CHAPTER XII

JUNE, 1967

My Iranian summer divided into three equal parts. The first I spent traveling to a conference and then working with college students in Tabriz. During the middle section I offered a combination review English session and day-camp for seventh grade boys in Ahar. Finally I traveled in Turkey, Greece, and Israel.

But first I caught a cold. It actually came on during the final examinations and blossomed while I packed and rode to Tabriz. I felt steadily worse and decided to stop at the mission hospital to see if Dr. Stewart could prescribe something to relieve my coughing and congestion during the ride to Teheran.

I waited my turn at the hospital, then listened as the nurse told me that I needed a chest x-ray.

"Now I see the doctor?" I asked.

"Come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow I'll be on a bus to Teheran."

"You come back tomorrow to see the doctor."

So I exchanged the bus ticket, checked into a hotel, slept most of the time, and waited.

"Well," said Dr. Stewart when I walked into his office the next day, "we seem to have made a mistake."

I coughed and blew my nose.

"What mistake?"

"A worker at the consulate next door needs a visa, and he scheduled a physical examination. The nurse thought you were him, and you got the preliminaries."

He handed me a bunch of Kleenex.

"No problem," I said. "All I need is something for this cold so that I can ride to Teheran."

"Oh, you don't only have a cold," the doctor smiled.

"I don't?"

"No. You have pneumonia."

"So?"

"So I've talked to your doctor at Peace Corps and you're to fly to Teheran this afternoon. They're taking you directly to the hospital when you get off the plane. Here, have some more Kleenex."

I flew to Teheran and a few hours later I rested on a bed in the Air Force Hospital. It proved a good place to be. Just after I arrived the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors started. Between vintage movies from the 1940s like "Francis the Talking Mule," or reruns of the 1950s "Dennis Day Show," I watched the news on the American Armed Forces Television station.

I liked the food, the attention, and the rest. For a change, everyone I met spoke English. Constantly using a foreign language or talking to people for whom English is their second language quickly becomes a strain. In the hospital I could relax. But I did have one complaint.

"Do you know what it's like around this place at night?" I asked one of the military doctors.

"No."

"Well, at about eight o'clock the building starts to vibrate and something somewhere makes an awful racket. The baby down the hall cries and nobody gets much sleep."

"Oh, that," he smiled. "That's nothing. When the government built the place they forgot to include some of the wiring that we need on the main floor in our offices. Now they're going back and retrofitting the place. Lots of jack hammers working in concrete. It makes too much noise during the day so we're having it done at night when it won't bother anybody."

I took antibiotics, blew my nose for a few days, and then moved into a in a cheap hotel near the Peace Corps office. Finding the room was difficult because Teheran rapidly filled with American and European refugees fleeing the war. I waited until time to travel on to the conference.

A group of volunteers living in Teheran invited me to go with them on a day-long trip to Rey [sometimes spelled Rrey]. A small suburb south of Teheran, it once served as the capital of Persia and it had three things worth seeing: the tomb of Reza Shah, the current Shah's father, the tomb of Shah Abdolah Azim, a religious leader, and a natural spring where villagers washed newly made rugs.

In the bazaar we found the usual rows of shops and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until someone spit on one of the women in our group. Two men started shouting at us so we turned back and walked to the bazaar entrance. Across the street we took refuge in a tea shop.

"Are you Americans?" asked a poorly dressed man with a stubble beard and a black skull cap.

"Yes."

"You are having some troubles?"

"Yes."

"It is a terrible thing. The people in Rey are not being friendly. This is a holy city with a holy shrine. When the women with you are wearing some cloth on their heads, you will not be having such trouble."

We took his advice, the women put on scarves, and we had no more trouble.

"May I be showing you the tomb of Reza Shah the Great?" our new friend asked.

He accompanied us to a large modern building that housed the dead Shah's remains. From the square in front of it, we looked at the dome over the town's second tomb.

"Western people should not be going to that place," the old man warned. "Some people who practice old thinking will see it as a bad thing. Many of them are not liking Americans. They are not liking Reza Shah or his son, and they blame the Americans for these rulers."

We tipped the old man and returned to the bazaar. Near its entrance stood a collection of horse-drawn carriages and drivers.

"Ride, Mister?"

"Hello, Mister," shouted another when he saw us.

We bargained with one of the men.

"We want to see the spring where villagers wash the rugs."

"It is very far," he argued.

"Can you take us there?"

"For sure, but it is very very far."

"How much?"

"Such a long trip will cost five hundred rials."

"Too much."

"How much would you pay?" he asked.

"Two hundred rials."

None of us knew how far away the spring might be.

"Four hundred," countered the driver.

"Three-fifty," we said.

"It is a long way and I must feed my horse. There are many interesting things along the way that I will show you. My price is a good one."

"Three-fifty," we repeated.

"You are wanting to cheat me," he whined.

Washed carpets dry on the hillside at Rey

Finally we settled on 375 rials, got in, and headed for the spring. The trip took about fifteen minutes at a slow walk. At the spring we found a large pool of clear water. Around it carpets rich in reds, browns, yellows, and some blues lay drying on large rocks. The carpets on the hillside behind the spring presented a checkerboard of color in the bright sunlight. When we got back to Teheran everyone in the Peace Corps Office asked about Rey. One Iranian secretary looked up and said, "I hope you didn't pay the carriage drivers more than two hundred rials. That's the standard price you know." I joined-up with Alexander Sander at the Peace Corps Office. Alex and I had roomed together during training, and he had decided to work in Ahar over the summer. Peace Corps stationed Alex in Ahwaz, in the south near the Persian Gulf, and he wanted to go north for a while to get away from the heat. We had planned a trip to Egypt during August but the war seemed to be putting a stop to that. Most countries in the Middle East rapidly became off limits for Americans. Together we considered our options and got ready to travel to our conference at Broujerd in west-central Iran.

The night before our departure Alex started throwing up. He seemed to get worse and finally we decided that he should go to the hospital. I flagged down a taxi and argued with the driver while Alex vomited in the jube. "I won't go that far," the driver shouted.

"How much do you want?"

"Two hundred fifty rials!"

I paid the man what amounted to five times the normal charge, got Alex into the taxi. Twice the driver lost his way but we finally arrived. The hospital staff decided that Alex had food poisoning and they kept him over night. I walked much of the way back into town because taxis seldom went to that part of Teheran at night. No matter where I went in Iran, except around religious shrines, I never felt that I was in any physical danger.

The next day I left for the conference alone. Dr. Gertrude Nye-Dorry ran the meetings intended to prepare us for the special "English clubs" during the summer. Born and raised in New England, but married to an Iranian, Dr. Dorry helped the TEFLers (Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) throughout the country. She worked for Peace Corps as an advisor, and her concern, experience, and help proved invaluable. Broujerd is in the Iranian Ostan, or state, of Lorestan. The local peasant women provided color with their bright yellow and orange dresses accented with long chains of gold coin jewelry. Unlike the city women, the village women seldom covered their faces and they sometimes agreed to pose for pictures if asked and given a small gift.

Dr. Gertrude Nye-Dorry in a recent picture.

On my way back to Teheran I traveled through Hamadan toward Kermanshah. But at Bistoon, I left the bus because I wanted to see the Behistun Rock. Carved under the direction of Darius the Great in the fifth century before Christ, the inscription high on a wall in a narrow canyon proclaims that Darius is, among other things, the king of kings and master of all. When I got there I found the path to the carving blocked by a locked gate and a wire fence.

I walked to a nearby village and asked the government officials there what I needed to do to see the carving.

The ancient carving, high on the rock, left by Darius

The tiny village of Bistoon

"You must have a cup of tea with us first," they said.

"Thanks," I answered, "But I need to go on to Kermanshah today, and all I want to do is look at the carving and take a picture."

"That's very difficult," said one of the men.

"Why?"

"You must fill out some papers first before you can go into the restricted area."

"Then can I get into the area today?"

"That is impossible. It will take three or four days for the applications to be approved."

"So tourists can't see the carving?"

"Sometimes it can be done. But today the man with the key is not here."

"Where is he?"

"Eating his lunch."

As the conversation went on the men said that sometimes the gate could not be opened but that under the right conditions it could be unlocked. Finally I realized what they wanted.

"Is there some small charge for filling out the papers?"

"Sometimes a few rials," smiled one of the men.

I handed them two hundred rials. A few minutes later one of the men took me to the gate and opened it. I looked up at the ancient carving, high above the floor of the canyon, and took a few pictures of it. Then I flagged down an inter-city taxi and went on to Kermanshah and then by bus to Teheran and Tabriz.

Alex arrived there ahead of me, but had returned to Zandjan, a city midway between Teheran and Tabriz.

"Why did he go to Zandjan?" I asked one of the other volunteers.

"His suitcase fell off the bus and he had to go to the police station and get it."

Alex returned the next day.

"Did you get your things?"

"Most of them."

"What happened?"

"They had a few little things locked in their safe and they said that the man who could open it was out of town. They didn't know when he would be back. They gave me my clothes and the things that had my name on them and told me to write descriptions of everything else. I may have to go back," he sighed.

"They wanted a bribe," said one of the other volunteers.

"I suppose. I just didn't want to pay for my own things."

We held our classes at the John F. Kennedy Library in Tabriz, a facility run by a branch of United States A.I.D. We advertised the sessions at Tabriz University and about thirty people showed up. I taught six men and two women who knew some English. Alex took the rest who needed more elementary lessons.

The Iranian college students attempted to act like Americans. They imitated the gestures and mannerisms they saw in American films. But their own culture dominated everything they said and did. When they came to class they insisted on shaking my hand. In turn they each held out a limp hand which for me seemed like holding so many banana peels. The men took chairs near me. The women sat together at the other end of the room.

"I'm happy to see two ladies here today," I said getting things started.

"If they are bothering you, they can leave," said one of the men.

"No," I said with surprise. "But in Ahar the boys and girls go to different schools."

"But we are progressive," said the same man. "We can go to class with women.

"Of course," said another, "the women are not learning as much."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Women are not being as intelligent a men." All six male students agreed.

"What makes you think that women are less intelligent then men?"

"They are having smaller brains," said the spokesman after the six of them consulted for a minute. "The man has the large brain, and the woman has a small brain. So they are not needing teaching as much as men."

For almost an hour we discussed the differences between men and women. Throughout the conversation, neither of the women said anything. Fortunately, Alex and I taught voluntary classes to help improve English skills, and so we gave no grades. From what my six male students said, they would have expected higher marks than the women regardless of their accomplishments.

Over the four weeks of the class, the two women always came into the room last. They sat together and they said nothing unless I called on them specifically. If I had called on one of the men and if he failed to answer the question, neither of the women would answer although sometimes I suspected that they could. They would not show themselves as brighter than the men. When each class ended the two women immediately stood and left. The men stayed and talked.

All eight of them were eager students. They insisted that I correct their grammar and pronunciation. They wanted difficult readings and they made it clear when they thought they had not learned enough. We read stories by James Thurber and articles out of current American magazines. The articles led to discussions of politics and international relations, especially the Iran-Arab War which had just ended and about which the Iranians had strong opinions largely unfavorable toward Israel.

One of the men in my class was a young Kurd named Mahmood Hammadi. Hammadi spent every bit of his energy trying to better himself. Imaginative and curious, he seemed to know many people in Tabriz.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked him one day after class.

"I am working with the blinds and the deafs."

"I don't understand."

"People who are not seeing and not hearing. I am working at a special school for these people just every day. At the school is one man who is the chief. I am being the second chief. Are you wishing to be seeing the school for the blinds and the deafs?"

"Sure."

"Just now we are going - just now, this minute."

Everything excited Mr. Hammadi. He could do anything. And whenever he wanted to do something, he wanted to do it now.

"How about tomorrow?" I asked. "I am busy this afternoon."

"Wonderful," he said. "We are going tomorrow."

Somehow he survived the next twenty-four hours, but he had trouble sitting still in class the next morning. When the others finally left, he followed them to the door, and then looked back at me.

"Just now we are going. I am getting a taxi for us."

The taxi took us to the northern edge of Tabriz where we stopped in front of a clean white building surrounded by a high wall. Inside the upper floors served as a dormitory and the ground floor had classrooms. The students worked quietly, a few in each room.

"Do they have a summer vacation?"

"No. The blinds and deafs need school just on every day."

"And they live here too?"

"Yes. Not all, but many. Some are coming from places far away. They must be living here. Some are going to their families at night."

"Is this school for all of the blind and deaf students in Azarbaijan?"

"No," he answered. "Not just every one. There are many problems. It is possible only for some special of the blinds and deafs to be coming here."

In other words, only those whose families could afford the high fees sent their children to the special school.

We looked at the kitchen and administrative offices, then we walked into the area where blind students worked. Braille books sat on the shelves and a few boys and girls sat working with their teachers.

"How many teachers and how many students?" I asked.

"Just one teacher for each eight," he said.

"I saw separate rooms for deaf boys and deaf girls but here the blind students work together," I observed.

"It is not necessary to have the boy and girl blinds in different places," he answered. "They cannot be seeing each other, so they are already separated."

Mr. Hammadi displayed understandable pride toward his school. And he was also proud of being a Kurd.

"Do you thinking that Kurdish people are interesting?" he asked me the next day after class.

"Yes. I've seen many of the men in their baggy pants and turbans," I said. "But I haven't been able to get a picture of one of them."

"You are wishing to picture with a Kurdish man?" he asked.

"If I could."

"I am knowing many men who will be happy if you will picture them."

He promised to bring one of his friends to our house the next day at five o'clock in the afternoon. They actually arrived around 6:30. When we opened the door, Mr. Hammadi stood there smiling. He brought an elderly man dressed in black baggy pants, matching shirt, and a white Kurdish head-piece complete with bits of cloth that hung down around his eyes. He had a scruffy stubble beard, his clothes looked dirty, he smelled, and he wore the tattered remnants of shoes.

"I am bringing this man for your picture," said Hammadi.

"Come on in," said Alex.

We led the two into the courtyard and into the house where Alex asked if they wanted some tea.

"Tea! No," said the Kurd in a slurred Persian. "Do you have any whiskey?"

Mr. Hammadi blushed and told the man to be quiet.

"He is making some joke," Hammadi explained to us.

"Is there any whiskey?" the man said loudly.

"We should be making your pictures now, while there is good light," said Mr. Hammadi. "We will do this thing outside?"

We brought out cameras, and Mr. Hammadi negotiated his 'friend' toward the door. Everyone snapped a few shots.

"My friend is very tired," said Hammadi. "We are going. Thank you for everything and all kindness. I will be in the class just tomorrow."

And they then left. As they went through the door the old man looked back and said, "Next time, have more whiskey."

"My face is red," said Hammadi the next day after class.

"Why?"

"I was not finding a friend for your picture. The only man I am finding was not such a good person."

"Don't worry. You did your best. He made a nice picture."

"No." said Hammadi. "I am sad about this thing. Just tonight you and Mr. Sander must come to my house for dinner. You must come."

We arrived at Hammadi's house late in the afternoon as he requested, which struck me as unusually early for an Iranian dinner. He met us at the door, took us inside, and introduced us to his uncle, his son, and a few other relatives who lived together in the small house. The men carried in plates of food and we had an excellent meal.

"You are having your cameras?" Hammadi asked.

"Yes, both of us have cameras."

"Good. Now we are having a special thing for you."

A young woman dressed in a beautiful yellow gown came into the room. Her dress featured tiny intricate embroidered designs and she wore a vest covered with gold trim. A delicate veil anchored in her hair covered her forehead. Hundreds of gold coins fashioned into jewelry served as earrings and necklaces. She stood with her head down, blushing.

"She is my wife," said Hammadi proudly. "This is a special clothes for her wedding. She is having it today special for you."

Mr. dastmalchie and his friend who posed in tradational Kurdish clothes.

Mr. Dastmalchie with his wife who is in her wedding dress.

"It's beautiful," we said. "Tell us about the things she's wearing."

He pointed to the gold coins first.

"This is what you are calling a dowry," he said. "It is coming to us from her family. The women in her family are making the dress for many years. All of this things are being very special. Now you are making our picture. We are not having a picture of us on the day we are being married and this will be special for us."

Both Alex and I took pictures. After I returned to Portland, I had copies made and sent them to Mr. Hammadi. We sat and talked until late that night. Then Alex and I went home.

Four of us lived together in a small house not far from the American Consulate. Peace Corps rented the house and volunteers had used it for a few years. Over that time they had bought milk, soft drinks, and beer. But they never returned the bottles which by then filled a storage room and overflowed onto the kitchen counters and parts of the floor. Some had sour milk or stale beer or Coca Cola in them and they gave the house a peculiar odor. We tried to return all of the bottles at once but none of the merchants around would take them. Operating with little cash on hand, the shopkeepers would take one or two bottles at a time in trade when we bought more milk or pop, but they would not simply redeem for cash as none of them could afford the expense. We tried to give the bottles to anyone who would take them, but nobody wanted the bother. We could not even find someone to haul the bottles away if we paid them!

I went to Ahar to pick up mail and check on my house. The next day I returned to Tabriz. When I walked into the courtyard in front of the house, I saw an enormous pile of broken glass.

"Dennis Yates came to town yesterday and we had a party last night. Sorry you missed it. We finally found a use for all of those bottles."

When we moved out of the house at the end of the month, we left the glass behind. Dennis finally had to pay to have laborers cart it away before the next Tabriz volunteers arrived.

None of the four of us could cook very well so we ate most of our meals out. Tabriz offered a variety of restaurants and we competed to see who could find interesting new places.

"I've discovered the most wonderful place. It's owned by a little old Armenian man and his wife. Real authentic Armenian cooking. And they do it in their home. It's not like the Armenian beer joints down on Shahnaz Street. This stuff is great."

That night all four of us took a taxi across town to a back street near the Tabriz railroad station. We knocked at the door and the old man who opened it ushered us to one of three tables inside. They served stuffed grape leaves with lots of sour cream and a meat dish made with the front legs of a lamb. They brought rice and yogurt, tea, and a pastry like bakhlava. The couple ran the place in their home and they did not have a license nor did the government inspect their kitchen. But the old man bustled around us with a happy smile and his wife came out from the kitchen and urged us to have more and more.

We went home happy, full, and content. One by one, each of us started having problems a few hours later.

"Hurry up and get out of the bathroom, I need to get in there."

"You better look for somewhere else, I may be here a while."

"Look, both of you, hurry up. I'm dying."

"Where's Alex?"

"He's lying on his bed, moaning."

"Cramps?"

"Not since he threw up."

"I wish I could throw up."

"It doesn't help all that much." "Where's the medical kit?"

"Over there. I took one of everything."

Revolving bouts with cramps, diarrhea, gas, and nausea kept us busy for the next two days. We never went back to the quaint Armenian restaurant and we more or less stayed with licensed places after that.

When Marco Polo passed through Tabriz he wrote:

It is a large and very noble city ... situated well for trade, but its inhabitants in general are poor. They consist of ... Nestorians, Armenians, Jacobites, Georgians, Persians, and the followers of Mohamet. The city is surrounded by delightful gardens .. but the inhabitants are treacherous and unprincipled. According to their doctrine, whatever is stolen or plundered from others of a different faith is properly taken, and the theft is no crime.

 

Since that time electric lights and automobiles came to Tabriz. But otherwise it stayed about the same. Only ruins remained of the city's two ancient monuments: the Blue Mosque and the Arg. The Arg [or citadel] was the last vestige of a mosque that once dominated the center of the city. It looked like a huge section of a brick wall and at its base the government built a modern monument to Iran's unknown soldier from World War II. The Blue Mosque had perhaps been spectacular at one time but only parts of it still stood displaying here and there samples of what had once been exquisite tile work. Earthquakes, frequent northwestern Iran, damaged both buildings long ago. Much of Iran's ancient buildings lay in ruins unappreciated by the people who passed them daily.

Like Ahar, Tabriz had a dozen or more main boulevards. But interlaced wandering alleys and twisting streets meandered through the rest of the city. Cars, especially orange taxis, jammed all of the roadways. With drivers as fearless and aggressive as Teheran's, the taxis raced through the streets day and night. Then one day they all disappeared.

"Where are the taxis?" I asked my students at the Kennedy Library.

"Today is traffic safety day. All of the drivers must be going to school for this one day."

It proved to be the safest day I spent while in Tabriz. That evening the horns, screaming brakes, spinning wheels, and angry shouting of the drivers cursing busses, pedestrians, and each other returned.

Tabriz had three movie theaters. Most of the time they showed mediocre films made in India, dubbed into Persian. We avoided them. Once in a while an American film came to town and when "The Sound of Music" arrived, we decided to attend. A long line stretched down Shahnaz Street and it looked as if half the city had come. We finally reached the ticket booth, and then went inside. After the national anthem and a short film showing the Shah and his family having tea at Teheran's Gulistan Palace, we sat through about ten minutes of advertising ending with a pitch for Coca Cola.

When the main feature started, we found that both the dialogue and the singing had been dubbed. As Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer mouthed the words, unseen Iranians sang and spoke in moderately close synchronization. People around us talked to each other during the musical numbers. A few got up and left. The trickle of people going out increased and even before the intermission over half of the seats were empty. Only a few returned for the second half.

"We saw 'The Sound of Music' last night," I told my English class the next day.

"Our friends are saying that it is not a good thing," one of them said.

"What's wrong with it?"

"They are saying that the singing is painful on their ears. They are not liking it. It is sounding like crying and wailing."

Western music seemed as discordant and unpleasant to the Iranians as theirs did to me. In conservative Iran where pro-Nazi sentiment flourished during World War II, the film's story line held minimal appeal. Together the music and the plot emptied the theater and a love story from India replaced the von Trapp Family saga a few days later.

Just before leaving Tabriz, I had to renew my Iranian residence permit. I went to the main police station near the bazaar, entering past the two uniformed guards who always stood at the door holding formidable machine guns. In Teheran the renewal process took a few minutes.

"Come back in three days," said the official in Tabriz.

"I must leave for Ahar tomorrow," I said.

"We must have your passport and the papers for three days," he said slowly.

"In Teheran this takes five minutes," I complained. "How long can it take you to collect twenty-five rials and put your mark on the permit?"

"Sit there," he said.

I waited almost an hour. The clerk stood around not doing much of anything. I went back to the counter.

"When will you be able to stamp my permit?"

"We are very busy."

"You are doing nothing."

"It is taking three or four days. Maybe longer."

"Can I talk to the chief of this office?"

"He is not here."

"Where is he?"

"Sit in that chair and he will be coming."

I waited and watched some of the clerks close up and leave. It was Thursday, and nothing would be open in the afternoon. Then the official returned.

"In that room, the chief will see you."

A man with sour look sat behind a large desk under a portrait of the Shah.

"What is it?"

I explained that I needed to renew my residence permit. In Teheran the requirement took five or ten minutes.

"Does it take people in Tabriz three or four days to do something that people in Teheran can do in five minutes?" I asked.

The official rang a bell and a servant brought in two cups of tea. Then he took two stamps out of his desk, marked the appropriate places on my permit booklet, handed them to me with a smile and collected the twenty-five rial fee.

"In Tabriz," he said, "we can do all of the things that they can do in Teheran."

The next day Alex and I left for Ahar.