Fellow volunteers
We met as volunteers working at the same night shelter but we found out that we had already been colleagues unawares when both of us had served, albeit at different times, at the same institution in Jerusalem. It usually didn’t take long until she talked about her volunteering in Israel with someone new, and it must have been like this that we discovered common ground. She was rather chuffed when it came to the topic of her yearly stays of over a month each time.
From that first day, whenever we did a night shift together we often talked about common acquaintances, the staff, the patients, the atmosphere in Jerusalem, and life in that big house. I promised one day I would show her the photos I had taken the summer I was there. Now there will be no more time for that…
In the internet era Christmas cards have become a rarity. The young have not lived in the heyday of the post, and many older people consider it outmoded or too formal to send cards, but the main reason may be that they are rather inconvenient. Because you’ve got to buy one, write in good hand a well thought-out message parsed with punctuation and capital letters (an insurmountable stumbling block for most email writers), copy the address, buy a stamp, stick it on the envelope, and mail it. Compared to the click of the mouse required to send an email, this takes much longer, involves more commitment and more expense. In most cases it involves a process that is not accomplished in just a few hurried minutes in front of the laptop screen.
When I met him in the lift he was carrying a globe in his hands. Across the lands of two continents red and blue lines were drawn that must respectively represent his proposed route and the one already carried out. It was an original way to take note of a travel itinerary and it naturally led me to exchange a few words during the handful of seconds that the lift ride lasted. At the hostel door we said goodbye. I was going into town and he to a bookshop, with his globe.
I invited my friends to celebrate three November birthdays, among which mine, and I prepared a genuine Moroccan dinner because of my recent visit there: harira with dates and chicken tajine. On another occasion I had tried out this particular harira recipe which had turned out above my best expectations and had gathered the unanimous praise of all my guests. I was glad that the flavours resulting from the mix of coriander and unfamiliar spices did not taste too strange to my more conservative friends, and therefore I listed it among the dishes that deserved being offered again. As for the main course I went for something blander that the previous time and prepared a chicken tajine.
The economy spins thanks to innovation, this is perfectly well known. Economists have pointed out that innovation can take various forms, product, process and the litany goes on until a given sacred number which is in its turn presented as an innovative discovery, because a new theory also constitutes a sellable product.