Hi kids!

Kathy and I got into Jerusalem on Tuesday, but she had a headache on Wednesday, so we didn’t get to Hebron until Thursday. We were sad that we only got to work with Bob Holmes for one day! We worked with Bob during the Second Intifada ten years ago.  He is a lot of fun, but he doesn’t like eating fruits or vegetables.  He’s really afraid of pomegranates.  But we miss him already.  Sniff Sniff.

Right before Kathy and I arrived, Winter Storm Alexa hit Israel and Palestine and all the countries around them with a LOT of snow and rain. In Hebron, which is about 3,000 feet up, there was a lot of snow–like there is in Rochester during a couple bad days of blizzards, but no one here has snow plows or snow shovels. So it caused a lot of buildings and parts of buildings to fall down.  Kathy and I will take some more pictures of that.

When we got here, several days after the blizzard ended there was still snow on the steps leading up from the women’s apartment to the roof.  It keeps melting, so there’s always a little river running down the stairs, and we have to keep squeegeeing the water outside the door down the next flight of stairs because it collects into a little pond about 3″ deep outside our front door.

And it’s pretty cold inside the house.  The downstairs apartment where the office is has a gas heater and an electric heater going, so it’s not too bad, but Kathy’s room is really, really cold. The little electric heater doesn’t help a lot.  It only warms the part of your body that’s right next it.  Kathy is always grateful to her mother-in-law Terri for giving her that black and gray wool dress that is too warm to wear anywhere that has central heating, so it is perfect to wear for winters in Hebron. In fact, she almost never takes it off.  She wishes she could wear two pairs of wool socks with her shoes.  Unicorns, of course have magic fur, so we’re fine in the cold or the heat, but we try not to be annoying about it.