Holidays

Rain clouds at 5am

This morning was strange ... heavy rain clouds covered the morning sky. I was up at 4am (3am solar time) to water the plants as the sun had begun to rise. At 5am I went up to the terrace to water the flowers up there and saw the dark clouds looming above. A cold damp wind was also blowing. It felt like Spring again ... but typical of Summer mornings, these clouds are blown into Jordan across the Dead Sea. But by noon the sun is scorching above. It's still not peak hot season ... 28 degrees at most but we can feel the effects on our skin. Yesterday I saw pigeons and sparrows taking a dip at the fountain in Palm Plaza. Now that's an indicator of how hot it is. The animals never lie.

The summer holidays have official begun today. But most students and profs are stuck here because there are no flights out ... or they chose to remain because of the danger of infections back in their own country. Their staying back adds pressure on me because they'll be wanting to use the libraries and I really would like to close it and give my workers (and myself) a rest. I'll have to talk to the dean and work something out with him.

Birds bathing at Palm Plaza

As viral infections have soared the past few days, the president of Cyprus has called off a visit to re-establish tourist links. I guess all the tourism plans to re-open sites are put on hold until the situation is under control. And that is anyone's guess because of the stubborn few who refuse to abide by the hygiene norms. The PM has only been making empty threats and the police are not enforcing the law strictly enough.

There's been alot of internal violence in the arab-israeli community. Yesterday saw the 4th shootings with fatalities in 48 hours. Since e the beginning of the year, 43 arab-israelis have been killed by internal violence. These are arabs born and living as israeli citizens. One can see how dysfunctional these communities are .... caught between the arab-israeli war and cultures. The clash between their racial/religious identities, political leanings and allegiances is quite vicious.    https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-shot-dead-in-4th-killing-in-two-days-in-arab-community/

I'm still having trouble breathing in the nights and my chest hurts if I sleep on my left. I have to sit-up for an hour or so till thinks go back to normal before I can sleep again. I sure hope tonight I can have a full night's sleep as the past weeks have been very difficult. It makes the rest of my day very tiring.