Ain Leuh, Morocco

Hey there,

It's pretty hot outside so i'm hiding in the coolness of my parents' house, a truly big, new, lovely, welcoming place where -i have to shamefully admit- i had not yet been before...right now i have no clue where my folks are, but the house is filled with people from all kinds of places doing all kinds of things: Emma's doing the dishes, Christine and Nadia are making a cake, some American guy i don't know is talking to my brother Umit...
Always plenty of things to do here.

The seven little ones that all the fuss is about, Hanane, Karim, Amir, Rafiq, Amel, Meryem and Adam, are at playschool right now, so the house is relatively quiet... you have no idea what it's like to live in a house with seven children aged between four and two years....
But they're all so adorable! So beautiful, sweet, energetic and happy, they're so clever, they actually speak four languages (Arabic, Dutch, French and a little English too) and believe it or not, they are perfectly capable of distinguising between all these languages, they use different ones for different people, it's truly miraculous! I'm utterly amazed every time they say something...

And they're all such characters too! There's the little sturdy fellow who loves animals and is afraid of nothing, there's the little quiet, intelligent boy who loves to sneak away into a corner and read a book, we have a little clown here who's 'manipulative' skills have developed to a considerable, almost scary level...thanks to his enormous dark eyes and cute, convincing smile... then there's the little girl who starts smiling when she wakes up and never stops, not even when so has to go to bed at night, which is pretty exceptional, i have never seen anything like her! And Meryem, the two-year-old, who is far too wise for her age, she really behaves like a grown-up, she reminds me of Mona Lisa with her wise, knowing smile, and Hanane, the beauty queen, mothering over the others, making sure no one does anything she does not approve of...

Otherwise this place is just soooo hot. I'm switching into siesta mode here, getting up at six in the morning and sleeping for a couple of hours during the afternoon, enjoying the long, warm, tropical evenings outside drinking the a la menthe and eating watermelon....

Tomorrow me and Christine, our French au pair, are going to the nearest proper city, called Azrou, for some souvenir shopping. A girls' day out! I badly, badly need that.

Will write more soon,
miss u all!
- Else