Monti fest

Our Maria Bambina sisters
at Mass

The weather has cooled alot ... by some 5 degrees during the day. It's now around 28 degrees at daytime. But the nights are just about the same temp. And very humid. I've not been able to sleep at night because of the heat. 

Last Saturday our Jerusalem Konkani community celebrated their Monti Feast (summer harvest + birth of Mary) in a grand style. Their bishop of Mangalore came and celebrated Mass with the Tel Aviv community, the Haifa community and the Jerusalem community. I think there're about 40,000 konkanis in Israel working as caregivers. I often help out whenever they have a shortage of priests. 

Monti fest lunch: vegetarian

I couldn't join them for Mass and procession this year because I had the Ethiopic Mass at the same time. It's the ethiopic New Year so I had to celebrate the feast for them. However I did manage to get back in time for the cultural programme and lunch with the bishop and other konkani religious of Jerusalem. There were our Maria Bambina (Baby Mary) sisters, who celebrated their patron feast day (Nativity of Mary, hence baby Mary). 

Konkanis after Mass

Lunch was a celebration of the summer harvest. It's vegetarian and the parishioners cooked the dishes themselves. I love vegetarian food. It was very well made.

So my weekend was very busy with all these ethnic celebrations. My left eye is affected by cataract and it's bothering my sight. It's terrible irritating and I keep rubbing my eye, but it does not go away. Vision in the left eye is 70%.  Because of the double blood-thinners that I'm taking, the eye specialists can't do a cataract op on me until my cardiologist is consulted. It gets complicated from here on.