<<     May 2006     >>

Rose Colored Glasses

I've been asked recently, where are my politically charged blog posts, where are my definitive statements, my hard-line perspectives on Iran.
The thing is, I'm living a normal life here...there isn't anything to complain about.

I could join the frenzy to make this place look like the gateway to hell it's been painted to be, but it would be a lie and I am as anti-dishonesty and I am anti-war.

The reason there appear to be no 'hard-line perspectives on Iran' here is because I'm happy in Tehran. I like Iran. And if you're looking to find something negative, you're looking in the wrong place.

If it's preferable to continue eating fabricated news stories, designed to make you fearful of Iran then by all means, use your favorite search engine news page for the latest headlines, you're bound to find something to satisfy your appetite.
But, if you want to know what it's like to actually live here; to wake up in the morning and go up to the roof to watch the sun come up shining on the mountains, to pour a tea while laundry is spinning, to kiss wonderful people hello and goodbye, to wander through a bazaar in search of something to waste money on, to learn a few new words every day, and to marvel at the absolute normality of it all then feel free to check back.

I love that I am able to write about everyday life here, when there's something to write about, and I'm grateful for every single click that brings a reader into the site.
But here's the thing: it's everyday life...and everyday life, be it in Seattle or Tehran is pretty much the same.
Work is work, family is family, and the sun slips away to reveal the night.
There is no backstory, no soap-opera, no struggle.

If that's hard to deal with then maybe a thorough investigation of preconceived notions is in order.

Nice Outfit

The other day, while scanning my cPanel, I saw that someone had searched Google's 'I'm Feeling Lucky' for "current+events+something+happy" and landed on thesuperheavy.
Well, in an attempt to live up to the link: this isn't exactly current, in terms of events - and isn't even really an event in terms of events, but it is guaranteed to make you happy.

We saw this little guy as we drove through a small community on the way to Shiraz.
I turned lazily to the right, looking out the window of our car at an even lazier town and did a double-take as I realized, yes...it IS a tiny monkey wearing underpants as a one-piece sitting on the back of a motorcycle.

Iron Chef

Hamid's mom, like nearly every other Persian mother I've met, runs her house like a five star hotel, cooking elaborate meals for all of us three times a day without fail; something the way my own mother does - the way they combine ingredients, expertly creating entrees for seven+ people is beyond me both in terms of capability and interest.
I do not like to cook, I CAN cook, but it's not my idea of a fun thing to do.

Once, I made chocolate chip cookies that tasted like soap, having put in baking soda instead of baking powder (or....was it the other way around?). It's these types of logistical errors that make me avoid the kitchen like the plague.

However, watching my darling mother-in-law slave away this past month has left me with a distinctively guilty feeling which I could only alleviate by pitching in for at least one meal.

The project began by creating a soup stock from chicken parts - a yucky endeavour for anyone who is or has ever been vegetarian, but is really the only honest way to make chicken soup.
Hamid's father came home from work to find me in their house stirring away at the pot of chicken-bits and onion pieces and wondered quietly over what on Earth it was I intended to make, probably inventing kind things to say over my fare just-in-case.
When I informed the household that no, this was not the soup, that this was meant to be strained for the broth and then placed in the fridge overnight in order to let the fat come to the top for removal, there were more sideways looks than I've ever seen in a room and I cringed but remained calm, still unsure that I could pull off pleasing such spoiled taste buds.

The next morning, when I removed the lid from the chilled pot, faces drooped even further - and who could blame them? The contents of a fresh chicken stock cooled overnight is no pretty thing.
I determinedly spooned out the fat, and much to the dismay of Hamid's little brother announced that I would now prepare the soup.

Dadash kuchulu (little brother) came to check on my progress numerous times over the next two hours, once informing me that he never, ever eats the chicken in soup. No reasons offered, just a friendly warning.

Once the vegetables, rice, and properly prepared chicken had been added the soup looked, well....more like soup, and everyone relaxed.

A finishing touch of fresh homemade garlic butter on toasted french baguette and the meal was served.
I am pleased to report that no one died, gagged, or otherwise complained. And little brother ate the chicken.

The End.

Like I Was Saying...

Well, it only took a week, but the Canadian newspaper that ran the false story (originally printed in the New York Post under the headline "FOURTH REICH") about Iran's supposed new "color coding for religious infidels" has finally apologized for the erroneous report.
Not after the damage had been done, of course - which was the point I would guess.

Good job guys - you've joined the ranks of the New York Times and other big media names, now famous for printing lies as news.
Sad thing is, the apology won't get nearly as much attention as it deserves, and the paper will continue on its merry way without further ado.

For a read on what's come of the whole fiasco, click here.

If I were the head of the imaginary Newspaper and Media Guidelines Committee that I know is supposed to exist somewhere, I'd set the punishment at a full week of positive stories on Iran, but we all know that would never happen.

Even so, some are still hanging on to the idea that the story wasn't the fault of the media for not doing its homework, but rather that it seemed plausible enough "Because Iran's behavior made it seem like a credible story — as the next logical step for the Tehran regime."

Just because something 'seems credible' doesn't make it so - and any media outlet responsible for sharing information with the public should have high enough standards to know the difference.

Local Tehran Fire Department

You Have NO Idea

The more pictures I email to the States of my daily life here in Iran the more requests I get.
And so I send them; emails packed with images captured with a sad little Nokia cel - sure to take forever to download, but people want to know, they want to see.
They are amazed at how lovely it is here, how modern, how exotic and yet sort-of familiar, how very normal it all is.

One friend wrote me recently, in response to the last batch of pictures:
"...this is amazing - it's like a view we NEVER see - all we see are the burkhas, you know? Iran seems so...healthy compared to Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Afghanistan..."

I guess it's no coincidence - the United States hasn't been here for the past 30 years.
THAT should tell you something.

The reason all you see on the news is dry, sandy, desert, city streets overrun with people burning an American flag, women dressed head to toe in black with only their eyes visible, and bio-hazard hooded scientists in white suits carrying unidentified (yet somehow very dangerous at the same time?) materials in a mysterious lab is because that's exactly what you're supposed to see.
You've been watching the same feeds over and over again for the past decade.
Face it, there is no news out of Iran or about Iran in western media, unless it's bad news.

Iran has been mystified and villified to the point of ludicrous.
Exotic it is, but insane and third-world it is definitely not.

However un-PC my views may be - they are, at least, my own and not some dusty old Beta running on channel 4.
And thank God for that.

Another friend wrote, in response to this picture - not particularly notable except for its sunny-day South Iran countryside beauty, "It could be 'Anystreet USA'."
And that's the point.

The People in My Neighborhood

Iran is deeply misunderstood in the western world as a culture and society - particularly when it comes to the spaces women occupy at home and in public.

The general notions about women and the roles they play are widely built on rumors and a grand misconception that women in Middle Eastern countries are treated as less than their male counterparts.
Not forgetting that the Middle East is NOT one big country but is made up of many...let me clarify a few in respect to Iran, based on what I've learned since my arrival to Tehran.

Women own businesses (believe it!), property, have individual passports and identity cards, vote, drive, hold political offices (including Parliament), and maintain the same major roles as men....I mean, really - it seems a bit archaic to even mention some of these things...but people I've talked with in the west are genuinely surprised by the idea of an Iranian woman as an entity sovereign.

One thing in particular that was so interesting to learn is that Iran has plenty of women fire-fighters.
My own father was a Battalion Chief in the Seattle Fire Department at the end of his long career as a paramedic and fireman and I know the struggles women go through to join and maintain ranks in United States fire stations - yet women here are unanimously regarded as heroes and touted by the other firefighters as incredibly brave.

Check out this Persian web page, with more photos of women firefighters on the job in Iran.

(photo credit: MEHR)

Page 19

This past week the Iranian authorities granted me another month's stay with a visa extension on the 19th page of my very nearly full passport, along with the prospect of a third month after that, thus putting off the dreaded return to India.

Visiting the offices where these things are processed was an experience of its own as the place was literally flooded on both visits with refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq.
As we entered the offices, to the right were hundreds of men waiting patiently together, most looking exhausted and all holding any manner of paperwork, pink files (later I would receive my own - previously marked with an Iraqui name), passports or other forms of identity, and stories I can only imagine.

Inside, another hundred or so lined the corridor and steps in single file, quietly waiting to be processed further up the stairs, twenty at a time.

They come for work, for the hope of prosperity that their own economically depressed and war torn countries cannot offer them, bringing what's left of their families and what little they have to carry with them; received by Iran with shelter, food, and other aid, hoping for citizenship.
I've no idea how many are allowed to stay, or even what circumstances make them suitable candidates - but seeing all of them shuffling in in shoes that had walked hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles, to a nation they hoped would offer more for the lives they dream of touched my heart and brought on a sense of shame for my own daily comforts and ease of movement around the planet.

I wished I could talk with them, learn more about what brought them here, what drove them from their place of birth - aside from what is still a very real war waging in both Afghanistan and Iraq with both local citizens and American soldiers dying weekly - but language barriers and protocol refused me the opportunity. Knowing that it is my own country ravaging theirs, my government which has deemed the bombings and destruction necessary, my leaders who are making the decisions which drive these people from their villages, land, and homes brings a deeper sense of sadness than I can describe. Apologists are useless in this era of war, my voice is small and cannot regain for them the lives they knew. I cannot piece together the bodies of their children, their parents, or their hearts with my regret. I have a passport worth more, in some ways, than what these people will ever earn - but it is useless against the spreading tyranny of my own government.

I still see their faces, their eyes - so tired...and pray for them, that they will find the peace for which they are searching.
And I wonder about Iran - Bush's agenda - the next stop on his mad tour of oil harvesting, monopolizing, colonization, and death, and I pray the Salavat in Arabic as Hamid's mother taught me to do, with the gorgeous prayer beads she brought me from Mecca - certain my voice is all the louder for it.

I Think I'm Paranoid

Ok, advance apologies for the following rant but I've got to start listing this stuff and calling it what it is when I see it...
Sent to me via email from the fabulous Polimom (who I just recently started reading and don't always agree with, but she writes smart) was this story which has apparently made the rounds today and will probably continue to do so.
The orginal story headlined a supposed law passed here in Iran requiring non-Muslims to wear specially colored strips of cloth denoting their religious affiliation.
This supposed law was 'confirmed' by Iranian expats living in Canada and has been swept up here and there by various bloggers with opinions based solely on what they read. WHERE are the question-askers? Where are the conspiracy theorists? Where are the FACT CHECKERS? Where are the writers who refuse to step in someone else's mess and track it all over the place?

It seems to me that if there were actually such a law those of us living here would have heard about it already, long before the west, and especially before any Canadian news source.

I found this pathetically knee-jerk reaction particularly disturbing and have to wonder what planet these writers are living on?

Do we not all have the same general goal for peace and prosperity for all human kind, or is that just me?
Gosh, sorry, am I a bit too altruistic for you?

I know, I know...it's so HARD to be nice when oil and petrol for your shiny new H2 costs twice what it did last month.
Just makes you grumpy as ever doesn't it? I hate to get snarky, joining the smack-brigade of blogging with yet another nasty attitude, but this is just too much.

Send me whatever stories you like, I'd love to see them, and perhaps comment on them.
But, if you are a journalist PLEASE wipe your shoes at the door.

A Grain of Salt

I have basically stopped reading the news since we've been here, in Tehran.
I've to do this from time to time, to avoid total frustration over the state of world affairs, especially those my own government is involved in...but even so, I don't necessarily believe everything I read.
A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing - everything in moderation - the truth is somewhere in the middle.
With this in mind, I wonder at the point of writing at all, but it comes along anyway - these things that need to be said.

With so many emails from friends and family around the world, particularly the States, imagining that 'Iran must be a scary place to be right now' I look out the windows of our house, or of the car as we drive through the streets, searching for what it is I should be so worried about.
Findng nothing, I return to the emails for the source of all this concern and it always comes back to the same: the media.

I realize that politics and daily life are, at least in theory, two different things, but when daily life in the west is inundated by the "reasons" why everyone should be afraid of Iran the perception that now seems to permeate western society in general is not the fault of those worrying over my safety, they simply have no other point of reference from which to relate to this Middle Eastern country.

I remember when I was younger, when Reagan was president, and my understanding of politics and global affairs literally came from one source: the television.
There were ominous news reports every night about "The Middle East" and I could only imagine it as one big entity, not realizing it was made up of countries, both small and large; each with their own economies, agendas, religions, politics, and most importantly: neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods with homes, and businesses, and schools, and people.
People who live and breathe the same as anyone else, going about their lives in a language other than my own.
I was too young to know anything other than that the word "war" scared me - and I was hearing it often enough that I went to sleep at night worried about the idea that one country could be so mad at another as to decide that killing people in said country was an OK thing to do.

Now that I am older, more educated, and well-travelled I am blessed with deeper perspectives on the vision offered by media. I can see the nuances of corporate and political relationships, to a lesser degree than they exist to be sure, but they are clearly there. The political game is more apparent; the gesturing, the puffing up of chests, the backstabbing. But perhaps most of all, I see firsthand the faces of those people being portrayed in the news as the "bad guys." I live among them, I know them better every day, I kiss them goodnight.
Iran is not a scary place to be. On the contrary, Iran as a nation of its people (some of the most civilized, generous, and understanding I've encountered on this planet) is wonderful, period.

The people I know in Iran don't want destruction and suffering for anyone on the planet any more than people I know from anywhere else.
No one I've met is angry at me for being American, for the unnatural "accident" that is my country's leadership. I have not heard a single negative word, nor felt uncomfortable in the least since I've been here.

So, rest assured (for what it's worth) if there is any reason Iran is a scary place to be right now it's only because my own country seems to have very destructive plans for the country I presently call home.

Isfahan

Isfahan was absolutely beautiful, and I just can't wait to get organized enough to create the Photog: Iran page so....a few pictures from our visit there.

Pers[e]polis

At the urging of my darling, here are just a few pictures from our trip to Pers[e]polis - the birthplace of the Iranian Empire over 2,500 years ago with the Archaemenid Empire and Darius the Great (whose tomb, and those of his successor sons, we also visited).
From a collection of photos you simply can't sense the magnitude, or impressive energy of the first capital of Persia - to read more about our visit, click here.
To read more about the history of ancient Persia click here.

Gigglebox

I love the Persian language, the sound is so pretty, and the script even prettier - and am working hard to learn as much as I can, but I am obsessed lately with its idiosyncracies with English.
For instance, giving the 'thumbs up' sign here is the equivalent of the middle finger, the name "Annie" in English references in Persian what you'd find in a dirty diaper, and so on...we have the best conversations sometimes, as you might imagine.
One in particular that keeps me giggling maniacally like a twelve year old boy with a potty mouth is the Persian word for snow: barf.
So it was no surprise to anyone the other day, as I was preparing to do a bit of laundry, I instead stood in the middle of the house holding a box of detergent, laughing hysterically.

Arash

Persian music is a varied mix of wonderful textures, but can take some getting used to as the language is complex in it's sound and can be hard to understand initially. Older music is just as popular with all age groups as more modern songs, and vice versa; Hamid's mother loves the Persian music channels which play a wide mix of generations, but focus more on modern productions.
As I've come to love Persian music I've developed my own tastes and preferences - one of my personal favorite artists is Arash.
Check out his song "Arash (featuring Helena)" remixed a few times, here, here, and here with lyrics in Persian, translated into English as well, below.
From what I can see you can purchase the original version, via the entire 2005 cd "Arash, Arash" as an import, stateside.
Please don't link to the mp3s directly on my site. You are welcome to link to this page via the permalink below.

Arash

(Helena)
Arash batuh migam doosetit daram….
Tui ein donya faghat toro daram…’
Araaaaasshhhh….Bi to man tanhayam..
Gooshet ba man bashe, toro dost daram

(Arash)
Tak o tanha toe ein otagh, bi to hastam…
Hala bi to einja dar be dar baroon mibare…
Toe ein shabe bahari to door az man..
Bia einja setare be man begu are.

(Helena)
Are are bahare, miam pishet dobare..
Arash bi to sardame..
Ey eshghe man..
Are are bahare, emshab del bigharare…
Arash to male mani, ey eshghe man…

(Arash)
Zendegi ba to kheyli khobe..
Harvaght to einja hasti, hamash bahare..
Dast be dast nazanin, ba ham bashim..
Esmamo seda kon, be man begu are…

(Helena)
Are are bahare, miam pishet dobare..
Arash bi to sardame..
Ey eshghe man..
Are are bahare, emshab del bigharare…
Arash to male mani, ey eshghe man
------------------------------------------------------------
Translation:
(Helena)
Arash I'm telling you that I love you
in this world I have only you
I am alone without you
listen to me carefully, I love you

(Arash)
All alone in this room, I am without you
Now here it's raining without you
On this spring night, you are far away from me
Come here Setare(star), tell me yes...

(Helena)
Yes, it's spring time, I'm coming back to you again
Arash, without you I'm cold...Oh my love
Yes, it's spring time, tonight my heart is troubled
Arash, you are mine, oh my love

(Arash)
Life with you is so wonderful
Every time you're here it's spring
Hand in hand darling, let's be together
Say my name, tell me yes...

(Helena)
Yes, it's spring time, I'm coming back to you again
Arash, without you I'm cold...Oh my love
Yes, it's spring time, tonight my heart is troubled
Arash, you are mine, oh my love

Journey to the Past

We arrived in Isfahan after a four hour drive through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen - hot, dry desert peppered with expansive green plains, flat as flat can be except for small groves of trees here and there...and then, ironically, not too far in the distance massive mountain peaks topped with snow - and then we were met by a city so well manicured, so verdant, the entire place seemed to be one big park.

Once we found a hotel we liked we were faced with the issue of proving our married status. The notarized, certified, and endorsed papers from India simply were not enough to satisfy the law regarding mixed gender hotel rooms and so we were sent to visit with a local branch of government apparently qualified to determine if we were in fact married.
The officers were kind, and laughing a bit at my very informal Farsi as I replied to their inquiry as to how I was with a phrase normally used only between close friends and family