Another Sad Day

This morning started quietly with a few sirens although I felt rather groggy and the heat didn’t help.

In the early afternoon my husband phoned for a few minutes to say hello and tell me he was safe and sound. I hadn’t looked at the news for a couple of hours so I wasn’t quite sure what he meant but a quick surf through the news and I began to see the terrible reports from Kfar Giladi.

As the afternoon progressed the sirens went off several more times and there was one sky splittingly loud crack right above our heads.

Late afternoon my Dad came to pick us up for a visit as tomorrow he is off to Beer Sheva. He is making a quick visit to pay his condolences to the wife of my cousin who died a month ago.

My cousin died on the first day of this war and although my father couldn’t go to the funeral, he had hoped to make it to the Shiva. However as the hostilities progressed it became obvious that he couldn’t leave my mother alone with all their animals in the middle of such chaos. Once my mother had gone to England he couldn’t go because Beer Sheva entails an over-night trip and although I would normally volunteered to animal-sit, in these circumstance – No Way Jose!

Eventually it occurred to him that animal-sitter might be able to stay an extra night. That was arranged and so my father will travel from Beer Sheva to Ben Gurion for his flight to England.

With my husband in miluim (reserves) and public transport almost non-existent my Dad was contemplating the expensive of a taxi to the other side of Haifa, which is the farthest north the trains run in the present situation. However the man who is animal–sitting for Dad has kindly offered to drive him there, in my Dad’s car. Luckily he is over 24 so that poses no problem with the insurance.

Anyway before my Dad arrived I wanted to shower but the telephone caught me just as I was getting ready and I was still dirty when my father knocked on the door. Naturally I had another 3 more phone calls before I could get in the shower. It is as if they could smell the soap and water!

The same happens with my Dad. The roads are practically empty – hardly any cars – but as soon as he arrives at a junction we have to wait for half a dozen to pass!

We got to my parents house and I photographed the damaged done to the new house opposite when a katyusha landed there a couple of days ago. That wasn’t reported in the international news, which was a relief considering how anxious it would have made my mother. What was upsetting was the fact that almost no one in the international media bothers to report the deaths of three women in a local Bedouin village.

Bloggers have been keeping their eye on the mainstream media noting their bias and the fact that Hizbollah seems to have turned them into its own propaganda machine. Little Green Footballs has caught Reuters red –handed.

We ate supper with my Dad, played monopoly and I popped round to the corner shop for some basic supplies. I walked close to the houses in case the siren went off and I needed to dive into someone’s stairwell but the only noise I heard was of outgoing though that was scary enough.

In my house the artillery blasts seem close so you can feel the blasts in the air pressure and the rattling windows. To make it worse Shlomi is built on terraces up the hill and we are at the bottom. Almost opposite us is a 4m tall retaining wall for the next level and this wall creates a noise tunnel in which the blast reverberates with a strange metallic echo. If you are outside you can sometimes hear the whoosh, almost like a jet engine, as the missiles forces through the air and then the dull thud as it lands on the target.

At my parent’s the valley seizes the sound and it reverberates around you coming from no direction and all directions at once, so close I feel the need to duck and lasting for long, eerie seconds.

As we come home, say goodbye to my father and wish him a safe journey we began to hear the terrible news about the attacks on Haifa.

ES