Survival mode

While Zakaria is moving around the house in my shoes, I’m trying to concentrate on writing this blog entry.

He’s constantly improving his speech by constantly talking about everything he sees and feels. He does that mainly in Dutch. His Arabic is getting better, but until now he is not exposed to such a varied vocabulary as he is in Dutch. He’s also picking up on French and German.

His mind actually functions as a sponge right now. Anything that he hears, he likes repeating and it seems like he is storing it on a hard disk for later use.

While we were having a heat wave (even hotter than usual), it seemed like a perfect time to start Zakaria’s potty training. He understands perfectly what it is al about, such as his cheeky eyes tell me after I have told him not to pee on the floor, and at times he just does it all perfectly.

The heat was just terrible. It was not possible to do much more than drink and wait until the evening came. And even at night it was just bearable.

Notice this was only a week ago and today white clouds are blocking the sunbeams regularly while the temperature must have fallen by at least 10°C.

30°C seems quite cool now.

Somehow, people here got through the terribly hot days without drinking. It is Ramadan since August 11th. I don’t understand how they do it, although I am observing it at home. Sleeping is the best remedy and pouring cold water over one’s head helps.

Some campers have been arriving in Syria last weeks to drive around the country. They could not have chosen a hotter moment during the year. It is very quite on the tourist front. Summer holidays are over and Ramadan is always quite. In a few weeks it will be back to business again.

It is nice to have a breather after an extremely busy spring and a quite satisfactory summer.