School starts ... well almost all

A jug of cold water with
mint and lemon ... perfect
for a hot day

Schools in Israel and Palestine officially start today or tomorrow. Universities and other higher institutions start a month later. But in Israel, the association of teachers have decided to call off the opening of the school year because they had issues with the Ministry of Education regarding textbook materials. So no school for Israeli kids this week ... teachers go on strike. And if we should go by tradition, university staff should also go on strike ... they've been doing it for decades. One nice thing about the start of the school year - the streets, cafes, malls, beaches, trains are all a lot quieter and orderly.

The heat is still on us but it lasts only during the daylight hours. By evening it gets so cold I wear a hoodie. It's practically the beginning of autumn. The High Holy Days of Judaism will soon begin ... Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkoth beginning Set. 13th and lasts for 3 weeks. Usually Sukkoth is the time when tensions with arabs as jews expect the coming of the Messiah and it necessitates the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the rebuilding of the jewish Temple. Not quite sure how violent this year will be. But violence on ancient temples are in the news this week. ISIS had destroyed the Palmyran temple of Baal Shemen and yesterday they destroyed the other iconic temple of Bel (or Baal). Awful.

September is upon us and soon 2015 will be over. How quickly time flies. Hopefully event the violence will blow away. Tourism has dropped to an all time low in peace time. The war around us is frightening people away. It will hit us hard toward Christmas.

Disastrous weekend

The weekend passed without incident despite the tension in the Old City. Small streets and alleys are still closed by soldiers and police but life goes on ... it's the inconvenience that we've all learned to bear with.

A lovely Bauhaus in Tel Aviv

Meantime I had to rush off to Tel Aviv for a check up. Took advantage of the trip also to meet up with some people. I had planned to return home by evening but being my luck, I broke the key in the gate. We could not extract the broken part of the key from the keyhole. Disaster! As it was Sabbat, jews don't work so we had to find an arab locksmith to come. He stupidly sawed off the little part sticking out of the keyhole ... thus ending our chance to even grasp at that little end to pull it out. I was terribly upset. The locksmith said he'd come to redo everything 3 days later. So very typically local.

So instead of going home, I decided to stay back and watch the door as no one could enter the monastery from the outside ... and many of the fathers were outside celebrating Sunday Mass in other cities. From 2.30pm to 11.30pm I sat at the doorway waiting till everyone returned. It was exhausting, But the community was very understanding and kept asking me to go to sleep, that it could have happened to anyone. And the stalls in front of the church also stayed opened till midnight as there was a concert in the opposite hill and there were lots of tourists and local visitors. The shop keepers were very kind. Shlomi who runs a juice stall gave me fruit and juice free of charge as it was very hot. Rudy and Mier who both run trinket stalls, came to help me try extricate the broken key but failed. Every one was very nice ... but I still felt terrible.

Anyway I did finally fall asleep and when I was up in the kitchen at 6.30am, indian Fr Tojy was also there and he said he'll try to remove the broken key. I wanted to say "forget it, we tried everything" but he seemed very sure of himself. So he went downstairs while I stayed in the kitchen drinking my morning honey/lemon mix. After 10 minutes he came back and said it's fixed, the broken part had been pulled out and there's no need to replace the entire lock. Tojy really knows his stuff.

Fr Tojy (r) with Fr Roshan at
Kohinoor for lunch as my thanks to
Tojy for helping me with the door

I was very happy and relieved. Tojy and his guest Fr. Roshan were going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Malayalam Mass so since I was going home, I offered to bring them back with me. Just my luck. As we entered Shaar Haggai valley  - the narrowest part of Highway 1 linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, our car broke down. The radiator was overheated and we had no water to cool it off. Cars refused to stop and help because it was the narrowest part of the Highway. We stood in the sun and heat and dust for over an hour waving down for help but no one did. Luckily our call to Automobile Association of Israel got through and they sent a truck over. The man was very kind, checked the entire car and filled up the radiator with 10 litres of water. The he drove behind us along the Highway till we reached a petrol station where we could get another check. When this was done, and our driver and the technician were satisfied, then he drove off. We were very impressed by this. The technician refused to accept payment as it was AA's policy to offer free service. Thanks to our AA angel ... we arrived safely in Jerusalem and just in time for Mass.

Orthodox Assumption feast

Today is Friday and though there's tension in the air as hundreds of arabs enter the Al Aqsa Mosque with tight police control, no incidents occurred. Thank goodness.

Solemn entrance to the Tomb of the
Virgin Mary in Gethsemane 

The crowds in the Old City have increased because the Greek Orthodox celebrated the feast of the Assumption of Mary yesterday. Thousands of orthodox christians gathered at the Holy Sepulchre, waiting for the procession of the icon of Mary to be carried out and into the Church of the Tomb of the Virgin Mary down in Gethsemane which is 1 km away. Church bells were ringing at 5am till 6am while the procession slowly moved toward the valley, passing by our house. Tomorrow the Armenian Orthodox will celebrate the same feast - they use different calendars - and we expect a smaller crowd in the procession. Anyway for the entire 3 weeks that the icon remain in the Tomb, hundreds of orthodox christians will come and venerate and pray everyday.

Young girl dressed as the
BVM going down to the
Tomb of Mary

Healthwise I've been getting asthma attacks and bad diarrhoea as well. Thought it was some virus as many other people in town are also down with it. And of course I ate some leftover food cold from the fridge several days ago and that caused the diarrhoea ... Now I realised what was also a major cause ... I took a wrong dosage of medicine. I remember I had to buy Telfast, my antihistamine medicine which I must take everyday. Doc had said I need the maximum dosage which is 180mg but the pharmacy had only 120mg. The pharmacist told me to take one and a half tablets. But I forgot and took only one for almost a week ... and hence the asthma attacks. Yesterday I realised my mistake and rushed off to buy the correct dosage which the pharmacy now had in stock. The asthma stopped immediately. But I learned another thing - I had to take it in the night, not in the morning as I have been doing. Well now I feel better and learned a little more about medication, but the diarrhoea and cramps are still bothering me.

Stromata

Piglets in baskets

Another violent couple of days. Yesterday evening I was on my way down to the 3rd Station to buy some Shoko (chocolate milk) to soothe my ailing tummy when lots of soldiers were running toward Damascus Gate. My security friends told me there was a stabbing: an arab from Bethlehem with an axe against a policeman. The latter was wounded in the leg and the former was shot and arrested. Today all the alleys in our Quarter are blocked off by soldiers and only the main roads were opened to traffic. That's the price we all have to pay for one person's crime. Collective punishment.

Gaza has been firing missiles into Israel and today Israel fired back. Everyone thinks it'll crescendo sooner or later towards the Yom Kippur / Sukkoth feasts. What a dreadful autumn ... and speaking of autumn, people are saying autumn has arrived. The sun rises much later at almost 6am and sets early at 7.45pm. We had a very short summer but it was very hot and intense. But autumn doesn't seem very promising either.

On a nice note: a group came bringing me a dozen piglets in baskets - chinese cookies! Lots of my friends have been very curious about this since I received (and ate) one a month ago. Now I can share it with them. I hope it's kosher!

Carmelites from Haifa and
Nazareth making the Way of the Cross

And yesterday was a big celebration at the Bethlehem Carmelite Monastery to commemorate the canonisation of their founding sister, the arab St. Miriam Bouardy. I heard it was very crowded so that the Mass had to be celebrated in the garden of the Betarram Fathers next door. Carmelite nuns from Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem also attended. Today some of the nuns came to visit the Old City and make the Way of the Cross. It's the first time for all of them to visit Jerusalem even though they have been in Israel for several years now. That's the cloistered life.

Violent speeches

Asian limes in Jerusalem

And incredible start to the week as whirlwind affairs just kept blowing in. Israeli bombs Syria as more missiles land in the Golan. Far-right rabbis praise the jewish criminals who burnt the arab baby and father alive, and justifies attacks even on israeli police and soldiers who stop them. http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Far-right-rabbinical-group-pens-letter-calling-Jewish-terror-suspects-praiseworthy-413167  We see now a growing rabbinical legitimisation of violence against non-jews (meaning also jews who don't meet their standards) ... a very worrying sign that these extremists jews and rabbis are soon taking over Israeli society because the govt. and police are afraid of them. 7 arabs who threw stones at jews last week were arrested and charged ... but the killers of the arab baby and his father, or those who burnt the Church of 5 Loaves and 2 Fish a month ago have not been caught. In fact not a single suspect has been arrested and charged since the vandalism of the Last Supper Room and burning of the Latrun Monastery church doors 5 years ago.

Newly reorganised library

Police instead arrest an arab for transporting chickens, presumably, into Israel.  http://www.jpost.com/page.aspx?pageid=7&articleid=413083  There is a ruling that forbids food or livestock from being brought into Israel from arab areas like Bethlehem. I thought it might be a move to prevent diseases like MERS and SARS ... but the law includes cooked food. So now I'm not sure why.

I managed to find asian limes for sale in Jerusalem!!!! After all these years ... at the Filipino grocery store. They're seedless but the tangy juice is what I need. I've been suffering from diarrhoea and severe cramps for 4 days now. And many other people in town are also affected by this. Must be a gastro-intestinal virus. The MC sisters are also suffering from this, and so are several priests and lay people. The thought of food makes me vomit. I can only drink chocolate milk and lime juice. And that should give me the energy to finish re-organising the 40,000 books in the libraries.

Strict Sabbath enforcements

And more violence rocks the north as missiles from Syria continue to fly into Israel. Now we're sure it's not accidental. Israel retaliated and will continue to do so. Several syrian rebel jihadists were killed by Israeli strikes yesterday.

Ultra-orthodox power is flexing in Jerusalem as the munipality bows to them and enforces strict closure of shops on the Sabbath. The latest victims are 8 supermarkets and snack shops. Well if they continue to do this, everyone including jews will be going to East Jerusalem and eating and shopping from the arabs. Good boost to the arab economy.

Food poisoning

Yesterday and this morning saw a rise in isolated attacks. Rockets and misses from Lebanon and Syria flew into Israel ... not sure if they were intentional or mistakes ... but Israel returned fire anyway. Highway 443 which is the new link between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv saw 4 attacks of rock throwing which injured several people.

St. Stephen's Gate ... gateway
from the Mt. of Olives to
the Old City

Yesterday afternoon I was very hungry and ate some leftover rice ... cold from the fridge. Absolutely awful. Had food poisoning. Stomach cramps and severe diarrhoea. It was so bad I could hardly walk. Constant nausea too. This morning was the same. Am feeling very weak. But I had to go to Pater Noster Carmelite Monastery to celebrate a Mass ... it's 1km up the Mt. of Olives. It was quite an ordeal. Walking back was traumatic. Downhill to the Kidron Valley in the intense heat, I stopped by Gethsemane and rested in the monastery - they gave me water to drink. Then walked up to Jerusalem hill and stopped at Sheep's Pool (St Anne's Church) to rest again before finishing the last 50 meters back home. Have been in bed since. Feeling extremely ill.

But work must still continue. I've been preaching a Triduum to the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa) leading up to their feast day tomorrow. It's a short walk to their convent but with the diarrhoea and nausea and heat, it's difficult to give an hour's talk, then an hour of adoration, plus confessions. I need to rest next week. I really do. But first, the food poisoning has to go.