Left to right, Mr. Haddadpor, Mr. Fakhim, me, Mr. Hashemi
Learning a new culture is not unlike learning a foreign language. In a year the student can come to grips with the larger issues, but the subtleties and nuances take much longer. The peculiarities of idiom and syntax may always remain elusive. No matter how hard a person tries or how long he works he will almost always be left with an accent in a second language. The same is true with a second culture. After one year in Ahar I felt more comfortable with the society around me. At the same time I saw more of the elements of Iranian culture that lay hidden beneath the surface and not immediately visible; things that sometimes made me feel more the outsider than I had thought even at first. This contradiction, more than the initial recognition of overt differences, is the most frustrating aspect of culture shock.
Culture shock is related to homesickness. While the latter is the absence of the familiar, the former is the presence of the unfamiliar. Homesickness is not caused because a person leaves one place or another. It is the loss of countless small things that fill day-to-day living, of friends, and of easy accommodation to one's surroundings. Culture shock results from the same circumstances compounded by the presence of a new society where even the smallest nuance of living may conflict with the automatic reaction the stranger will bring to any given situation.
Mr. Hashemi told me how happy he felt when I returned to Ahar.
"We are needing some English teachers," he said. "The boys will be very happy that you are here. We are wanting you to teach every day in our school."
"This is wonderful!" exclaimed Usef.
"Of course," I explained, "the decision of the draft board will determine whether I stay or leave in a few weeks."
"Hashemi is making me teach classes for two teachers," complained Usef. "I am now being me and Mr. Dastmalchie."
"What happened to him?" I asked.
"He is being transferred to Teheran," Usef answered.
"All the way to Teheran! Isn't that a bit unusual. I thought most of the teachers here wanted to go to Tabriz."
As we sat in the faculty room, Mr. Fakhim joined us. He put a sugar cube in his mouth and sipped tea as was the Iranian habit. Then he smiled. He had been listening to me as I talked with Usef.
"Mr. Dastmalchie has paid some little bits of money," he said cautiously, "to help in making a transfer so that he is not teaching in Ahar."
"You mean he has bribed someone in the Office of Education?"
"Well," said Fakhim smiling and winking, "we shall say that he has put little gifts in the hands of important people in Tabriz and in Teheran. We must put oil on the way so that we are sliding to new places."
Left to right, Mr. Haddadpor, Mr. Fakhim, me, Mr. Hashemi
"He has been doing these things for many years," said Usef.
"Yes," added Fakhim. "But each time they are eating his gifts and giving him nothing. This time he is successful."
Mr. Hashemi came into the faculty room and joined us. After Old Hotami brought him his tea he sat back in his chair and relaxed.
"I understand that Mr. Dastmalchie is going to Teheran," I said.
"Yes," said Hashemi. "This thing is a good opportunity for him. He is working very hard so that he is going to a better place."
"What do you hear from him?"
Hashemi looked startled and struggled for the right words.
"Mr. Dastmalchie is not always the man of a good kind. He is making his advantage and now is going away from his friends without caring for them."
"He is, as we are saying, 'very tight,'" said Fakhim. "His fist is closed. In Turkish we are saying this about some people who hold money and are not using it except perhaps for themselves.."
"He is not having many friends," said Usef.
When he lived in Ahar Mr. Dastmalchie had friends everywhere. Nobody said anything good about him after he left. Whenever his name came up everyone clicked his tongue and added to the list of Dastmalchie's faults. Perhaps jealousy accounted for some of the sudden change in attitude. I finally became convinced that none of them had liked Dastmalchie in the first place when Mr. Kashavarz and I went to the post office in Tabriz and met him on the steps in front of the building. They greeted each other like old friends having a reunion. They hugged and kissed in the Iranian fashion, smiled, and slapped each other on the back. They laughed and talked happily for a long time.
"I thought that nobody in Ahar liked Mr. Dastmalchie," I said to Kashavarz later.
"You are right," he said. "He is not a good man. We are not liking him very much."
Rules of politeness and long established rituals unique to Iran dictated behavior just as they do everywhere else in the world. I saw the contradictions in their society and they saw those in mine. It never works the other way around.
Actually, in this case Mr. Dastmalchie's transfer surprised him as much as it did everyone else. He wanted to go to Tabriz where he had his home and family. Instead, the officials moved him to Teheran where his Turkish accent and heritage might make him the brunt of prejudice or subtle ridicule. So he got more than he bargained for. I never fully fathomed the true feelings of the others toward him or his transfer.
Usef told me that Mr. Hashemi could easily have become the Chief of Education in Ahar. But such an advance in position had its drawbacks. The government often transferred the chiefs from place to place; it might later move him to another city anywhere in Iran. Hashemi preferred to stay in the North in order avoid the discomfort that such a relocation would bring.
In the time that I had been away, school had started. But the principals had only a few classes for me.
"We are still using the old schedule of last year," explained Mr. Hashemi. "Each boy has been going to his new class, but the seventh grade boys are not yet at Pahlavi. They are coming from the other schools when we are beginning the new schedule."
"When will that be?"
"After some weeks. Perhaps after the coronation of the Shah. We are not knowing this thing for sure."
Iran celebrated the birthday of the Shah as an annual holiday. But in 1967 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decided to stage his coronation on that date. He had never formally received the crown although he had been king since the allied nations drove his father into exile during World War II. The pending celebration upset the normal routine in the schools as the government required parades and festivities in every city throughout the country. In the school yard the boys marched around carrying flags and banners. Nothing would happen and I would have little to do until after the "Taj-Gozaree," or "Crown Placing," as they called it in Persian.
To fill the void Dr. Nye-Dorry organized a conference in Ardebil. I took a bus through Meshkin which looked considerably different than it had in the rain and mud a few months earlier. At the conference the volunteers throughout northern Iran discussed teaching problems, techniques, and strategies. Dr. Dorry agreed that not much would be done in the schools until after the coronation. Since the teachers did little after the New Year vacation, the school year would be reduced to about five months; late-October through mid-March.
One afternoon everyone at the conference climbed into two landrovers and drove north of Ardebil to see the Shahsavan nomads camped there. They had been selling surplus sheep in the city and preparing to start their migration back to the north for the winter, descending into the valley near the Caspian Sea where the weather remained warmer than on the high mountains and plateaus of Azarbaijan. We saw the men and colorfully dressed women in the Ardebil bazaar and wanted to visit their camp.
Dozens of dome shaped tents covered with dark sheepskins marked their encampment. Around them women and children worked and played. In the distance we saw large flocks of sheep tended by the men and older boys. Nearby some of the tribesmen kept their camels.
"I wonder if I could ride one?" asked one of the volunteers when we met a man leading his shaggy camel into the camp.
"I'd stay away from the camels if I were you," said Dr. Dorry.
But as we met more of the tribesmen and became acquainted with them we saw many of them working with their camels, making them lie down, and loading them with supplies. Once or twice we saw women riding them, perched on top of the single hump that marked that these animals were actually dromedaries; the only variety of camel I encountered in Iran.
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The colorful tents or yurts of the Shahsavan People. On the left, camels are among their most valuable possessions. Camels are difficult animals to work with and can be dangerous. |
Shahsavan people on the move
"They are dangerous," said one volunteer translating something that a man leading a camel told him. "He says that they can kick a person to death if they get angry."
We stood around, taking pictures, watching the men and women pose for us. One of the volunteers stood next to a camel, patting the side of the animal's neck, and posing while someone else took her picture. Suddenly the animal turned its head, opened its mouth, made an angry sound deep in its throat, and then shot a wad of thick, brown, sticky spittle that hit and splattered down the front of the volunteer's blouse and skirt.
The Shahsavan men and women laughed and explained that it was the way the camel showed its displeasure.
"They do it all the time," translated the volunteer.
Revealing only the hint of a smile, the usually outspoken Dr. Dorry quietly said, "I did think it was a good idea to stay away from them."