Scheduled to leave

The weather continues to be hot and awkward at times. Since yesterday, heavy winds are blowing. The kind of winds you expect in a Mexican desert. Instead of tumbleweeds we have straw flying around, then everybody is harvesting.

School is finished. The summer holidays have started. They last 3 months. Damascene and Aleppene families are moving to the seaside where they are joined by many Arabs of the Gulf States.

The seaside is not a place you want to be these days when you like peace and tranquillity.

I prefer the coastal mountains. Not far from Lattakia (the place to be in summer according to Aleppenes), Saladdin’s Castle is picturesquely lying on top of a mountain. You can walk in it for hours, feeling the atmosphere and imagining how it used to be in the old times when army soldiers where guarding the walls.

1 day at such a place is worth more than 3 weeks at the beach.

I used to make a lot of trips through the country, but with Zakaria being so small it is not easy to enjoy. He wants to eat and sleep, preferably at home. When awake he wants to move around and not sit still in the car for many hours.

A family visit for a few hours is the maximum we can manage with him.

The journey to Belgium next month will be strenuous on the both of us (Zakaria and me, we are leaving on the 15th of July). Luckily I managed to have a direct flight and we will be travelling at night. I just have to be well prepared to run the luggage through the scanner and do the check-in without disturbing Zakaria too much in his sleep.

We will be in Belgium when the weather is at its hottest over here. Let’s just hope the temperatures over there will be over 20°C without rain. That’s hard for us to cope with.

Note : Wrote this item on June 5th, they managed to put the phone service out again for the whole village. How st…. ?