Curfew begins

Sunrise this morning

Ramadan begins tonight ... in fact right now as the muezzin is singing the call to prayer. But the cannon has not been fired ... maybe it's because of the curfew which the govt has imposed on all arab neighbourhoods. Spoke too soon ... the cannon is being fired now ... 7 shots to announce the start of Ramadan. For sure it will be very muted as the curfew has started and people are expected to stay indoors. Then again it's not going to be easy to implement the law as the festive mood from this religious sector of society is difficult to halter.

During the day I looked out from our terrace and saw people walking about the streets ... not many but still more than usual under the lockdown. Even families with prams and babies ... which means they're going to visit their parents/grandparents for Ramadan. And the police at the street corners have not stopped them.

Chinese buns

The Education Ministry has decided to slowly reopen schools, beginning with the administrative staff but the Health Ministry is against the idea. You can see that there's little communication and coordination among the ministries ... like any other countries. This is one pandemic no country was prepared for. And the govt has agreed to allow money changers and barbershops to reopen as well ... which made other small business upset as they are remained closed. Ikea is allowed to open though no one knows why.

With the lockdown, wild animals have come out into the city, roaming in public parks looking for food. We have wild boars in Haifa damaging gardens, ibexes wandering in Eilat's beach promenade, Jackals in Tel Aviv's seaside parks and now foxes in Ashkelon's boardwalk. It's fascinating for many city dwellers to see these wild animals close up ... but it also tells us how much people have damaged the natural habitat and now the animals have come back to reclaim it.

The chinese sisters have been very good ... they made steamed buns and left them at our doormen's office so when I went to the library several days back, I collected them and now am rationing them for my meals. Lockdown is tough when I have  few access to food sources so these buns came in very handy. And an arab classmate from way back 30 years called and offer to buy and deliver some food to me if I needed it. It was very kind of him but I wasn't that desperate. It's times like this that you find who your friends are. He lives up in Bethpage on the Mt of Olives and for him to make his way down to the City would not have been easy with all the police patrols. Really appreciated that kind offer.