Extreme temperatures

After last year’s low olive oil production, we were hoping for a good year this time, but it turned out very bad.

The long lasting frost in January/February with hardly any rain has been disastrous for the blossoms in spring.

To give an idea : someone who has normally a production of 800 to 1000 liter of olive oil, now has only 50 liter. Can it get worse?

I was feeling guilty in not being able to help, but I shouldn’t, as it turned out to be little work to pick the olives.

The olive oil will be extremely expensive, as not many will have any to sell.

Let’s hope for a wetter (less cold) winter. The first rain has not fallen yet. Last year we had it early, in October. That might be a good omen.

Nice sunny weather and not too cold at night, leaves more time for my 10 week old Zakaria to become stronger and fatter before winter starts. He is growing and gaining weight fast and his tummy trouble has become much better. He now sleeps a lot, smiles a lot and makes those typical baby sounds.

Yesterday, I compared him to a baby boy born on the same day by caesarean in the same hospital. That baby started crying and you could hardly hear him. Zakaria’s lungs are much better developed.

We are spending some time in the autumn sun every day to get vitamins we need for the winter. Zakaria in 3 layers of baby clothing his grandmother brought from Belgium. Me, in a light “galabia”.

Wedding time

Time passes by quickly when you don’t have any free time on your hands. It seems like every 2 days it is Friday.

Since Ramadan is over, we’ve had a marriage every evening in the village. Many, if not all, have waited until now to get married. It was not possible for me to attend any of the weddings with Zakaria being so small and crying a lot because of “tummy trouble”.

I would have liked to be at yesterday’s wedding. Chamsi, one of Mohamed’s sisters, had her eldest son married with a second wife after a few years of many many problems with the first one, Esma.

Esma, daughter of Mohamed’s elder sister, left the house a few months ago leaving her 2 young children behind. It was not the first time she left, but it was the first time she left her baby daughter, Rosy, behind. Rosy cried for a week, calling for her Mama before Esma came to fetch her.

3-year old Mohamed doesn’t have a problem with his mother not being home. He is used to it.. He is perfectly happy living and playing with his youngest uncles and calls his grandmother “Yaam” (Mummy), like the other children. His own mother is Esma and he doesn’t want to visit her.

This time they didn’t look for a wife within the family. Abdellah’s second wife is the daughter of his father’s colleague and she is from a village quite far away for people who are not used to leave their own environment.

Zakaria and me, we will visit sometime the next few days to wish them “Mabrouk”. A good occasion for him to be among many children and get pampered by the women of the house. Chamsi has got her 2 daughters living with her, both back home after a disastrous marriage, and many children and grandchildren age 2 to 16.

Why Chamsi’s children are unable to have a successful marriage, I don’t know. She and her husband are very nice and warm people. The boys, no matter what age, take their turn to be kissed and caressed by their mother. Last time, her husband started crying because I asked whether Khaled, the 2nd son who is in the army, was coming home for the Eid and his brother’s wedding. They miss him a lot and he cannot come home often, as he is based far away in the South of the country.

We all hope that this time Abdellah and his parents have chosen a good wife for them all to have more happiness in the house.