Feast day

Road Block at Notre Dame

 Police presence has been stepped up throughout the City. There were road blocks even in front of Notre Dame Center. City Gates have more police than usual and metal barriers are placed at every corner. I think the escape of the 6 terrorists have alerted everyone to be extra careful. Stricter restrictions in prisons to prevent similar escapes, were met with riots today - mealtimes, outdoor times were limited which the prisoners felt was collective punishment. Family members of the escapees have also been arrested ... drawing anger from the local arabs. It all seems to go downhill. 

Honey on apple

Today is also the birthday of the BV Mary. The traditional Mass at St. Anne's Church (Bethesda Pool) near our house was celebrated with a small crowd of local religious. Due to Covid indoor restrictions, no more than 50 people are allowed to gather. I was in my office all day, doing lots of work till 6pm. I also went to the pharmacy and the kind owner immediately gave me a cream to put on the midge bites that have been infected. It also stopped the itching ... for several hours. Then I had to reapply the cream again.

Yesterday's Jewish New Year saw no clashes in and around the Old City or near the Wailing Wall. I taught the chinese sisters to eat apple dipped in honey ... which is a traditional Jewish New Year delicacy. I love it, especially with green apples because the tangy, sour apple goes well with the sweet honey. Hopefully it brings in a sweet year .... end of Covid and back to normal life.

New Year

Protest in Bethlehem

 Today is the Jewish New Year. But it didn't start out well. 6 terrorists from high security prison escaped and the country is on red alert. Mass gatherings at synagogues and public places are at risk of possible attacks and security has stepped up a lot around the City.

Anyway the streets and roads are a lot more empty as Jews are not allowed to work on this holy day. The borders with Palestine have been closed.

Also tensions at the southern Gaza border has increased, with Gaza flying incendiary balloons into Israel, burning up the surrounding land, and Israel bombing targets in Gaza. Also up north in Syria, tensions are rising. But if things are like previous years, it shouldn't lead up to war.

Israel has lowered Singapore's Covid standing, downgrading it to orange level meaning visitors must be quarantined for 1 week. Hong Kong, Taiwan and China though remain in yellow level which requires only 24 hr isolation. Local infection rates have lowered quite a lot but fears of mass gatherings in synagogues will lead to another spike. 

I try to avoid crowds but work requires me to walk 1km to my office. With my difficulty in breathing, I luckily have a tuk-tuk driven by our doorman to get me there. Our local tuk-tuks are golf carts that don't require licenses to drive; unlike the tuk-tuks in Thailand and Philippines which are jeepneys. Locals bring elderly and sick people around the Old City in tuk-tuks because climbing all the stairs is really very difficult. I'm numbered as elderly and sick.

New Year

Basilica of the Nativity

 Disaster this morning as all the lights in my room blew up. I only had only the light of the fish tank to brighten my room ... and at 3am it is very very dark. I need to get it fixed today as soon as possible but our worker has already left. I may have to fix it all myself ... except that I need to know which bulbs and neons I need. It's such a mess, and after yesterday's exhaustive series of talks and classes ... I just don't feel up to it. My head is all dizzy from lack of sleep, and my whole body hurts from the midge bites. They have started attacking my torso now. And those on my legs have begun to blister. I may be developing an allergic reaction to it.

Anyway it's the eve of the Jewish New Year. Road blocks are at every major street corner, police are everywhere ... and road closures have been issued. The borders with Palestine will also be closed. I had to rush off to Bethlehem this morning to bring in aid to the sisters before the borders close. In the rush to get things ready, I forgot where I placed my keys. It was another 20 minutes of wasted time searching for it .... which eventually I found at the adjoining door of the library reading rooms. After my embolism 2 months back ... my memory has deteriorated.

At the MC chapel (Bethlehem)

Made a short detour to the Basilica of the Nativity and prayed for you all there. Then I went to the MC convent to deliver the aid and celebrated Mass for the sisters. Yesterday they celebrated the feast of M. Teresa and the altar is still adorned with the flowers and picture of Mother. It was good to be the sisters.

After that it was a quick rush to leave Bethlehem as the borders would close in 4 hours, and there was heavy traffic at all the border-crossings. Many Palestinians who have permits to work in Israel were trying to move to Israel so they would not be locked in Bethlehem and lose several days work. I decided to go home through the desert beyond Shepherds' Field and there was no traffic there ... only one truck in front of us.

Anyway it's going to be the Jewish New Year ... so Shanah Tova to you all!

Feastday

Conference today

 The weather has cooled significantly. Nights go down to 18 degrees and daytime is 28. That means those horrible biting midges are back. My feet are filled with red swellings that itch terribly. No amount of ointment or insecticide seem to stop them. Their next season will be end of Spring when the weather reaches this temperature. 

Today is the feast of M. Teresa. I celebrated Mass in commemoration of her. Then in the afternoon I organised a talk on the sanctuaries of St. Joseph in the Holy Land, presented by our resident archeologist. The small group of english speaking religious from around Jerusalem came. It was a very interesting talk, with some very unknown sites presented to us. Everyone enjoyed and learned from it. Then they were treated to a free tour of our museum (which is still in construction). 

School has started so my 4am classes are back on schedule. I will definitely be tired but teaching is what I need to do to keep alive. I have 4 classes per week, plus studying for my degree, and work in 2 libraries. My body isn't what it used to be. Wrecked with pain and sickness. But I find strength when I teach. So it's full steam ahead.

Corona infections have begun to drop. The booster shots seem to be effective. However with the Jewish New Year beginning tomorrow, and mass gatherings will be rampant; followed by Yom Kippur 2 weeks later, and Sukkot a week after that. We must be cautious. Borders with Palestine will be closed during this period and I guess our movements in the Old City will be restricted with roadblocks and street closures. It's something we learn to live with.

Cool

2 pigeons on our steeple

 Spoke too soon about silence at the borders. Last night Syria fired something into Israel, which landed somewhere in north Tel Aviv. Israel in turn fired missiles into Syria. But there's no cause for panic. I think it's just posturing. No one wants a war in the middle of a pandemic.

And talking about pandemics, apparently Israel has the highest number of infections per capita in the world. Still the mortality rate is dropping. We need to distinguish between the two ... infections do not mean deaths or hospitalization. And Israel is the first country to mobilise 3rd vaccine shots. That's very advanced because many countries haven't even finished their first round. And children above 12 yrs can also be vaccinated. That is comprehensive vaccination. 

Weatherwise, it's cooling down alot during the nights. It's down to 19 degrees now, though daytime still hovers around the 30s. It's also alot more humid and every morning the ground is wet with dew. That's making the bulbs grow ... as they think it's Spring. If it snows this winter, these early growing bulbs will die.

On Sunday the Jewish High Holy Days will begin, and already police have placed barricades at the City Gates and restricting vehicles from entering. It's a 4 week long celebration so I hope this won't cause too much disruption in our daily routine to go to work. Fingers crossed, all will be peaceful.

Goodbye Kevin

Pahd Krapao

 Tuesday evening the superior of the Capuchin friars invited me over for dinner. They have a lovely plot of land in the western side of Jerusalem ... several buildings and a small pine forest and a large farming area. It's very tranquil and quite unlike the rest of bustling Jerusalem beyond its walls. The Superior Fr Kevin has ended his term and will return to India next week. I was one of his first friends when he arrived 5 years back ... I was to preside the Mass of India's Independence Day with some 3000 indians, when he arrived and I asked him to preside instead. He has been a good friend and very helpful by allowing us to use the capuchin monastery for retreats and conferences. He even used the monastery to house quarantined religious coming from the airport. He's very generous. We will all miss him greatly and wish him a fruitful ministry back in India.

I'm still basking from the great lunch at Thai House on Tuesday afternoon ... just a simple meal of home food is all I need to make my summer happy. I had Pahd Krapao or stir fried basil with meat on white rice. It's a poor man's food back in Thailand ,,, any available meat roughly chopped and fried with Thai Holy Basil. I love it. And it's topped with a sunny-side-up egg.

The big news around the country is ... a crocodile has been sighted by Israeli soldiers along the Sea of Galilee. It might have escaped from a nearby crocodile farm ... and that area borders with Jordan. Soldiers form the 2 countries are co-ordinating in their search for that reptile.

We just learned that an Israeli NGO has hired planes to save christians in Afghanistan. Very magnanimous. The tensions at the Gaza border seem to have subsided after 4 bights of bloody clashes. Up north there is no news of clashes with Syria or Lebanon. Maybe things are getting better. But next week begins the series of Jewish High Holy Days that stretch a good 4 weeks .... anything can happen.

End of summer holidays

Near-empty beaches

 Yesterday was the last day of summer holidays. It was a miserable summer to say the least ... I worked as usual every day like the rest of the year. But yesterday I was determined to do something special ... even if it were only 7 hours. The whole of 3 months summer holidays squeezed into 7 hours .... which was a visit to Jaffa and eating my favourite Thai food in Tel Aviv. I had to leave early early at 5.30am and reached Jaffa's St. Peter's Church at 7am just in time for Lauds and Mass. The chinese sisters had tagged along with me as they too start work today.

After Mass we walked along the beach for a good 4 kms. The sun was shining but a lovely cool sea breeze was lowing. I needed it. My asthma yesterday morning was so bad I nearly blacked out twice. The beach front was relatively quiet ... very few people. Usually it would be packed with students on the last day of the holidays. But Covid infections had hit 11,000 a day ... the highest per capita in the world. People just avoided going out.

Empty beach front

We then walked another 1.5km to my favorite Thai restaurant where we ordered Tom Yam, Pahd Thai and Pahd Krapao. It was a leisurely lunch and we chatted alot. At 2pm we returned home, to avoid the terrible traffic jams that begin at 3pm. It was a nice ride and I fell asleep along the way. Still there was a little traffic jam here and there ... and our return trip took 2 hrs instead of 1.

Well ... today school starts. I had to run between the 2 libraries to make sure everything was going smoothly. The Green Pass system is in operation for all libraries so I must make sure the rules are being observed. It'll be another 12 months efore I get to enjoy my next "summer holidays" which will be no better than yesterday's ... only a couple of hours.