Ahar occupies a picturesque setting in the middle of a long valley. Mt. Savalon, an extinct volcano and at 14,000 feet above sea level, the second highest mountain in Iran, stood snow-capped and majestic about thirty-five miles southeast of the city. Legend said that on its slopes the religious leader, Zoroaster, meditated and founded a religion that emphasized the worship of fire, air, water, and earth.

Sunrise over Mt. Savalon which was East of Ahar

The Masolum of Sheikh Shahabaddin Ahari, a great philosopher of Safavid era. But everyone just called it "The Sheikh"

Inside Ahar's bazaar

Mainstreet in the fall when the mellons were ripe

Running west from Savalon, and south of Ahar, is a lower chain of mountains of which the volcano is a part. At around 10,000 feet, the locals called them "The Goat Killers." Brown and treeless, they appeared as a succession of high rolling hills that trailed off to the west.

Azarbaijan has a cool climate in summer and cold in winter. It receives twenty to thirty inches of rain annually and most of it comes during the spring and fall. When it rained, it poured and the city's dirt streets became lakes and rivers of mud. When the rain stopped, the mud turned to dust that blew around and got into everything. Some snow fell in the winter, and the mountains around town appeared white and beautiful. The run-off supplied water to the Little River that ran through the city, and the Ahar River that flowed south of town between the city and the mountains. An ingenious series of canals branched off from the various rivers supplying irrigation to local farmers. The city was surrounded with apple, prune and apricot orchards. Vegetables grew in many of the small fields. Slender trees planted near the rivers supplied poles that eventually supported the roofs of houses. Low earthen dams, one or two feet high created little ponds where water buffalo, the main work animal, rested and soaked for a few hours daily during the summer.

North of Ahar chains of mountains cut back and forth across the landscape. The region formed the southern-most extension of the Caucuses which ran to the north, between the Caspian and Black Seas, well into the Soviet Union. The entirety of Soviet and Iranian Azarbaijan consisted of small valleys separated by row after row of haphazardly placed mountains, none exceptionally high, but collectively having the effect of creating isolated valleys where people lived cut off from each other by the chaotic geography.

Ahar had been modernized during the Russian occupation that followed World War II. The Russians installed straight streets, improved housing and reorganized local government. When the Soviets left, the Iranian government spent more money in Azarbaijan, putting up public buildings, constructing schools and further modernizing the cities. Ahar had benefited. It received three straight streets, giving order to the otherwise chaotic pattern of a city that had grown without direction. The government demolished houses and other buildings to make way for the new roads. One ran north and south, the other two east and west.

Along the new streets shop keepers built new stores. Slowly the business community was shifting away from the traditional area in the bazaar toward the improved sections. But once off the main streets, Ahar had only unpaved or cobblestone alleys that wove like worms here and there among the mud houses and other buildings.

The newest of the straight streets remained under construction when I arrived in Ahar. The path made by its construction looked like a war zone complete with half standing buildings, holes in the ground, piles of mud and bricks everywhere, and with people still living in the remains. Although everyone told me that it would be finished eventually, it looked the same on the day I left Ahar as it had when I arrived. Where it crossed the north-south street the city fathers had built a traffic circle which looked like a small park with a pond in the center. Above the pond hung a neon sign, lit nightly, which read, "Long Live the Shah." Every town in Iran worthy of the name had one or more traffic circles (showing British influence) and similar neon signs. In Tabriz a larger version near City Hall proclaimed, "Long Live the Shah and Drink Coca Cola!"

Along the sides of the new streets ran the jukes; the open sewers. Although ugly and often smelly, they improved on the older areas of town where run-off water and sewage openly meandered over the roads and alleys.

Traffic around town consisted mostly of trucks and busses. A few people, like Mr. Shaigon, owned automobiles, but they were prestige symbols driven around and shown off. Otherwise they served no useful purpose. The narrow streets and the river that flowed through the eastern part of town made walking quicker. No bridge for cars spanned the river so car owners had to ford it wherever they could. The highways in and out of town remained unpaved and were best avoided by anyone who wanted to keep his car in one piece for very long.

Despite the minimal traffic, Ahar's four or five policemen maintained a constant watch to see that pedestrians stayed on the sidewalks. Whenever anyone made the mistake of stepping into the street anywhere except at a corner or on a cross-walk (Ahar had two of them), a shrill whistle and a shouted reprimand returned them to the sidewalk in short order. Only in Teheran, where traffic presented real danger were pedestrians allowed to cross streets wherever they wished.

Despite the effort at modernization, the economic center of the city remained in the bazaar, and with the agricultural market held most mornings along the river in the city's eastern section. Farmers gathered early to sell animals, animal feed, garden vegetables, eggs, and other produce. Locally made rugs dominated the bazaar which also featured hand-pounded copper vessels, colorful textiles, and household wares. Supermarket-style merchandising remained unknown in most of Iran, and especially in rural areas. Individual owners operated each small entrepreneurial venture. Some prospered marginally, and others struggled to maintain a meager day-to-day existence. Most, although not all, of those considered relatively wealthy in the city worked for the government.

I enjoyed exploring Ahar, wandering through the Bazaar, looking into the shops, and talking now and then with some of the men who ran them. The setting was exotic, new, and inviting. Women in chasers fascinated me. Strange sounds and smells accompanied every trip I took away from my little house near the school. And I had the time to just wander the twisting streets visiting every corner of the city.

The people dressed in rather drab clothing. Men wore tattered, out-of-date dark gray, blue, black, or brown suits. Only the professionals wore ties. Under their jackets, villagers and merchants wore shirts that had once been white, but now looked gray and wrinkled. They always buttoned the top button. The women wore dark chadores that covered baggy pant-like garments. They hid their faces with black veils under the chadores that draped their figures from head to foot. When the weather got cold, everyone wore heavy coats and long underwear.

Many of the men wore hats peculiar to Azarbaijan. When Turkish officials under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk outlawed the religious fez, traditionally worn by Moslem men, most of the male population adopted the roadster cap worn by the British. Over the years, as the style moved east, the pattern became exaggerated into a caricature of the original. Heavier, broader, and bigger, it began to look like a pancake. Tailors made the hats in their bazaar shops, and around Ahar, I saw them frequently. One day I bought one. I only wore it once.

Meer Abdulah Hashemi, Principal of Pahlavi High School

"Teachers do not wear such things," advised Mr. Hashemi sternly. "Why?" "It is making you look like a villager," he said. "We think that people will laugh at you." Usef advised me to leave the hat at home. He said he would not walk with me if I wore it. The other teachers agreed. In that case, to break the rules and go beyond the norms of Iranian society would have embarrassed not only myself, but also my fellow teachers. Dress helped determine class, status, affluence, and religious position, all of which were interrelated. Each group maintained its identity and recognized others with outward signs. They did not appreciate anyone who might tamper with the established order.

In time, I learned how far I could go towards being an individual in Iranian society. First, however, came the chore of day-to-day living. Often I wandered around town looking for some item that I needed. Finding things that would have been common and familiar at home, or dealing with other elementary problems proved difficult. For example, I quickly tired of washing myself with a cloth and water heated on my stove. I needed somewhere to take a shower or, better yet, a bath.

Finally I asked Usef what to do, and he told me about the hammums. Hammums are bath houses. Every city in Iran has them, since many homes do not have running water, not to mention hot water or bathing facilities. The Hammums are generally clean, large buildings with individual chambers which bathers rent and where they shower. Each accommodation has two rooms, the first where the person dresses and undresses, and the inner room with the shower. It was very private, warm, and enjoyable.

Ahar had a number of hammums, but I always went to the one across the street from the police station as everyone told me that it was the best. On the outside it looked like any other one floor mud building except for the clothes lines full of thin red towels hanging around the entrance. Inside the blue and white tiled walls shined, the floor was always wet, and the workers scampered about getting towels, soap, ushering customers to empty rooms, and doing whatever they could to be useful. For a price, one of the workers would come in and scrub the customer's back. Should I purchase that service, however, Usef warned me, I must keep my towel wrapped around me whenever the worker was around. To be seen naked was not acceptable in Iranian society.

"I like to take a bath in a tub," I complained to Usef after my second or third trip to the hammum. "I like to soak for an hour or two."

"There is one large tub at the hammum," said Usef.

"Can anyone use it?"

"Usef laughed. "You could use it, but everyone in the city will think it is very funny."

"Why?"

"Because it is only used by old and sick people. When families bring them to the hammum, they are using the tub because it is easier than using the shower."

Usef taught me how to ask the hammum attendants for the room with the tub. The next time I went, I asked for the special room.

The sign of the hammum was the red towels outside drying. This hammum was considerably more primitive than the one that I generally used which was much nicer.

 

"What?" asked the small man who greeted me.

"I would like the room with the tub."

Seemingly confused, he left me, and talked to another men who came and asked me what I wanted, and I repeated the line to him. They chatted for a while, and finally both of them led me down the hall between the rows of cubicles. At the end, they opened a door, and indicated that I should go inside. They closed the door behind me, and in the hall I heard them laughing.

In the second room I found a huge white tub, four feet deep and over seven feet long. It took quite a while to get enough water into the thing, but eventually I climbed in, and found it wonderful. I splashed around, soaked, laid back, and enjoyed it. More water ran into the tub, and finally it ran into the overflow. As it started gurgling down, four or five brown cockroaches, each about three-quarters of an inch long, rushed out of the opening and sputtered across the surface of the water, trying to grab the sides of the tub or me. I smashed them with one of my shoes which I retrieved from the next room. The cockroaches apparently enjoyed the warm damp hammum as much as I did, and they flourished in the plumbing of the seldom-used tub. Thereafter, before I got into it, I flushed out the overflow and disposed of the inevitable insects.

Once I started using the tub at the hammum, I seldom had to wait for a room. None of the other people in town wanted that room because it cost a few rials more than the others, and because they might be thought of as feeble or ill. Whenever I entered the hammum, the attendant greeted me with, "Hello Mister," and then he would shout down the corridor, "Mister wants the tub." As they led me away, everyone in the waiting room would smile.

"You visit the hammum too much," cautioned Mr. Hashemi one day. "It is not good for a person to go so often."

By then I had established a regular pattern of two weekly visits.

"You will have more illness." He showed concern. "One time in a week is enough."

I discovered that many Ahar residents stopped bathing altogether in the winter for fear of sickness. The boys in the school exhibited the odors that resulted from this precaution.

Some Peace Corps volunteers and other Americans occasionally had problems in Iran when hammum managers refused to admit them. The hammum had a religious function as well as a hygienic one. Islamic tradition linked physical and religious cleanliness and so someone physically dirty was also seen as spiritually unclean, and vice versa. Washing is a part of praying, and Islam dictates elaborate ritual and ceremony concerning cleanliness. Islam, like Christianity, is related to Judaism, and Islamic law involving hygiene is a cousin to the Hebraic rules of Kosher. Volunteers who lived in places where they could not use the hammums did in time become dirty, which proved what the Iranians had believed in the first place.

Fortunately an elderly Mullah named Hazrate Ayatollah Haj Sheikh Hossein Najafi lived in Ahar. A Mullah is an Islamic clergyman or priest. They call the faithful to prayer five times daily, and officiate at ceremonies on holy days or on Friday. For the people in and around Ahar the Old Mullah had a special significance; he was a holy man often called an Ayatollah. Old and frail, he was a short heavy man with a full white beard. He wore a simple brown caftan with green and white trim. The green indicated that he could trace his male lineage back to the Prophet Mohammad which made him an important person in the Moslem community. His age, kindness, and wisdom set him apart and everyone treated him with respect bordering on reverence as he wandered around the town. Bent over and slow moving, he formed the pivot around which the city's religious life revolved. Two or three other younger Mullahs always walked with him, helping him, talking to him, and learning from him. Usef told me that he could recite the entire Koran from memory.

When each new Peace Corps volunteer came to Ahar, the Mullah Najafi sought him out and welcomed him. The English teachers told me that in the Mosques the old man instructed the people to be kind to the Americans and help them. This proved fortunate for me and my predecessors. Conservative Muslims, away from areas frequented by tourists, are not always friendly toward strangers - especially non Moslems - infidels. Islam is a crusading religion that emphasizes conversion of non-believers. Adherents, ones who submit to The God (Allah) are spiritually clean while others are dirty and expendable.

"He is welcoming you to Ahar," translated Usef on the day we happened to meet the Mullah Najafi along one of Ahar's streets. "He is asking if you are comfortable and well treated."

A crowd quickly gathered and rapidly grew larger.

"Thank him for me," I answered, "and tell him that everyone here has been very kind."

He spoke to the crowd, and Usef said, "He says that Christians are also people with a book, and that they should be made welcome."

Usef explained later that by "a book" the Mullah Najafi meant the Bible. Moslems believe that religious with a scripture have greater significance than ones that do not have any written doctrine or history. Although they are not equal with Islam, they are to receive respect from its adherents. Not all Moslems, however, are that tolerant. They see their faith as singular and superior and they openly display antagonism toward the followers of other religions just as some Christians see little value in beliefs that differ from their own.

The old man reached out, took my hand and shook it. He smiled, gestured to the people around us, and then walked away. I never saw him again.

A few months later, while I was teaching in one of the seventh grade classes at Pahlavi High School, I heard a commotion outside. From the loudspeakers around town, used by the Mullahs to call the people to prayer, came a loud wailing, unusual at that time of day. It was too early for the Noon call to prayer so I knew that something had happened.

The boys stood when Mr. Hashemi came into the room. He was pale, and he stuttered as he said, "The Mullah Najafi who you have met has died."

Hashemi told the boys in Turkish, and some started to cry. The old man had collapsed while walking in the bazaar just a short while before. The news had spread through the town almost at once. Quietly, and without being told, the boys filed out of the classroom and out of the school, joining the crowds that filled the streets. Everyone in the city moved toward the Sheikh, a large Mosque that sat on a knoll at the south edge of the city.

I went home and stayed out of the way as Usef and the others advised me. Although the Mullah Najafi had welcomed me to town, my friends said that in moments of deep religious feeling, anything could happen, and it would be better for me to remain secluded. Deeply religious and regularly practicing his religion, Usef participated in all of the ceremonies. When I did go into town the next day, all of the shops and government offices were closed. Men walked along the sidewalks, their eyes visibly puffy from crying. Small groups talked quietly here and there, some weeping and wiping their eyes. A mournful call from the loudspeakers on the Mosques continued throughout the day and well into the next night.

Ahar's schools remained closed for two days. On the third day they held a service for the Mullah Najafi at the Sheikh. The wailing drifted across the town, some from the loudspeakers and some from the crowd that held almost everyone in the town and nearby villages. Black strips of material hung over the doors and windows of every shop and the entrance to all houses.

A large bus covered with black cloth took the coffin from the Sheikh to the grave yard outside of Ahar, west of the city along the road to Tabriz. The crowd walked behind the bus, leaving the city nearly empty. There they beat on the ground, and maneuvered for one last touch of the coffin before the Mullahs buried it. While the crowd remained calm, its was emotional. I felt that it could easily have become upset and unruly.

The schools stayed closed for two more days as the city mourned its loss. For thirty days the men and boys wore black shirts, and at the end of the month of sorrow, the city again held services to pray for the Old Mullah. An important member of the community had died, and the people, poor, wealthy, professional, and common together deeply missed its religious leader. I felt fortunate to have met him at least once before he was gone.

Ahar was full of the unexpected. Some of it was because I was unfamiliar with the society, and so the commonplace often caught me off guard. Surprises popped up when I was least prepared. For example, one morning I had overslept. That always happened when I had to travel to one of the schools on the other side of town, never when I had only to cross the school yard and enter Pahlavi.

Everything went wrong that day. The drawers on my wooden wardrobe stuck, my pants looked wrinkled, I had trouble finding my shoes; all of the problems that Murphy's law brings to someone in a hurry. I gathered my books, my props, and my attendance lists, and raced for the back door. When I opened it, a large brown cow walked into the house.

Villagers from nearby often brought their animals to Ahar in order to sell them at an open market near the river. They frequently used the street that ran behind my house, and I had gotten used to sharing it with sheep, goats, cows, water buffalo, and chickens. When I opened the door the cow turned right and walked into the entry hall, stopped, and stood looking around.

I dropped my bag and tried to turn the animal around, but she decided to stay a while. The smiling peasant stood at the door enjoying my distress. Finally he asked permission to enter. He used his stick to convince the cow to turn, and head for the door. But the animal stood her ground. Outside the other animals wandered off in all directions, so he left in order to collect them, leaving me with the cow. The animal eventually turned, walked around the hallway, and finally went through the door and back into the street, but not before stepping all over my books, lesson plans and props.

Mr. Shaigon met me at the door of Reza Shah High School, and asked what had happened. I doubt that he believed what I told him, or tried to tell him in my broken Persian. He must have wondered why I wanted to have a cow in my house.

I found my days at Reza Shah High School satisfactory, but I enjoyed teaching at Pahlavi. Its staff seemed friendlier, and the boys were considerably more tractable than at the other two high schools.

Mohmar Koshtinat served as Pahlavi High School's vice principal in charge of discipline. In Persian, his title more or less meant "child beater." Koshtinat was short with black hair combed straight back. A happy man with a stomach that extended beyond the limits of his belt, he liked the students and occasionally let it show although the dictates of his job restrained his otherwise happy disposition. Wherever he went around the school, he carried his stick, about eighteen inches long and half an inch thick at the base, cut from a tree. He used it to administer punishment.

Some of the principals and vice principals in Ahar's schools whipped students with something approaching sadistic pleasure. The community generally, although not always, approved their actions. Shortly after I arrived in Ahar, as Usef and I walked near the bazaar one day, the father of one of my students stopped us. He told us he was unhappy because I had never beaten his son, or any of the boys for that matter. He explained that this was bad, that the boys would not learn their lessons, and that there would be no discipline in the school. He volunteered to come to my classes and do the job for me should that be necessary.

Some of the teachers hit their students too. At Himmat High School, a mathematics instructor struck one of the boys on the side of his head breaking the boy's ear drum. When the boy's father complained at the Office of Education the officials laughed at him and Mr. Moqtadar refused to see him.

At Pahlavi High School punishment took the form of strokes on the palms of outstretched hands given by Koshtinat with his stick. The vice principal made the offending boy stand and confess. Koshtinat told the boy, usually sobbing by then, to hold out his hands and then he struck with quick sharp slaps that left red marks. Boys sent to the vice principal returned to class with hands red and swollen, often unable to write for the rest of the day.

Sending boys to the vice principal had its drawbacks. It made heroes out of them in the eyes of the other boys, especially among the older students. Once in a while a boy would do something deliberately in order to be beaten and subsequently admired.

Overcrowding in the classrooms made strict discipline necessary. Three boys sat jammed together in a desk made for one. They had a tendency to talk, poke, and even fight with each other. In my case, unfamiliar with the language, keeping order required patience and some strategy. Repetition drills helped maintain order because the boys liked them, and they helped keep everyone busy. I found that I had to plan fast-paced lessons full of props and variety.

Often there were as many as forty boys in my classroom

Crowded three to a desk, the boys copy lessons from their boosk, and sometimes from each other.

I resisted sending any boy to Mr. Koshtinat for a long time. But finally I succumbed when one youngster exhausted my patience. Then I found that the rest of the class behaved for the rest of the week. Nevertheless, I saw Mr. Hashemi later that day and told him that I felt badly about having had the boy beaten. Hashemi carefully explained that it was necessary, that he thought my attitude strange, and that at last he felt that I was beginning to do my job correctly. From the boys I gained some of the respect that they showed the other teachers. Before one can expect to influence or change someone else, they must demonstrate that they understand the other person's system in the first place. "When in Rome..."

The front view of Pahlavi High School

Thereafter Mr. Koshtinat applauded me whenever I sent a boy to him. Often he approached me, standing almost nose to nose, shouting at me in French. Like many Iranians, Koshtinat assumed that English, French, and German were all about the same. If I failed to understand, which I always did, Koshtinat just shouted louder, assuming that the problem was my hearing.

"He is trying to tell you to send more boys to him," translated Usef after Koshtinat gave up on the French and said his piece in Turkish.

"Ask him why he beat one of my students in the hall this morning."

"He is saying that sometimes it is necessary to take one boy and beat him. He is showing all of the boys that he is the boss. For sure the boy has done something bad which is not known to him, and so the beating is putting one stone on two birds."

In addition to Mr. Koshtinat, each class had its own disciplinarian. In most cases the biggest boy in the room held the position. Generally he was someone who had failed a grade once or twice. The job carried prestige and power. As teachers entered their classes, the disciplinarians closed the door behind them, took the attendance book, and recorded the roll. I found these boys officious and usually troublesome. They considered themselves above the other boys and they were almost always behind any disruptions. Because they took the attendance, I found it difficult to learn the names of the students.

Usef helped me go through the school attendance books and transliterate the names. I made up my own roll book. Written in Latin characters, I found, with practice, that I could read first and last names of all of the students. Many were tongue twisters, and most had meaning in English. Nasarat Olah Fatholahzadeh's first names meant "God's Victory." Abraham Mohageg, son of a mullah, had a last name meaning "He Who is Right." Davout (David) Dasht-ba-ni had a family name meaning "He Who Takes Care of the Desert," and Jhadid Monahvari was "Full of Flight." Hassan Neekmanesh came from a family who's name meant "Well Behaved," which, in his case, was a misnomer.

Some of the names had English counterparts. Khoda-dust was "Friend of God," or Godfry in Old English. Mohammad Ali Sabzi was Mr. Green, and I also had a Mr. White and a Mr. Brown. Usef made me practice saying the names of the boys so that I could call the roll quickly and correctly, otherwise the boys laughed and discipline broke down. The class disciplinarians hated my usurping their position. They stopped doing their job and class order suffered when I was around. Solving one problem had created another.

One day a few weeks after I began using my own attendance book, one of the disciplinarians ran up and grabbed it from me at the start of class. He opened it and tried to read off the names. I helped. Although in Latin letters, the order was the same as before, and he knew the list more or less by heart anyway. After a few days, he could read the names without difficulty, and he took pride in pointing that out to his classmates. I taught the other disciplinarians to do the same, and things returned to normal. They were on my side again.

Every culture has its own set of rules. People understand what is acceptable, and they know, through practice, how to deal with each other and how to behave under any given set of circumstances. Change the rules, or introduce someone who operates under a different set of rules, and the result can be frustrating or worse. In Ahar, I found traps all around. The solution for one problem often yielded greater difficulties. Sometimes seemingly harmless situations held a potential for embarrassment or unfortunate faux pas. Sometimes I escaped by accident.

"We are going to have a football game today," Mr. Hashemi explained as we sat together with out tea in the faculty room. "The boys from Meshkin will be coming to Ahar just in the afternoon. We are needing someone to help discover the mistakes."

"Do you mean soccer?" I asked.

"Yes, but we call it football."

"And you need a referee?"

"Yes. We are thinking that you will be a good person for this job."

"I'm sorry," I explained. "I've never played soccer, and I don't know the rules at all."

"We are sorry also," he said sadly. "Finding a person for this job is very difficult."

After classes that afternoon, the team from Meshkin arrived. Old Hotami and the other custodians put white goal forms at either end of the field near my house in the school yard and a large crowd gathered. The custodians put out chairs for the very important people like Mr. Moqtadar, Mr. Shaigon, and Mr. Arbabi. They offered me one, but I preferred to stand in the back with Usef so that he could explain what was happening. Segregated at one end of the field, a few women, in their body veils (chadores), gathered and stood together.

The Ahar team wore white shirts with black pants. The Meshkin team also had white shirts but multi-colored pants. One of the teachers from Pahlavi made comments and announcements over a portable public address system that worked most of the time.

Each team played hard, and the game remained scoreless well into the second half. The people from Ahar and from Meshkin shouted at the referee and insulted his decisions. Usef explained that no matter which side won, the other side always accused the referee of favoritism. Sometimes people actually hurt the referee, and finding someone to do the job was always difficult. Two or three times people threw something at the referee. At the end, each team had scored one goal. As the crowd left, I went home relieved that I knew so little about soccer.

I was not always that fortunate. A few weeks after I arrived in Ahar, Mr. Hashemi invited me to his house for dinner. He told me to come on Tuesday evening at 6:30. On Tuesday evening I arrived, a little late. I knocked, and finally Hashemi himself answered the door.

After greetings, he quietly asked, "Why are you here?"

"You invited me for dinner."

"We were asking you for dinner last night, and you did not come."

"You invited me for Tuesday night?"

"Yes. Last night was Tuesday night."

The next day Usef explained. In the East, each day begins at sunset. What Americans call Monday night is Tuesday night. I had arrived a day late.

A week later Hashemi tried again. We laughed, and agreed on Tuesday night again. At about 6:30 I stood at his door, and this time his son answered. The boy seemed surprised, but led me into the house, and into a room obviously set for guests, but otherwise empty. The boy left me sitting alone.

After fifteen minutes or so, one of Hashemi's older sons came in and said hello, but then he left too. I looked at the carpet, and at Hashemi's college diploma, framed and hanging on the wall. After about half an hour, Hashemi came into the room, and we sat and talked about my home in Oregon, the war in Vietnam, my classes at Pahlavi, and anything else he could think of.

At 9:00, two other men joined us. One was Mr. Hashemi's brother, and the other was a more distant relative. We had more tea, and some cookies. I ate all the cookies I could get because by then I was hungry enough to eat just about anything.

At 10:00 they brought more tea, and more cookies. Finally, around 11:30 Hashemi led us into a small adjoining room where the three men, Hashemi's two oldest sons, and I sat around a table and ate. The boys served the meal starting with soup and moving on to meat patties, chicken, steamed rice, and greens.

Occasionally one of Hashemi's daughters peeked into the room, but otherwise, none of the women in the family showed themselves although I could hear them laughing and talking somewhere else in the house.

"They are eating together in another place," Hashemi explained when he noted that I heard them. "They wish to be together in that place where they are more comfortable."

After dinner, we returned to the main room where the sons served oranges and tea. Mr. Hashemi's elderly father joined us, but as he had been ill, he stayed only a few minutes.

Then Mr. Hashemi got down to business. He explained that his brother had a son in one of my classes, which I already knew. Hashemi's youngest son also went to Pahlavi and attended one of my seventh grade sessions. The two men watched attentively as Hashemi spelled out the problem.

Mr. Hashemi and his eldest son, Hashem and their giant samovar

"You must teach them British English. It is the best kind. American English is good, but British English is best."

"But as far a the boys are concerned," I argued, "the differences are insignificant."

"It is important," insisted Hashemi, that they learn to speak the best English. British English is best."

The Persian speaking population in Iran often discriminated against the Turkish speaking minority which was quickly identified because of its heavy accents. In Azarbaijan, each village had its own variety of the language which set it apart. City residents looked down on country people. Some dialects or accents had higher prestige than others. To the Iranians, speaking the best form of a language held significance.

Since the Hashemi family, like most Iranians, assumed that the rest of the world felt the same way about things, they saw concern that my teaching the boys the wrong kind of English would limit future opportunities. The Peace Corps supplied native English speakers who, just by being there, lent distinction to their schools. If Great Britain had started something comparable to Peace Corps, their volunteers would have been in greater demand than Americans.

"I listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation on the radio," I explained to Mr. Hashemi. "I have no trouble understanding anything that they say. I will listen closely and in the future I will see that the boys say everything just like the men say it on the radio."

Mr. Hashemi translated for the others. They smiled, and laughed, and I guessed that at last I had said the right thing. The mood of the evening relaxed, they brought more tea, and finally everyone said goodnight and we all went home. And whenever Hashemi visited me, I turned on the radio and pointed out that I listened to the BBC and practiced my British English. It cheered him up every time I did it.

Hashemi had his oldest son walk with me back to my house because he said that the boy knew the way, and because it was dark. After that, whenever Hashemi invited me to his house, he said that one of his boys would come and get me when they were ready. This solved the problem caused by my seeming inability to understand what time to arrive when they said 6:30. The boy usually came at somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00. I learned to have something to eat early so that I could last until dinner.

Usef attempted to explain things to me whenever he saw that I was having difficulty, or that I might get into trouble. He was an excellent friend, concerned and sympathetic. If the boys gave me trouble, he would commiserate wonderfully.

"Oh, damn those awful boys all to hell," he shouted when I talked about boys turning on the water tap near my house, which turned the area around the font door into a mud hole. Usef loved to swear in English.

"Teach me more dirty words," he asked repeatedly.

"I don't know any more that you don't use already," I argued, "and besides, you shouldn't use them too much. You might say something at the wrong time."

He remained unconvinced. He listened carefully to everything I said, especially when I was angry, hoping for a new gem for his vocabulary.

Usef Charchi was the youngest of Ahar's English teachers. His diminutive but bright-eyed father had served in the army during the time or Reza Shah, the current Shah's father. When his service ended, he left Isfahan, in the center part of the country, and returned to his native Ahar. There he fathered five children, three boys and two girls. Usef was the oldest.

Usef's family with his father in the middle

Usef holds a sheep demonstrating the characteristic fatty rump typical of Iranian sheep

 

To support his family the elder Charchi and a friend opened a shop where they bought and sold wool used in making rugs. They made a meager living, and then the friend absconded with all of the money, leaving Usef's father in debt and out of business.

At about that time the government began building the first of the straight streets through the city. Its path ran through the wool shop which the officials bought, and tore down. Usef's father moved his family into a poor house where they lived on the money from the land and odd jobs.

Meanwhile, Usef graduated from high school, and spent one year in the normal school in Tabriz where he learned to be a teacher. In return for that year, Usef incurred a five year obligation in the schools of Ahar. He had not earned the Iranian equivalent of a teaching certificate, and he had no college degree, so in the eyes of Ahar's teachers, he sat at the bottom of the pile, prestige-wise. He took whatever assignment anyone had and consequently worked the longest hours for the lowest pay. Sometimes the Office of Education ran out of money before everyone had received his salary, and then Usef had to wait for his until more arrived from Tabriz or Tehran. Fortunately, Mr. Hashemi liked Usef, and had kept him doing most of his teaching at Pahlavi. The other English teachers resented Usef's good fortune, seeing that they had both more seniority and more prestige, but Hashemi out-ranked all of them, and he had his way. Even so, Usef's heavy load and low pay made his lot less than desirable.

Despite his situation, Usef maintained a pleasant disposition, and a helpful nature. He worked to see that I did not depend on him too much. Once he had shown me a shop where I could buy something I needed, he left me to do my own shopping.

"Oh shoot," I said one day while I sat with Usef in the faculty room at Pahlavi High School, "I forgot to buy soap when I was at the store."

"Oh shoot," he repeated. "Is that a new dirty word that I should learn?"

Usef's patience guided me through difficult situations. He helped me understand how Iran worked. Nevertheless, the social rules that governed Iranian society remained a problem for me throughout my two years. Part of culture shock is discovering how a society operates and conforming to norms. Getting caught by the simplest things made the experience frustrating. Unfamiliarity with the language compounded the problem. A good example was my search to find Kleenex.

Like most travelers in a new environment, I caught a cold early on. It started with a scratchy throat, followed by a runny nose, and sneezing. My voice faded, aspirin helped, but in the end a full-blown cold emerged. I shuffled from class to class, coughing, blowing my nose, and feeling miserable. The worst part was my nose. It ran incessantly.

The boys expressed some sympathy, but they laughed and became unruly when I blew my nose.

"Teachers do not do such things in front of the students," Usef explained.

I failed to care at that point as I had few options. Every night I took my supply of handkerchiefs and washed them in boiling soapy water and I hoped they would be dry by morning. Around town I looked for a store that might sell Kleenex. The search proved fruitless.

I asked the boys, "Where can I buy paper handkerchiefs for my nose?" Nobody knew.

I asked shopkeepers, translating the concept of Kleenex as best I could - something paper that I can use to clean my nose, and I would blow into a handkerchief for emphasis. They looked puzzled. Nobody in Ahar had heard of such a thing.

After an especially bad day, I went home and started cooking dinner. I heard someone knocking at the door that led into the school yard - unusual because once the boys left, the custodians locked the gates to the school, and the yard remained empty until the next day.

When I opened the door, I found Old Hotami, the senior janitor, standing there. A funny little man with a bald head and a wide smile that exposed a mouth full of gold teeth, Hotami had a face that looked almost round. It filled with wrinkles whenever he laughed. He spoke almost no Persian, so our communication became a matter of charades and hope. But he liked me and did whatever he could to help me along.

He came into the house, and put a large metal bowl full of hot soup on my table. He explained, by going through my kitchen and finding the props that he needed, that although the soup was green, it was mostly rice. A thick layer of oil floated on top. Spoon in hand and twinkle in his eye, Hotami stirred the soup briskly, and urged me to eat it before it got cold. Then he sat down and watched to be sure that I left none of it.

The mixture appeared formidable, but I felt so awful at that point that I was willing to try anything. Although it looked bad, it tasted worse than anything I had imagined. Full of things that I had never seen before and could not identify, and running with the heavy oil, it was all I could do to keep eating it. But whenever I slowed down, Hotami urged me to hurry and eat more. There was no escape, and finally I finished the last of it.

Then he took the bowl, said good-by, and left. The next night he returned with the same bowl, this time full of yogurt soup. Through Usef, he explained that he and his family worried about my health and they had decided that I must not be eating correctly. They vowed to see that I got at least one good meal daily, and hence the soup which they would continue until my cold left. Over the rest of the week he brought chicken soup, green pea soup, sweet and sour soup, and two or three that I never recognized despite his animated attempts at communication.

As I ate my soup each night, Hotami sat and talked to me in Turkish. Sometimes he laughed and shook all over as he told his story. On other nights, he became sad, and once tears rolled down his cheeks while he rambled on. He would point and gesture, sometimes shout and other times whisper as his narrative unfolded. I never understood a word he said, and I have always been sorry that I missed his monologues. His wife, whom I never met, made substantial soups, and I am sure that they helped me over the cold, and that I did eat better while under their care. Old Hotami himself must have eaten well. Then in his late sixties, he had fathered eight children. The youngest was just over one year old.

Hotami had already left, and I had begun washing out my handkerchiefs one night when someone knocked on my back door. One of my students from Pahlavi stood there, holding two boxes of Kleenex.

"Where did you get them?" I asked.

"At the store near this street."

I had been there. I had asked for paper handkerchiefs, but the man said he didn't have any.

"What did you ask for? What word did you use?

"Kleenex!"

Everyone tried to help me cope with Iranian culture, but nevertheless I found adjusting to some things very difficult. For example, when my bags arrived, I nearly caused discomfort for one of my fellow teachers.

For the first month, I lived out of the small suitcase that I had carried with me from home. Through Peace Corps I had sent an additional sixty pounds of clothes in a suitcase and a duffel bag. They arrived about the middle of November.

I received a notice delivered by a messenger while I sat in the faculty room at Reza Shah High School. Mr. Haddadpor, one of Reza Shah's English teachers translated.

"It seems," he said in his methodical precise English, "that something has come for you. It is in a garage used by the bus company. It is near by. We will go there after the classes."

When the boys had gone, Haddadpor and I walked across the footbridge over the little river that cut through the east side of the town, and to the same bus station - hotel where Dennis and I had stayed some weeks earlier.

Haddadpor and the station manager talked for a while, and Haddadpor showed him my message.

"Your things are being here for over one week," said Haddadpor.

"Why didn't they tell me they had come?"

"They are thinking that you know the things are here and that you will come for them when you want them. In that time they have put the things in a safe place for you."

In the back of the garage, in a far corner, the man pointed to an object in the dark. My suitcase had been wrapped with two strips of wire, each nearly an inch wide. Originally made of smooth leather-like material, it had been battered until the surface was rough. Three cuts gouged through one side exposing some of the contents. Mud and grease smeared the outside and some of the things inside.

I muttered that the bag must have been tied to the back of the bus and dragged all the way to Ahar. Haddadpor translated the remark and everyone in the garage laughed. But then the owner insisted that the suitcase had arrived in that condition, and that he had gone to great trouble to keep it safe. Haddadpor explained that I should notice this and that it meant that I should tip the man for his efforts.

I gave the man one hundred rials, which Haddadpor said was enough, and picked up my suitcase. Quite suddenly Haddadpor grabbed my hand and stopped me.

"Teachers do not carry such things in public," he explained. "We will hire a porter."

In time I discovered that Iranians in the professions viewed physical labor as something that only the lower classes did. School teachers and others of equal or higher always hired someone else to do whatever work they might need done. If one was seen working, it meant that he could not afford to employ someone else to do it, and this brought a loss of prestige. An abundant supply of porters existed to fill this need.

Porters lived one step above beggars in the pecking order of Iranian society. They sold themselves at whatever price they could get and would do just about anything in the way of heavy hauling. A group of porters stood around most bus stations, bazaars, and other areas where someone might want something carried from one place to another. Most kept with them a set of ropes and a rope harness which they used to fasten whatever they carried to their backs. The porters presented a pathetic lot, bent over from their work, dirty, poorly treated, and the butt of considerable derision.

"Have that man do it," I said pointing to a tiny man with one eye who groveled near the entrance of the garage holding his piece of rope.

Two men lifted the suitcase onto the porter's back and tied it securely in place. Haddadpor told me to pay the garage owner's assistant for watching my suitcase while it was in his care. I gave him the twenty-five rials that Haddadpor suggested and received a smile indicating that the sum was sufficient. With the grimy porter shuffling behind us, his tattered shoes scraping and flapping on the dirt road, Haddadpor and I walked to my house.

At the door we took the suitcase off of the man's back, and I asked Haddadpor how much I should pay him.

"I think you must give him only ten rials."

That hardly seemed enough to me, so I gave the man fifty rials. Haddadpor protested.

"It is a mistake you are doing," he cautioned.

"Why?"

"It is not good to give more money," Haddadpor explained. "It will cause trouble for you and for others."

About a week later my duffel bag arrived. Again I hired a porter, a different man this time, and took it home. And again I paid the man fifty rials, which made him very happy. Both the suitcase and the duffel bag had been broken into somewhere in transit, and things were missing from each. But most of my clothes and a fresh supply of handkerchiefs remained and they made life a little easier.

After that, whenever I walked near the river, I inevitably ran into the little one-eyed porter. He bowed and scraped and said things to me while holding out his hand asking for either a job or money or both. He would follow me, sometimes for a considerable distance, or even run in front of me trying to attract my attention. He would refuse to leave me alone until I gave him a few rials. I heard indirectly that some of the others in town had had difficulty with porters who wanted higher pay for their work. One day the little man approached me while I was walking with Mr. Haddadpor. Haddadpor looked straight ahead as we continued along through the bazaar, but under his breath, just loud enough that I could hear him, he said, "I told you that fifty rials was too much."

Four English teachers worked in Ahar's schools. Besides Usef Charchi and Mr. Haddadpor (who was always Mister), there was Mohammad Kashavarz and Ahmad Fakhim. I found a note pinned to my door one day telling me that Mr. Fakhim and Mr. Kashavarz would visit me the next evening. And so after school that day I made a pot of tea, changed into my old clothes, and started cooking my dinner. At about 5:30 they arrived.

Ahmad Fakhim was unmarried, about thirty, and unlike the usual Iranian, he had dark red hair, freckles, and a pleasant sense of humor. He enjoyed working with the students, and they liked him. Consequently he did his teaching at Himmat High School with its more difficult discipline problems. Fakhim had traveled in Western Europe and was the most erudite of Ahar's teachers. He collected match boxes, and his collection covered the walls of his small apartment.

Mohammad Kashavarz was older, and married. Like Haddadpor, he had a large household. Besides his two children, his wife, Shayasteh, and his mother, a distant male relative lived with them and did the family's odd jobs. Later when Kashavarz invited me into his home, he introduced me to everyone including his wife and his mother. Shayaste Kashavarz was a bubbly happy woman with an even disposition. She ran the household. No matter where she was in the house, when she wanted her husband she shouted, "Mohammad!" And he would jump up and run to see what she wanted, acting annoyed, but ready to do anything she asked. When I met her, Mrs. Kashavarz was expecting their third child.

Mohammad Kashavarz poses with his mother

The women in the Kashavarz household were deeply religious, and on special Islamic holy days, Mohammad complained that his home was filled with praying, wailing and crying. Once he asked if he could stay with me for a few days while his family celebrated an especially sad occasion. While I agreed, the mourning must not have been as bad as he anticipated, or his wife refused to let him go because he never came and he never mentioned it again.

For an Iranian woman living in a rural setting, Shayaste Kashavarz was unusual. She had not only earned a high school diploma, but she had gotten more education and had become a certified midwife. The national Office of Health stationed her in Ahar, and Mohammad got himself assigned there too so that they would be together. Across the courtyard from their house, but within the wall that surrounded the property, she had a small clinic where she examined pregnant women and where she delivered many of Ahar's babies.

Mohammad himself was a man of minor obsessions and intense deliberations. When he got something on his mind, he worked it over until he had thoroughly annoyed everyone around him. For years he had wanted a car, and finally he had saved enough money to buy a red Volkswagen. It was his pride and joy, and he worried about it constantly. He rented a garage so that he could keep it locked up and away from the neighbor's children. He occasionally took it out of the garage to wash and wax it. Once in a while, on special occasions, his family poured themselves into it, and they went for a ride, bouncing along the dusty bumpy roads that surrounded Ahar. For days afterwards, Kashavarz would complain that the government should improve the roads, and about the damage that the ride had most certainly done to his car. But Kashavarz was a good neighbor and he visited me often.

I learned not to change clothes before visitors arrived. They always came dressed formally, including their ties. Iranian professionals did not appear in public dressed poorly, Usef explained once, or people might think they could not afford nice clothes. Since they did not do physical work if they could avoid it, they did not need to wear clothes that might get soiled. In the privacy of their homes, they changed into "pajamas," which resembled sweat pants, in order to save wear and tear on their good clothes.

A visit from some of the teachers usually lasted until around 8:00 or even later. While they went home to wives who had cooked their dinners (except Fakhim who ate at the restaurant or with one of the other men in his apartment building), I had to do my own cooking. I learned to go home from school and prepare my meal, then set it aside until after my visitors left. They provided good company, and we usually talked about the war in Vietnam, life in the United States, politics in general (except Iranian politics which they generally avoided), or just small talk about life in Ahar. In the process they practiced their English and stayed away from their families until meal time, which was something Iranian men generally did.

The English teachers, Usef, Mr. Haddadpor, Mohammad Kashavarz, Ahmad Fakhim, and the others who occasionally came with them to visit me, became my closest friends during my stay in Ahar. Without them I could not have lived long there. They helped me understand their society, and survive in spite of myself. They found me interesting, and at times they must have had as much trouble understanding me as I did them. They helped me deal with the culture shock that can demoralize and debilitate strangers in strange places. Without them, I would have not have lasted as long as I did.