Kashavarz on left, Ahmad Fahim on right
Each time I went to Tabriz during late April and May I took boxes of clothes or souvenirs and mailed them home. The drab scenery of winter changed in the spring. Picturesque and green, the countryside presented a panorama of quaint villages and inviting orchards. Little streams crisscrossed the road, here and there diverted by small dams and intricate canal systems that guided the water into farms and fields.
Each bus raised billows of dust from the unpaved road. The clouds churned, first in the distance, then closer as busses approached and passed each other. If we stopped, our cloud caught and overwhelmed us getting into everything. No one ever remembered to shut the windows in time. Every trip filled my nose, eyes, and ears with grit.
The radiators in the rickety old busses invariably leaked. Whenever we stopped, puddles of water collected beneath the bus. During hot weather the tired motors sometimes spewed out clouds of steam. At some stops the drivers' assistants refilled the radiators and the tanks on top of the busses. Most of the busses had these reservoirs over the driver, in front of the luggage rack. A tube ran from the tank ,past a valve near the driver, and into the radiator. By turning the valve, the driver could empty the reservoir into the radiator without having to stop the bus.
They built their busses for Iranians and not for tall Americans. The seats were close to each other and whenever I had to sit next to the window my knees abutted against my chest while my feet dangled off the floor. I tried always to sit on the aisle or in the special front seat opposite the driver.
Ahmad Fakhim and I traveled together to Tabriz one day. He wanted to visit his family and I had two boxes to mail. He sat next to the window and I had the aisle. Wind blew in through the open windows cooling us as the weather had turned warm. We made good time climbing over Jozabiel and driving across the flat toward the pass at Payan. Now and then a fine spray came in on us.
"It is being a strange thing," Fakhim said to me. "It is not raining but there is something coming in and hitting us which is wet."
Kashavarz on left, Ahmad Fahim on right
As we bounced along, swaying from side to side, talking above the roar of the engine, the occasional droplets continued.
"I am thinking that it is the water which is on top of the bus. Some of it is becoming free and coming to our window to make us cool. We are having some kind of modern air conditioning even in Ahar."
We laughed. But when we pulled into the bus station in Tabriz and climbed out of the bus, both of us saw that this particular bus had no water tank on its top. It did have about twenty sheep securely tied down in the luggage rack. They squirmed around looking unhappy and dusty. Both Mr. Fakhim and I went directly to a hammum.
Mr. Hashemi postponed ending the classes as long as he could, but finally he capitulated to the teachers and grade by grade, starting with the twelfth, he ended the formalized study. The boys spent their days walking around the orchards and fields or through the school yard, open books in their hands, memorizing the lessons and preparing for the examinations. Hashemi managed to keep the seventh grade boys in school until only a week remained before the tests - much longer than the year before.
Val and I helped monitor the testing sessions in the Pahlavi auditorium. First, as every year, came the national tests for the twelfth grade students. Then the various teachers in the eleventh through seventh grades marshaled their boys into the auditorium and read them their questions. The boys wrote their answers on special paper provided by the school and the school secretary put the official seal of the school on every sheet. All papers had to go to the faculty room and only there could the teachers grade them.
Seventh grade English classes took four quizzes: conversation, dictation, reading, and translation. I prepared my own tests for the seventh grade, but ran into a problem with the eighth grade groups that I shared with Usef.
"There is some complaining," explained Mr. Hashemi. "In making the test for dictation it is important that the boys are understanding the words. We are thinking that Mr. Charchi can be reading the words."
Mr. Hashemi still worried that my American accent would confuse the boys who supposedly learned British English.
"I've been reading to them all year," I argued. "They've never heard Usef who has some accent that will be new for them."
Mr. Hashemi listened and then compromised.
"You will be reading each thing just three times and Mr. Charchi will be reading it one time. The boys will be making very good examinations this year."
That resolved the issue in the eighth grade. When the seventh grade boys came to take their translation tests, I brought in my own papers. I typed my test in Tabriz using the equipment at the Kennedy Library. I duplicated copies on their mimeograph machine.
"They are never seeing such things," commented Mr. Hashemi.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "It's exactly like the printing in the book and the questions are directly from the book just like you said. This is much better than trying to write on the small blackboard that some of the boys can't see very well."
Other teachers came around and looked over the controversial, mimeographed sheets. They suggested that the tests might be too difficult for the boys and that many would fail. In the end Mr. Hashemi decided to let me use the tests but when my turn in the auditorium came, very few teachers offered to help.
"I made a mistake didn't I," I said to Usef later.
"The other teachers are being very unhappy and jealous," he said. "It is very sad."
I had taken advantage of a resource not available to the rest of the teachers. They wanted to see the innovation fail so that none of them would look bad or be forced to find ways to do the same thing. I had stepped on their prestige, and in so doing I committed another social blunder.
Usef and I sat in the faculty room grading the papers. Fortunately the boys did very well on the translation tests and nobody mentioned them again. We had to record the scores in the official grade books which the secretary prepared for each teacher. Grades had to be noted with Arabic numbers and spelled out in longhand. As Usef suggested, I made a point of asking the other teachers for help in spelling the numbers as I wrote, saying that I could not understand Iranian things very well and that I needed their assistance. This flattered them and helped erase the bad taste left by the mimeograph incident. Before long we laughed and joked together as before.
When I finished I handed my grade book back to the school secretary. On the cover he had written, "The Grade Book of Mister [the Persian word] Mister [the English word]."
"He is hearing everyone say, 'Hello, Mister,' and he is thinking that your name is 'Mister,'" explained Usef.
It was almost time for me to leave Ahar. I visited my friends and gave them gifts that I bought in Tabriz.
"Some day we are visiting you in America," said Mr. Kashavarz as I sat in his house drinking tea. "My wife and my mother are saying that you must be giving greetings to your family when you are being at home again."
Mohammad Kashavarz
Shayesteh Kashavarz
I gave Old Hotami all of my clothes except the few that I planned to take with me, and I gave him a carved pipe that I had bought in Istanbul.
"He is not having much money," said Usef. "They will be selling the clothes or sewing on them for their children."
Hotami looked sad when he said good-bye.
"He is saying that you must be remembering Ahar because Ahar will be remembering you."
Late in the afternoon before the day I planned to leave, Mr. Hashemi came to my house and asked me to walk with him into the school. In the auditorium most of the teachers who I knew from the three high schools and a few of the fathers sat and waited.
"They are coming to say good-bye," said Usef.
Mr. Kashavarz gave me an antique glass perfume pitcher, ornately decorated, old, and beautiful. Mr. Haddadpor and Mr. Fakhim gave me small Iranian gold coins. The fathers of the students presented me with a long piece of woven cloth used to make small area rugs or table runners. Usef gave me an antique Russian-made pocket watch that he found in the bazaar and Mr. Hashemi gave me a small carpet made in Ahar.
The second room in my house where I kept some of the things I bought while in Ahar.
"You must be saying something to them," said Usef. "They are wanting to hear you for one more time. You must be trying to say things in Persian because they wish to hear the accent."
I tried to tell them how much I appreciated the things they had done for me while I lived there. I said that I learned more from them than they had from me. I hoped that Iran and the United States would always be friends.
The men laughed, and Usef asked me to say in English what I had tried to say in Persian. He translated into Turkish, and the men clapped. I suppose the Iranian way of showing emotion had its effect on me too, because I had to take out my handkerchief and wipe my eyes. When it ended, Usef helped me carry my gifts home. He and Val watched me finish packing.
Early the next morning Mr. Hashemi, Usef, and Val came to the station and watched the bus leave. Mr. Fakhim and Mr. Kashavarz went with me to Tabriz and helped me package and send the rug and the cloth through the mail, then saw me off on the bus to Teheran.
That final morning, as I left Ahar for the last time, a few boys stood around waving and shouting, "Good-bye, Mister."