streets of the Christian Quarter. Gave them to some first comers who don't know of this tradition. It's a nice treat ... a little something different from our routine.

Now its time to recover from this first day of over-scheduled work and catch up with some sleep. We'll see if the beetles will leave us during the night or the invasion get worse. By the way the plague of measles is terrifying many people here. The outbreak is caused by communities who refused to be vaccinated. Now one air stewardess is in a coma with measles because an infected person was onboard a flight to Israel from New York. People here are now told to avoid crowds especially with ultra-orthodox jews because they refuse to be vaccinated.