Mr. Hashemi took an on-going interest in me and my welfare. As he had with the first two volunteers, he worked to see that my time in Ahar was as comfortable as possible. Sometimes his concern proved helpful and sometimes if caused problems. But when Thanksgiving came around that first year, Hashemi intervened and I appreciated his efforts.

For some years it had been the habit of the United States Consul in Tabriz to invite all of the Americans in the general vicinity to a Thanksgiving dinner at his home inside the Consul grounds. I received an invitation, but because of conflicts with my teaching schedule, I decided not to attend. I had not yet ridden Iranian busses, and remained a little fearful of the unknown.

"I will find a teacher to work with your students," Mr. Hashemi offered when he talked to me about Thanksgiving. "On your special American holiday it is good if you are with the other Americans."

So I changed my mind. Usef showed me the bus station that he considered the most reliable. I bought a ticket on the 3:00 PM departure for Wednesday. A few days later, at quarter to three, I arrived with my suitcase, ready to leave. They put me in a small room along one side of their courtyard which held three or four busses. There I sat and there I waited. Nothing happened.

A bus nearly loaded headed for Tabriz

A few villagers sat on the floor in the room looking at me, and I sat staring back. At around 4:00 another passenger arrived. At 4:30 they began piling bundles of wool and wood boxes on the top of one of the rusty and dilapidated looking busses. At just before 5:00 they loaded us into the bus. I sat near the front. Usef had told me that this was very important. The person on the bus with the highest social rank would sit in the very first seat, just in front of the door and opposite the driver. Everyone else would sit farther back depending on rank. Peasants, villagers, and nonentities would sit in the very back. If a teacher could not sit in one of the first three seats or so, he would wait for a later bus.

Whenever I asked for it, and I learned to ask for it every time, I received the front seat. On one later occasion an official from the mayor's office decided to ride the bus. He also wanted the front seat. They could not bring themselves to move me, and they could not deny him the position, so in the end we both sat there together, perched uncomfortably on the little seat for the entire trip. I would have moved, but by then there was nowhere to go except the very back of the bus and Haddadpor, Usef and the others had told me never to do that.

Moslems feel that God listens most to the prayers of the poor. In Islam prayer is always important, but it is urgent just before leaving on a trip. So beggars go to the bus stations and wander around with sad looks on their faces and with their hands out. In return for small gifts (money), they agree to say prayers for the traveler. To gain attention, they held open the bus door, offered to carry suitcases, or just generally tried to usher people onto the bus whether it helped or not. Each of these gestures, always unsolicited, required a small gift. If unpaid, the beggars grumbled and looked hurt or sour. The cost of a trip to Tabriz ran around thirty rials (about forty cents at that time) and the gratuities to the beggars added another thirty rials or so.

In time the station attendants and the driver finished readying the bus. The station manager shouted to stragglers, urging them to get on. They put my suitcase in a compartment under the bus, closed the doors, and prepared to leave. But nothing happened. It turned out that another teacher in town had purchased tickets for himself and his family. He gave the station attendants instructions to send for him when the bus was about to depart, and they had done so about ten minutes earlier. But the family had not yet arrived. After waiting ten minutes more, the driver pulled the bus out of the station, and took it to the teacher's house. Then we returned to the station, picked up a few peasants, and left. The driver sat in the front, his attendant stood by the back door looking out at the passing city.

About half way between the bus station and the edge of the city, the driver stopped the bus, the attendant opened the back door, and a crowd of villagers approached the bus. Together the driver and the attendant bargained with them, finally settled on a price, and letting them crowd into the back of the bus. Once outside of the station the driver could keep any fees he collected from new passengers. Every few yards we stopped and repeated the procedure. The trip from the bus station to the edge of town took over half an hour.

Around 6:30 we finally left Ahar. Once on the open road, the bus jolted and bounced along at a fairly good speed. The driver frequently sounded his loud horn to chase villagers and their donkeys off the road. As Ahar disappeared in the east, a man sitting near the rear of the bus began a loud wailing chant. He did it three times, and after each repetition, the rest of the passengers responded by singing out in a discordant chorus. The degree of religious conviction of either the initial chanter or of the crowd dictated the number of times they went through the litany. Together in its parts, the ritual praised Allah and asked for a safe trip.

Occasionally we encountered someone along the road who wanted a ride, either all the way to Tabriz, or to some spot on ahead. To signal, the walker held up his right arm, straight out like a salute, and then waved his hand by bending it at the wrist. The traditional American thumbs-up motion for a hitch-hiker is an obscene gesture in the Middle East. A foreigner traveling in Iran who did not know this might find himself being pummeled by an ill-tempered truck driver who took offense.

The seventy miles of road from Ahar to Tabriz began by winding through the valley as it extended to the west. About fifteen miles out of town the road rose through a pass named Jozabiel. Steep on the Ahar side, the Tabriz side descended more gradually as the drop was less. The road on this plateau twisted through odd shaped and brightly colored outcroppings of rock and dirt. Rainbow colored hills and unusual geologic formations crisscrossed by white veins of salt littered the plateau's surface. The area, with its variegated reds, oranges, yellows, and whites resembled the Painted Desert of the American West. Streams that flowed across the region wound through deep canyons in the next set of hills and then on past Tabriz to Lake Rezaieh (sometimes called Urmiah on older maps) which is one of the saltier bodies of water on Earth.

Ahar in the distance, a camel along the road to Tabriz.

The colorful hillsides on the Ahar-Tabriz road

More scenery bertween Tabriz and Ahar

At the far edge of the plateau the road climbed up through a series of switch-backs and over a second pass named "Pie-yan." Considerably higher than Jozabiel, and more dangerous, most of its curves were too sharp for the bus to negotiate in a single turn. The driver had to jockey the bus back and forth, sometimes getting the wheels dangerously close to the edge. The front and back ends of the bus would hang over empty space while the wheels knocked loose small rocks that tumbled down the hillside. While the driver groaned at the wheel, he cursed, scorching the air, venting his feelings. At the same time the passengers, led by the inevitable chanter in the back, repeated their prayers asking Allah's blessing. It made an interesting contrast.

Occasionally I would try to write the words spoken by one of the drivers, and later I would read the sounds to Usef. Most of the time he just blushed and refused to translate. Once and a while he attempted a translation, but the concepts proved difficult for him despite his sophisticated grasp of English. When he did succeed, I found myself startled at the vulgar, yet imaginative invectives and expletives. Speakers of Middle Eastern languages apparently have a considerably greater mastery of obscenity than do Westerners.

At the top of the pass Tabriz lay in front of us, a city of half a million people (then in 1965, now in 2002 well over a million). It appeared small and crowded. We drove carefully down the west side of the mountain, and into the poorer section of the city. The driver stopped here and there, letting people off, finally reaching the bus station next to the bazaar.

Tabriz main square with City Hall

Arg-e Alishah - the citadel of Tabriz is the impressive remainder of a great and imposing building in the town. The Arg, a huge and crumbling brick citadel, is a notable landmark that was built in the early 14th century on the site of a massive mosque which collapsed over 500 years ago and which must have been one of the largest ever constructed.

The Blue mosque in Tabriz, badly damaged by an earthquake

Inside the Tabriz bazaar, the ares devoted to the sale of carpets

It took a while for the attendants to locate my suitcase which had bounced around in the dusty rust-filled compartment. I learned the hard way to travel with minimal baggage so that I could keep everything with me in the bus.

In Tabriz, the Thanksgiving festivities proceeded apace. The pastor of the city's Christian Mission Church held services followed by dinner at the Consul's home. Around forty Americans attended including many women. The society in which I had moved in Iran was dominated by men. In Ahar I saw few women and talked to none. I decided that I would visit Tabriz more often.

On Friday, I walked around Tabriz and looked at its bazaar and shops. Everything was closed because of the weekly holiday, but nevertheless I thought the city interesting, and I wanted to return.

In the afternoon I boarded a bus and we left for Ahar. I noted that the bus leaving Tabriz departed nearer to the appointed time than had the one from Ahar. We lumbered up the switch backs over Pie-yan, down the east side, and past two old caravan stations. Near one small village on the Ahar side of Jozabiel, I saw a grave yard where stylized statues of stone rams stood quiet guard over the graves of men who had died in battles long forgotten.

As Ahar appeared in the distance, the Sheikh dominated the skyline, sitting quietly on the south edge of the city with Mt. Savalon behind it. After the rush and excitement of Tabriz, Ahar seemed small and quiet.

A few days later, on a morning when I had no classes and was sleeping in, a boy from the school knocked on my door and woke me.

"Mister, Mister, Hello Mister," he shouted while he beat on the door.

When I opened it, he handed me a note from Mr. Hashemi.

"Mr. Faraidgzadeh is not in the school today. Please come now because I want you to teach some of his classes. Hashemi."

Someone had covered my classes when I went to Tabriz. Now it was my turn.