Kung Hei Fat Choy

元旦

So it's the first day of the Lunar New Year. Trying to stay positive and enjoying whatever little festive air there is. The sunrise was great - the first dawn of lunar new year (元旦).

The evening before - the Reunion dinner at Mandarin's was great. The food was superb as Ah Ling cooked up dishes traditional and not in the menu. There was slow boiled whole chicken soup in herbs, handmade dumplings, Hung Xiu Yuk (Hong Shao Rou), claypot veggies with vermicelli ... it was fantastic. My guests were however few but important: Dong a PhD student from Shandong, Nicholas a french priest who'll be sent to HK in a few months' time, Beryl our HK volunteer at our museum, Pedro the spanish missionary from Kaohsiung, one italian prof and one italian volunteer. Table talk switched from italian to french to cantonese to mandarin to english. Got pretty confused. People (all chinese) at the other tables found it very amusing.

Anyway am into my 2nd day of Prednisone. Blood pressure shooting up, loss of appetite, then in the next few days it'll be swollen hands and feet and face, withdrawal symptoms ... am just dreading it. What a way to start the New Year. Thanks to Lawrence and Winnie for sending the links on precautions and don'ts when taking Pred. Been there, done that. Now the asthma is back ... gotta look for my puffer ....

Claypot veggies 

Slow-boiled chicken

Steam fish

Noodles and Siu Yuk

Our poor substitute for
fireworks

Pedro and Dong

Nicholas and Beryl

Ilie's graduation

Ilie's Graduation dinner

Much as I hate it, I'm on prednesone. It's my last ditch to keep under control the asthma. Starting with 30mg and weaning down in 10-12 days. I hate the side-effects ... if I don't wean off properly, it makes me suicidal. I just hate everything about it but I have no choice. I'm practically dying of a slow suffocation here.

And the fever is not letting up. Doc said too late for Tamiflu; why didn't I get my flu shot last year? Well I didn't think I needed a shot as it cost alot and the serum was limited in supply. Also found out my Tamiflu expired 3 months ago. Doc said not to buy another box as it's useless now ... wait till next winter.

Kubbeh, sfiha and feta

Despite my awful sickness, I managed to crawl to Calvary and celebrate a Mass for Elizabeth's mother who died last week. Elizabeth is one of our volunteers in the library. Also managed to crawl to Ilie's Graduation Dinner at Nafoura's. The food was good ... a surprise when many people had bad experiences there. There was a wide assortment of starters; from tradition mezza to armenian sfiha, kubbeh and fried feta cheese. Really good. Main dish was barbequed mixed grill. Everyone enjoyed the meal so that was a happy ending. But my head was swimming and my body aching at every joint. Needed to go straight home and sleep but the walk home made me shiver from chills and pain.

What a way to end the Year of the Snake ... leaving with a sting. And the Year of the Horse is beginning with a massive kick. Not liking it one bit.

More sick

Swollen arthritic fingers

Am feeling even more sick all night and today. For 3 days now my fingers are all swollen with arthritis. Can't bend them. And the fever is like a furnace burning from within. Every breath out is like blowing out fire. The throat is raspy and painful. And my lungs and chest hurt very much. Eyes feel like popping out.

Head is still dizzy. Can't walk for a distance as I'd fall over from fainting. This is such a dreadful day. It's been a long time since I was so sick.

No help is best help

Ilie defends his thesis

Been feeling very sick the whole night till now. It's a very bad cough and sore throat which seems to be a sort of bronchitis. Then there is the fainting spells. Awfully giddy. The head is spinning all the time. Can hardly stand straight. Need to lie down.

But lying down is a dream ... a student from Romania, Ilie, is defending his thesis and I'm obliged to attend the one hour talk. Impossible. After half an hour, I needed to go back to my room. Just simply too dizzy.

And I'm not the only one. Lots of people are feeling sick too. I think it's the change of air pressure and temperature. But honestly what I really hate is not all this sickness but people who want to "help". Instead of letting me rest in bed, they want to do this and cook that for me ... but they're not going to bring it to me. They want me to walk 2 storeys down the monastery, across the courtyard and 2 storeys up just for some chicken liver which I don't really care for. But these people are so fixed in their mind, they're doing it for themselves more than for me. After a hundred times telling them I don't need it and I need to sleep, I finally had to walk the 4 storeys in order to stop them from bugging me any further. So word of advice: if you want to help anyone who's sick: LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!!

Market

Bedouin woman selling
veggies

The internet line is driving everyone crazy. It's a new system installed but it's only one line with a low bandwidth servicing several hundred people. Worse ... it's open access with no password so there're lots of freeloaders hanging in the streets nearby using our network. That clogs up our traffic and now nothing works. Everyone is frustrated.

The weather is miserably cold and damp though it only drizzled instead of raining as forecast. The sun is up during the day but its mostly covered by rain clouds that refuse to rain. Lots of people are sick as a result - not just coughs and cold but headaches, dizziness as well. My new heater proved to be too small. It doesn't warm up the room as I expected. So I hide under layers of blankets to stay warm ... which is not good because it provokes my asthma. It's a catch 22 situation. Solution is to buy a bigger heater but I can't carry it all the way back home from the shop which is about 1km away.

More bedouin women
at the market

Yesterday I decided to snap some secret shots of bedouin women selling their products at Damascus Gate. Lots of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Also raisins and dried figs. Its a lovely time out in the market as the smells of fresh herbs and citrus fruit are very strong.

Can't take off Chinese New Year from my mind .... the cookies and food and songs .... Looks like I won't be enjoying much of it as I have to work through the weekend.

No rain still

Dark rain clouds

A couple of days of cold and humidity. The skies tend to get heavy with dark rainy clouds that never rain; but by noon the sun shines brightly and the temp. rises to 20 degrees. By night time it falls to 4 degrees.

It hasn't rained since the last snowstorm. Everyone is remarking how dry it will be this year. We dread a drought. Water prices will rise like crazy. it will make life unbearable.

Just received news that pig heads were sent to the synagogue in Rome. Now that's crossing the line. There are certain limits that even religious wars should respect - especially when it deals with the divine and sacred. I find it appalling that people would stoop so low ... they denigrate themselves, not the jews nor their synagogue. But likewise I utterly condemn those jews who throughout these 2 years have been vandalising and burning our churches here and spraying on our churchdoors "Mary is a whore" and "Jesus is a bastard". Jewish hatred for christians is no less a crime than anti-semitism is.

So the Chinese New Year is round the corner. It's going to be another working day for me. I was hoping for a couple of days off but it looks very unlikely. No Chinese New Year cookies, fireworks, banners and other kitschy stuff. Just another day.

New Heater

New heater

Wasn't going to pass another night without the heater ... just simply distressingly cold ... so I forced myself to go out to Sbitany's to buy another heater. The last one cost only 70 shekels and made in China. Broke down within a month. This time I got an Israeli one which looks like a speaker. And it's pretty small ... don't know if it'll warm up the entire room. Well tonight is the trial.

My fainting and dizzy spells are still on. Feeling light-headed most of the time. People say I'm probably hungry but I don't feel it. Anyway the cook did up 3 sunnyside-ups and I ate them. Felt good. But still felt dizzy a couple of hours later. Maybe its the blood pressure. Has been very low since my last operation when I lost quite alot of blood.

News in the local papers continue to report of Syrian rebels persecuting christians. No more singing hymns or ringing church bells. And one seminarian was kidnapped. Things are really bad. Hope when we're celebrating Chinese New Year, we can also remember these poor christians and pray for them.