Modern age

While Zakaria’s attempts to walk alone start succeeding (3 to 4 steps each time), Ramadan’s first week is almost over and the temperatures are slowly getting lower.

Now it is time for the flowers and the trees to start growing again. When the heat is at its worst, they have to be prevented from dying. The only way of doing that is to water them a often, the result being plants and trees hanging in there until it will get cooler.

The house looks better again, after a few weeks of de-dusting and re-organising. I told Mohamed : the dust settles quickly everywhere, but afterwards it is a big job to get rid of it. He probably found that remark a bit ungrateful after the efforts he made during my stay in Belgium to have some improvements done in the house, but it had to be said, because the work was done without removing or covering up the furniture.

I guess that’s typically male all over the world and especially here in this macho region where the “tough” work is still done by the men and the “easy” work by the women.

I mustn’t complain. Mohamed loves cooking. I don’t.

Mohamed also loves to eat traditionally, while I love to experiment with ingredients and spices. That’s why he does most of the cooking here in the house. I usually prepare most the ingredients, clean up the kitchen afterwards and do the dishes.

The only meal I am allowed to prepare for Mohamed is spaghetti. For some reason that is the only dish he never manages to cook well himself.

Yesterday, I heard an ad on the radio for already prepared sauce and ingredients for spaghetti. Last week, Mohamed came home and told me about this giant supermarket in Aleppo that he went to with Italian tourists. The world is changing…

1 year

The weather is quite agreeable for the time of the year. It is not as hot as last year when I was recuperating from a caesarean.

On Monday 10th, we celebrated Zakaria’s first anniversary. Not that we had a celebration. He is too small for that. We visited both aunts that were with us in the hospital at birth.

They were very pleased to see Zakaria back for the first time after our 3 week stay in Belgium. Although they hardly remember their own children’s birthday, they do know Zakaria’s.

We had a surprise, because the newborn Youssef was shown to us. He was born 2 weeks ago as a grandson to Auntie Shamsi.

In Belgium, we started brushing Zakaria’s teeth before bedtime. I tried to do the brushing at first, but very difficult because this boy wants to do everything himself. That’s why I decided to show the example by brushing my own teeth after putting his little brush with baby toothpaste into his hand. It works. He likes brushing his teeth, but hasn’t quite worked out yet how to do the movement with the brush.

Back in Syria, we found the figs and grapes in season. We have a lot of figs on our small trees and for the first time, we have grapes in the garden.

Zakaria loves grapes even more than figs. The first time, I bit them in half taking out the pits. The second time, I couldn’t stop him from taking the grapes himself and devouring them, pits included. I have to hide them, because when he sees grapes or figs he needs to have them.

When visiting Auntie Shamsi, Zakaria’s brother, Amer, came by to take him on the motorbike to see his nephews. Back home, I awaited Zakaria’s return for a few hours. The news was that he had eaten and had a nap. He must have been knackered, because he usually doesn’t want to sleep in a strange house, especially when I’m not around.

Zakaria started talking. Sometimes I hear Arabic, most of the time Dutch. He refuses to say Mama or Papa. We are Néné and Tatta. Following words are much easier: look, light, out, on, that. Fascinated by light, he is. He always kindly indicates where the lamps, moon and stars are, so we don’t forget.