Quiet weekend

Pansit and chicken adobo dinner

The archeological team from the Uni. of S. Africa has left for the north to Tel Hazor where they will be digging tomorrow. Yesterday was an exhausting day guiding them from the Mt. of Olives down to the Way of the Cross inside the Old City to the Holy Sepulchre and then to the Last Supper Room. It was practically a total of 15 km or so of walking on mountains and hills. It was really bad for me because I was suffering from chronic diarrhoea. And I had not eaten any food for 24 hours which made me weak. Well after the excursion ended at 5pm I had to rush off 100 km away to Netanya to celebrate Mass for the catholic community there. The driver lost his way there and again lost his way back. By the time I got home it was midnight ... and I got to eat my first bite of food in 36 hours. Julie one of the filipino leaders of the community in Netanya celebrated her birthday yesterday and cooked some nice filipino food for me to take home. Pansit (fried bee hoon) and chicken adobo  (marinaded sauce). Yummy.

Colourful shades
in Ben Yehuda Mall

Tensions have died down these 2 days during the weekend. No attacks or stabbings. It's a nice change.

Weatherise it's still very hot but the evenings are very cool and breezy. Schools have begun summer vacation and lots of students are flocking the City centre.  Ben Yehudi Mall has colourful shades on each side street and its very fun and festive for the school kids who flock to the Mall. On the eastern side of Jerusalem, the arabs are still celebrating Eid el Fitri with evenings filled with people swarming the East Jerusalem night markets and shops. Both sides of the City seem to be enjoying the summer so let's hope nothing spoils it.

With the new week starting and the summer timetable for the 2 libraries in force ... I hope to have a little more quiet time and rest. I hope.

Work

U, of S. Africa archeological team
at a briefing

Thursday and Friday have been very exhausting. I decided to guide a group of profs. and students from the Uni. of S. Africa in the Old City. They are here on their annual excavation at Tel Hazor but are making a 3 day visit to the Old City archaeological sites. Walking up and down the City steps for 5 to 8 kms is exhausting under the heat. Well I'm doing my best but I can really feel my health and age playing against me.

Meantime life goes on as usual with the tensions between the arabs and the jews. It's the 2nd day of Eid el Fitri and also the beginning of the Sabbath. El Wad street is thick of soldiers and police. A semblance of normality as no muslim want to spoil the holiday with violence.

However newspaper are bringing up the question of the burning of the Church of 5 Loaves and 2 Fish. It's been a year since the burning. It;s still not repaired. The govt. has not payed a single cent of compensation it promised and the perpetrators have been released despite being charged with arson and attempted murder and hate crimes. If it were an arab, you can be sure its life time jail sentence, destruction of his house etc... And talking about destruction of houses,  the police has this week destroyed several houses of arab terrorists, suspects and accomplices. Now the arab family of the boy burnt alive and killed by 3 jewish youths last year  have petitioned that the houses of these jewish murderers be destroyed as well. The High Court turned it down saying it is not necessary. Double standards?  It;s these things that make living in this land so tiresome .... there is a double standard of justice. And we non-jewish people stand on the losing end.

Eid el Fitri

The cannons sounded 7 times at sunset yesterday .... Ramadan was over. Eid el Fitri today. The Eid (feast) lasts for 3 days here in our country. Many muslims I spoke to unashamedly tell me they are happy Ramadan is over ... they are tired of fasting for some14 hours a day for the past few years, in the heat of summer.As the lunar calendar changes ... soon Ramadan will fall in winter. That means its a lot cooler, and daylight time is much shorter. Fasting would be a lot easier then.

Sunset ... sun behind
the domes of the
Condemnation
Chapel

More terrorist attacks yesterday and this morning. Some of the stabbing attempts are clearly a desperate suicide attempt. Yesterday's arab girl holding a knife and trying to attack 2 soldiers at a bus-stop. Come on!!! She was what?? skinny 17 yr old. Holding the knife in her had in the air .... standing and not moving. Who in the world really believes she is capable of stabbing 2 huge soldiers, armed with semi-automatic machine guns. It was clearly a suicide attempt .... she wanted to be shot. It is becoming a common pattern here ... for young girls to escape a forced / arranged marriage, they go out and get shot by soldiers.

The ISIS quiz is still shaking the arab world: attacks in muslim countries, hundreds killed, even the Prophet's mosque is bombed .... all in Ramadan. Now we hear 20 yr old twins from Saudi Arabia killed their mother and tried to kill the rest of their family for trying to stop them from joining ISIS. http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.729144   Islam is collapsing from within. They should have realised ... their greatest enemies are not the infidels but the devout from within. Then an article on a young Yezidi girl who escaped being sold as a sex slave by ISIS. Terrifying and inhuman treatment .... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3675994/Islamic-State-tightens-grip-women-held-sex-slaves.html?ito=social-facebook

Chinese Catholic exchange students
meet for breakfast

Anyway the buzz around the Internet is "How come no solidarity with the hundreds killed in Baghdad and Istanbul? How come no "Je suis Dhaka / Istanbul movement?" https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/755913514550158/?pnref=story

A prominent Coptic nun was shot dead in Cairo yesterday. Earlier a muslim cleric in Cairo was quoted in the newspapers as saying christians (Copts) are aggressive, criminal and oppressive ... thus inciting more attacks against christians in Egypt.

Terror everywhere

My swollen index
finger

The cannon did not fire 7 times last night. That means Ramadan will end tonight. Our streets will be blocked with human waves as yet another 400,000 muslims enter our Quarter to get into the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Yesterday's series of bombings all over our region by ISIS is waking up the arabs. Baghdad with several hundred dead ... Saudi Arabia's Shrine of the Prophet Mohammed's Tomb bombed together with the Holy City Medina, Qatif and Jedda ....  ISIS is hitting home. The arabs can longer imagine that ISIS is a western problem. Time to wake up. When Islam's holiest shrines are bombed by Islamists .... it makes you question what this is all about .... Jesus said "A house that is divided will never stand".

Srs. Munira & Genevieve

Srs. Munira and Genevieve from Damascus came to Jerusalem for a retreat. Sr. Munira was formerly from the Bethany St. Vincent de Paul orphanage before being transferred to Damascus earlier this year. They spoke to me of the war in Syria. They run a hospital in Damascus but they also care for the thousands of refugees from other cities coming into Damascus. Though Damascus is much better off than Aleppo and the countryside, it nevertheless has its share of bombings and shootings. "We get used to it" Sr. Munira said. The refugee problem is severe ... children get lost in the panic, the sisters try to save whoever they can by providing shelter, food and medicine. Most of your donations were given to them and also to Mother Teresa's sisters in Damascus. They need lots of help as the rest of the world has forgotten about the Church in Syria. Sr. Munira will bring back all the donations to be distributed to the various communities.

Pray for the Church in Syria

End of Ramadan today?

Well the end of ramadan might be earlier than expected. Street talk is if the new moon is sighted tonight, then Ramadan ends tonight. We'll have to hear how many cannon shots this evening to find that out. If it ends, then there will be 7 cannon shots.

Geraniums and agapanthus on the
convent balcony

Meantime things are heating up in the north. Israel has been preparing for some time now for a war with Lebanon but so far nothing is in the showing. Instead Israel bombed Syrian targets today because Syria had fired shots into Israel.

Internally Israel is also getting more divided then ever ... religiously. The stranglehold which the ultra-orthodox rabbis hold on Judaism has tightened. They refused egalitarian worship (= women) at the Wailing Wall. Then they extended their refusal to recognise conversions by other rabbis (mainly american and non-ultra-orthodox) ... which indirectly means they don't recognise the validity of these rabbis' ordinations.  Today rabbis and jews of the orthodox, reformed and conservative branches organised a huge demonstration against this tight-fisted control of a minority (ultra-orthodox) over all Judaism, and refusing to accept differences of expression and practice.

Honeysuckle vine

The swollen nerves in my hands and feet have gone done slightly. Less painful today. I managed to go to the Chinese Convent to water the plants as the heat (34 degrees) would kill the young plants I planted there. The 2 honeysuckle vines are doing fine and hopefully by winter they would form a shade over the balcony entrance to block the fiery sun from beating directly into the convent. One corner of the balcony which is shaded, I planted herbs like rosemary, basil, lemon grass and a small lime bush. On the other side there are geraniums, agapanthus, marigolds and 3 oleander bushes which serve to block the view from the main road below. And why am I watering the plants? because the sisters are so busy guiding pilgrimage groups they have no time. Like I said previously, they have gilded over 20 groups in these few months since the convent was established. So thanks to all of you, the sisters are now fulfilling their mission in the Holy Land.

Surviving the weekend

Well we managed to survive Laylat el Qader. The noise ... like every year ... was overwhelming as 400,000 entered the Old City and stayed in and around the Al Aqsa Mosque. That's barely 50 meters from my room. The canons fired 3 times to signal the beginning and end of the feast ... or practically the opening and closing of heaven's doors.

Over-turned dumpsters at the
3rd Station of the Cross

The next morning we got to see the consequence: streets strewn with garbage and trash ... so high tractors had to be called in to haul them out. Power-flush teams with water hoses blasted the trash into corners, cleaning the grime off the streets as well.

There were scuffles with the police at Damascus Gate as well. Well when there are 400,000 muslims in the streets ... and several murder attempts earlier in the day ... you can imagine the tension in the streets. I stayed indoors all night but slept very little that night. I watched the crowds and festivities and scuffles from the terrace of our house - a safe distance.  The recent killings within 24 hours has drawn a vicious response from Israel: collective punishment. Entire villages are closed off and land confiscated to become jewish settlements. Those foolish arab youths don't think ... everytime they commit a crime, it gives Israel the excuse to occupy more Palestinian land. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.728541

400,000 muslims spend the night
at the Al Aqsa Mosque

Yesterday night I woke up with a very sharp pain in my big toe and right index finger. The nerves were inflamed and knotted. Dreadful swelling and pain. Usually the veins burst and occasionally the nerves get into this type of swelling after a heavy dosage of cortisones for my asthma. And I had been under a heavy dosage all week. So it could be a side-effect. But never so serious before. Now walking and holding things are very difficult.

And I have been working extremely hard the past 2 days ... 21 hours each day with only 3 hours sleep. Had a dateline to meet so I had to rush through an urgent translation project. Today is Sunday I'm going to sleep in. Need the rest.

Laylat el Qader

Tonight is Laylat el Qader. Like I said in yesterday's blog, it's sort of a variation of a jewish theme of Yom Kippur. The heavens are opened tonight and God forgives the sins of muslims who call out to him, grants their prayers and requests. Nessun dorma .... no one will sleep; they stay up all night at the Al Aqsa storming heaven for their petitions .... and all of us non-muslims living in the area will not sleep either because of the endless traffic, noise, prayers over the PA system (which can be heard several kilometres away .. and my room is just 50 meters from the blaster). Once a year.

Next Tuesday is Eid el Fitri ... the end of Ramadan. Life hopefully returns to normal after that.

Srs. Maryann, Lucy and Fr. Buscemi

More violence this morning. Another attempted stabbing in Hebron; this time the arab attack was shot dead. In another case, a female muslim worshipper was found to be hiding a knife in the Cave of the Patriarchs (also in Hebron where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives Sarah, Rivka and Leah are buried). Well it;s anybody's guess what the next weeks will bring. The heatwave might drive people indoors and violence is contained by Mother Nature. Or someone might just be so hit by the sun he goes crazy and starts another cycle of killings.

The Oratory today

In the Chinese Convent ... as it's locally called now ... we're expecting the 3rd sister to arrive. Latest next week. Right now the 2 sisters living here are busy guiding groups. Since March this year they have guided over 20 groups. A great job providing a true religious experience for chinese pilgrims instead of crass tourism. The sisters sincerely thank everyone of you for your kindness, your prayers and well-wishes, your contributions to make their stay and work possible here in the Holyland. Everyday they pray for you in their oratory and one day a month they offer a Mass for your intentions. They also thank the Franciscan Custody of the Holyland for taking them under their care and protection; and especially Fr. Buscemi who had been extraordinary in his kindness to them.