Throughout my month-long absence Mr. Hashemi juggled the schedules of Ahar's English teachers in order to cover my classes. Along with the others he welcomed me back, and hoped that I would finish the year without further problems.
The unusually long and cold winter finally ended, and around town farmers started plowing and preparing to plant. They tried to do this before the spring rain began. I knew that within a few weeks the hills and fields around town would turn green, replacing the drab brown of winter. In the spring and summer Ahar and the valley it occupied had a romantic, pastoral beauty.
Usef and I had just entered my house from the school side when I heard someone knocking on the street side door. I opened it and found a villager standing there. Over tattered gray pants and a dirty black shirt he wore a faded green great coat buttoned up against the cold wind that still came in the evenings. A skull cap covered the remains of his uncombed hair. He smiled and greeted me.
"Usef," I shouted, "come and see what this man wants."
"He is having a coin that he has found," translated Usef. "He is digging in his field and finding this thing. In the bazaar the men are telling him that the American is liking old things so he is wanting you to buy it."
Carefully, as if searching for a delicate treasure, the man reached inside of his coat and down into his shirt pocket. He took out a wad of cloth, unfolded it, and revealed a small gold coin. Cup shaped, about the size of a nickel but much thinner, it pictured Christ and two Apostles on each side. I recognized it as Byzantine, but knew little more about it except that such coins were not rare. Similar items decorated the windows of gold sellers in the Teheran and Tabriz bazaars.
"He is saying that it was found in the earth near his house," translated Usef.
"When?" I asked.
"He is saying just this year, and he has kept it hidden until now."
"How much does he want for it?"
"He is saying that it is very ancient and he is thinking it has much value. He is wanting to know how many rials you will be giving him for it?"
"Tell him that he must ask a price," I said.
I had learned to have the seller state a price first. If I went first and offered an amount that he thought too low he might be offended and end the negotiations right there. Usef and the villager huddled together and after an animated conversation Usef looked at me and smiled.
"He is wanting one hundred toman."
Ten rials equaled one toman. One hundred toman amounted to about twelve dollars.
"You must be giving him less," advised Usef.
"But it is worth more. Not much more, but certainly more than that."
"You must give the man less," insisted Usef.
"Offer him fifty toman."
"No," shouted the villager using words I understood.
He took the coin, wrapped it and put it in his pocket.
"Ask him how much he thinks would be a fair price," I said to Usef.
"Ninety toman," came the reply.
I guessed that the men in the Ahar bazaar had offered the man thirty or forty toman, and that he hoped to get twice that amount from me.
"Tell him I'll give him seventy toman."
"Eighty-five toman."
"Tell him eighty toman."
The man brought the coin out of his pocket and stood looking at it. Then he said something quietly to Usef.
"Get the money quickly," Usef said, "before he is changing his decision."
I paid the villager and we shook hands. He gave me the coin and went away.
Two days later the villager returned. Together we had to look for Usef so that he could translate. Finally we found him at his house.
"He is wanting to buy the gold coin from you," said Usef. "He is having the eighty toman and ten toman more."
"Tell him that I like the coin and that I want to keep it. Thank him for his offer."
The man became angry and he shouted something that Usef refused to translate. Then he begged, cried, and held my hand. He looked at us with sad eyes, and he told Usef how he had made a mistake when he sold the coin.
"He is saying that he must have it," said Usef. "He says that he will give you even more for it."
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I don't think it's worth that much, and I'm going to keep it."
Finally the villager left, walking off down the street shouting back at us, then folding his hands behind his back and disappearing around the corner into the next street. In the bazaar Usef asked a few of his father's old friends a few questions and learned that an antique dealer had arrived in Ahar. As they did when they came to town, he went around offering to buy old coins, samovars, and other heirlooms which he took to Teheran for sale to tourists at inflated prices. When he met the villager, he heard about the small gold coin and offered the man around one hundred fifty toman for it, sight unseen.
I saw the buyer later and showed him the small coin. He looked at and told Usef that he assumed from the villager's description that it was larger and nicer.
"He says that he was making a mistake. He will give you fifty toman for it."
Each time I looked at the beams that held up the roof over the kitchen I thought that the crack in one of them had grown larger. Val said he thought I might be right. I mentioned the crack to Mr. Hashemi.
"These things are not important," he said waving his hand. "Those wood things are becoming very dry and having some cracks every time but they are being very strong."
To me it looked dangerous. I worried about the roof falling in some day while I stood under it. Two or more feet of dirt sat on top of the thin poles and if any one of them broke, the rest might follow. During earthquakes in that part of the world, the crumbling of buildings and the falling of roofs often crushed thousands of people; sometimes whole villages. I kept my bed near the windows, and always planned to go directly through them to the outside if the ground began to shake. Fortunately, it never happened while I lived in Ahar.
Old Hotami walked across the school yard one day not long after I returned from Teheran. I called to him and he came to see what I wanted. I led him into the kitchen and pointed toward the ceiling at the suspect pole. He looked up wide-eyed and then started talking while at the same time almost running out of the house toward the school.
"I've got to find out what he's doing," I shouted at Val.
On my way across the school yard I met Mr. Hashemi, Mr. Janabzadeh, and three other teachers following Old Hotami toward our house.
"It is very dangerous," said Mr. Hashemi when he looked up at the pole. It could be falling in just any minute and be hurting you. Why are you not telling me about this thing?"
The men went back into the school clicking their tongues and talking about the problem. That afternoon officials came from the Office of Education and they looked at the split pole and clicked their tongues.
"This is very dangerous," said one of the men in Persian. "We must look at the roof two times a year. You don't know this because you aren't Iranian. It's good that we found this and now we'll fix it."
Things usually moved slowly in Iran and so I expected that they would mend the roof during the summer or even later. But a crew arrived the next morning and they had us carry everything out of the kitchen. Then they closed off the room and sealed the doorway with plastic. In the school yard they partitioned off an area about ten feet square with a dike of dirt nearly eighteen inches high. It became a large earthen mixing bowl. They brought more dirt, straw, water, and manure in about equal proportions. Two of the men took off their shoes, got in, and walked around using their feet to combine the ingredients to just the right consistency; a thick brown paste.
The other men took picks and shovels up onto the roof. They dug down through the mud and the thatch until they exposed the split and badly rotted pole which they removed. In its place they set a new pole. They checked the other beams and found them sound. Then they placed a new layer of thatch followed by almost two feet of dirt which they beat into place with large mallets.
Old Hotami and the other custodians from the school worked on the classrooms next to our house scraping away the weeds that had grown there. When they finished, all of the men carefully applied a thick layer of the mud-straw-dung mixture over the entire surface. When it dried, it would repel water to a point, like an adobe. Then they all picked up their tools and left.
Mr. Hotami supervises scraping weeds off of my roof prior
to removing the broken beam and putting new mud and straw in
place While some scraped the roof above, others mixed mud,
straw and animal dung into the mix that would form the new
roof.
When Val and I opened up the kitchen we found that all the pounding had broken a second beam. Its ends hung down precariously from the ceiling. So the next day the men came back and repeated the work a second time, clicking their tongues, and urging us to take better care of our house.
It took Val and me the rest of the afternoon to clean the debris out of the kitchen and move our things back into it. I went to the bazaar and bought long strips of plastic which I tacked to the underside of the poles, creating a barrier that I hoped would stop any more of the roof from falling into our food.
Mr. Hashemi assured me that he would inspect the house regularly, and the men at the Office of Education said the same thing. But none of them ever did.
I had a good friend, a fellow student whom I met when I attended the University of Washington. He married about the same time that I joined the Peace Corps. Dick Walston and his wife, Sandra, wrote to me off and on and said that they planned an around-the-world trip. They hoped to spend some time in Iran and wanted to visit me in Ahar.
I met them at the Tabriz airport early in March. We took the bus to Ahar, Val moved into my room with me, and we gave them his room for five days.
The Walstons rested for a day while Val and I taught our classes, but the next evening Usef, Mr. Kashavarz, Mr. Fakhim, and Mr. Haddadpor came to visit and to meet them.
"We brought something they might like to try," said Sandy handing me a jar of peanut butter.
I spread some on a few cookies and passed the plate around the room.
"We have never tasted such a thing," said Kashavarz. "It is something very awful," he added frankly. "I am not liking it."
Mr. Fakhim discretely threw his into a waste paper basket. Usef managed to get his down but with difficulty. Mr. Haddadpor graciously declined to try any in the first place. I put the peanut butter away and never offered it to any Iranians again. I learned over and over that nothing is as important to a culture as its food and often a person will reject another person's delicacy. Taste is acquired as well as innate
Whenever Sandy, Dick, and I walked through the streets or the bazaar people stopped and stared at us; especially the women. Sandra must have been one of the first American women to visit Ahar and she drew everyone's attention. I wanted my friends to visit my classes in the high school so that the boys could practice with other people who spoke English.
"This would be a new thing for the boys," cautioned Mr. Hashemi when I suggested taking the Walstons to class. "It could be making some problems for you in the class. The boys would be amazed by this thing. They are not having women in their classes."
Hashemi and the other teachers debated my request all that day.
"I am thinking that she will be more happy just at the school which is for girls," Hashemi said later that afternoon. "I am talking just now with Mrs. Mohiempor and we are inviting your friend to be going there."
"Good," I said, "I think Sandy would like to see the girl's high school. But can she visit a few of my classes too?"
Mr. Hashemi went to the Office of Education and talked to them about my request.
"A woman will be making some problems for the teachers," he said the next morning.
But just before noon he came to me and with a broad smile he said, "We are thinking that it will not be trouble for the boys if Mrs. Walston is going just to a few of your seventh grade classes. You are teaching with only the younger boys and they are not being so much upset. Mrs. Walston is being in your classes just tomorrow in the morning. In the other times she can be visiting Na Mous with the other women. It would not be possible for any Iranian woman to do this thing but we are thinking that American women are being different. We are thinking that American women are being just like a man."
So Sandy came to my classes that morning. She sat quietly at the table in front of the class. She wore a scarf over her head as Hashemi suggested. The boys behaved normally. Dick and Sandra asked them questions which they answered. It pleased the students to realize that they could communicate in English with strangers. In the end the visit proved successful and uneventful.
From left to right, me, Sandra Walston, Val Schultz, Mr.Haddadpor, Mr. Hashemi
Sandra also visited Na Mous which made Mr. Hashemi happy. Dick, Val, and I went there to meet her after school that afternoon. The teachers surprised us when they invited us inside. Mehri Shayaste, whom I had met at Dr. Adjami's house, spoke for them as she greeted us. Dick and Val played ping pong with our hostess. The educated women of Ahar appeared more liberal and progressive than most of the men. I learned their reaction when Mr. Hashemi told me that the visit upset the officials at the Office of Education and that such a thing should never happen again.
Dick Walston lived in Japan when he served in the military. While there he learned origami; the art of paper folding. He made decorative lamp shades out of sheets of heavy white paper and we put them over the bare bulbs that hung from our ceilings. Mr. Haddadpor quickly learned how to duplicate the intricate designs and he made shades for his own house. He told me that he developed variations and that others around Ahar asked him make similar shades for their houses.
An Iranian shows his friendship for a person in the way that he treats that person's friends. The teachers and officials in Ahar entertained the Walstons and made them welcome. Mr. Fakhim invited us to his apartment for an elaborate tea. Mr. Hashemi put on a dinner for the Walstons where we met many of his friends who owned shops in the bazaar. He gave us lessons on how to smoke a water pipe. But no women came to any of the events except Sandra. When Iranian men met, they usually shook hands, but seemed unsure what to do when greeting Sandy. She helped them by holding out her hand, which they took. In the end, they did exactly what Hashemi had suggested; they treated her just like a man.
We asked Mr. Hashemi if we could visit one of the places where they made rugs. Hashemi said that the father of one of the Pahlavi students owned such a factory and that we would go there the next day. On the Walston's last afternoon in Ahar we walked across town with Mr. Hashemi, joined Val near Reza Shah High School, and continued on to a building where we met the owner who took us inside.
Children worked at the large looms. Unlike any children I had seen in Ahar, they never stopped weaving and they paid no attention to us. Over and over they tied the intricate knots that eventually developed into the colorful carpets for which Iran is known around the world.
Children worked on the rugs in many places in Iran. There was a saying -
when you walk on Persian carpets, you walk on the eyes of children
Most of the children ignored us as we watched them work.
Twenty to twenty-five carpets hung on frames scattered around the large dimly lit room. Balls of yarn hung above each station and the children frequently reached up grabbing pieces which they quickly tied in place. One hand tied the yard, the other cut the strand once the knot had been secured. Their hands performed the actions mechanically and I had difficulty following the rapid motions. After completing each row of knots, the children dropped another cross thread in place, hammered it down, and began the next row.
"It is taking them about six weeks for making one carpet that is this size," said Hashemi pointing to a rug about twelve by fifteen feet.
They wove the rugs in identical pairs, called jofts, but they would make anything that anyone ordered.
"How long do the children work each day?" I asked Hashemi.
I am sure that Mr. Hashemi never realized that the rug factory employed children. He had never been there before himself. He stuttered more than usual as he translated our questions and the answers that came from the owner.
"They are working just ten hours," he said. "If their family is being able to send some food for them to be eating, then they will stop for just thirty minutes but if there is no food then they will be working all of the time."
"How much are they paid?"
"They are paid enough money," he replied without passing on the question.
"How much is that?"
Hashemi translated. He looked shaken.
Mr. Hashemi looks at an identical pair of carpets (called a joft in Persian).
"They are getting just twenty rials for each day," he said quietly.
Dr. Adjami told me later that many of the children who worked in the rug factory died from tuberculosis, and that few of them lived into their teens. They came from the villages. The government had made such child labor illegal, but in rural places like Ahar, children still worked long hours making carpets. Their small hands could tie the tiny knots that produced the finest rugs. There is some validity, although less in recent times, in the saying that when one walks on a Persian rug, one "walks on the eyes of children."
"But the factory is being enough clean," said Hashemi, who looked increasingly unhappy as the visit continued. "It is not a very bad place. The children are doing good work."
Then Mr. Hashemi excused himself and went outside and waited for us there.
Early the next morning I boarded a bus with Sandy and Dick and we started for Tabriz. Mr. Hashemi, Mr. Haddadpor, Val, Usef, and some of the other teachers came to the station to see us off. From Tabriz they continued on to Tehran and the rest of their trip. By that evening I was back in Ahar where life returned to normal.
Normal in Ahar could be complicated. For example, during the second week of March we encountered White Revolution Day - a non-holiday that commemorated the Shah's program to modernize Iran and thwart communism. A year earlier the Shah had been skiing in Switzerland. From there he sent a telegram to Teheran closing all government offices and giving everyone the day off to celebrate, although he had previously proclaimed that everyone should work on White Revolution Day.
That morning Mr. Janabzadeh postponed ringing the bell as long as possible, waiting for some word that the schools would close. The students dawdled in the halls and the teachers sat drinking tea and waiting before going to classes. Mr. Hashemi came into the room and assured everyone that there would be no holiday and that school should start.
The boys hoped for the holiday as much as the teachers. Whenever they heard anything unusual outside they jumped out of their desks and shouted that they should be going home. Nobody accomplished much that morning. Just before lunch a rumor circulated among the teachers that the Shah had ordered a holiday for the afternoon and everyone went home happy. A boy came to my house about two o'clock with a note telling me that there had been a mistake and that I should return and teach my classes.
"They are having no classes at Himmat," said Usef when he came into the faculty room. "And no classes at Reza Shah because Mr. Arbabi and Mr. Shaigon are saying that it is a holiday."
But Mr. Janabzadeh rang his bell and we walked to our rooms where only a handful of boys stood waiting. After about ten minutes, Janabzadeh rang the bell again, announced that it was a holiday and that everyone could go home.
"It is a joke for Ahar," said Usef as we walked together that afternoon. "On the radio the man is saying that there has been a holiday since this morning. No person will be getting money for working this day because it is a holiday. But in Ahar we are not hearing this thing. We have worked today for nothing."
A few days later Mr. Mohammadi and Mr. Panohalee started fighting with each other. Mohammadi, a small balding man with changing moods and a hot temper, taught history. He often bullied the other teachers and usually had his way. Panohalee, a good natured man who liked to tell jokes, taught physical education.
"They are angry about some changes which Hashemi has been making in the schedule," explained Usef as the two men shouted at each other. "Each is wanting his classes in the morning so that he is able to be going to Tabriz sooner. Hashemi has been making the changes because of some pushing by Mr. Mohammadi and Mr. Panohalee is wanting it made like before."
The two men continued to argue while the other teachers urged them to stop, sit, and drink some tea.
"That one is saying that the physical education teacher is a fool," said Usef. "They are saying bad names about the other. This one is saying that for that one to find intelligence is like a camel going through the hole in the needle."
Exaggerated rhetoric and inflammatory phrases were commonplace in Iranian society. Exciting people and influencing them through overstatement and prolonged harangues runs deep in the heritage of the Middle East. The teachers and others frequently used biblical-sound verbiage, such as the camel and the eye of the needle, meaning in this case, not that something was impossible but that it would be very difficult [the 'eye of the needle' is a phrase used to describe a distinctive oriental-looking gate or opening in a wall through which it is difficult, but not impossible, to lead a camel]. Westerners often take such flamboyant speech at face value without putting it through a cultural filter.
During the recess after the first class, as I sat with the other teachers in the faculty room, we heard a commotion in the hall. Near Mr. Hashemi's office, Mohammadi and Panohalee squared off, shouting, swinging at each other, but standing some distance apart. Boys crowded around to watch, and the other teachers hurried to chase the students away and stand between the two men.
"They are not really wanting to fight," said Usef later. "They have let their words become too strong and they have even been believing what they are saying. They are making noises so that the teachers will come and stop them. This is what they are wanting."
"Do the teachers fight very often?"
"No! This is a very rare thing. When teachers are angry, they may be shouting, but when they become tired of this, then their friends are making some agreement which will be solving the problem. Mr. Mohammadi and Mr. Panohalee are becoming too angry and they will be embarrassed when they are cold and less unhappy."
That afternoon the two teachers met with Mr. Hashemi. He again rearranged the schedule giving each man what he wanted on alternate weeks. From then on Mohammadi and Panohalee walked to school together, laughed, joked, and appeared inseparable.
Mr. Shoorian had less success with the other teachers. Young and eager, he taught chemistry. He liked Val, and they became good friends. Shoorian wanted to learn better English, and Val helped him as much as he could. He also tried to modernize his classes with innovative techniques, and often conducted experiments and demonstrations with materials he bought himself and brought to the school.
"They are saying many lie about me," he told Val one day.
"Who is?"
"All teachers in the school. They are saying I am not good in teaching and knowing nothing about science."
The teachers clearly shunned Shoorian in the faculty room.
"He is doing his teaching in a way that is making the other teachers angry," explained Mr. Kashavarz.
"I don't understand."
"He is making the boys do much studying and asking them questions that are not found in the books. He is telling them that the other teachers should also be doing these things."
In a whispering campaign among the parents, the teachers said that Shoorian's students would fail the examinations at the end of the year because of his poor teaching. Some of the fathers approached Hashemi and demanded that the chemistry teacher teach directly from the book, like the others, or be fired.
In the Middle East social mobility is difficult. The son of a teacher tends to become a teacher. The children of the poor will be poor. With little hope of advancement or change, the men found some pleasure in seeing someone fail when he reached beyond his station. When a peer succeeded where the others had not, they found joy in turning his accomplishment into a disaster. Usef had climbed to a higher class, but he did it with caution, careful never to challenge the others, always willing to do whatever job they assigned him, and always acting like a traditional teacher. Shoorian also rose above his family's class. But his ambition and aggressive methods nettled the others. It upset the complacency they found in doing jobs that seldom challenged them or required them to work very hard.
Shoorian's case came to a head when Mr. Hashemi called a faculty meeting.
"It will not be using much time," he told me, indicating that I should attend.
"He is being very serious," said Usef when the meeting started. "He is saying that some of the fathers are concerned about bad lessons being taught in some classes. The books must be the only lessons. Just those lessons can be taught. He is saying that all of the things that the boys are needing are in the books which are made by the government and that no other things can be brought into the classroom."
Hashemi never mentioned Mr. Shoorian by name and nobody looked at the chemistry teacher as he received his public scolding.
During the meeting I realized that I too had brought new lessons to the students and had departed from the books. But I succeeded because I was an American; a foreigner. I presented no threat to the other teachers because nobody expected them to act like the American. In some ways, then, I could go beyond the norms of Iranian Society. But those instances proved to be few and far between.