I stand against the wall, far out in the countryside, waiting to be shot. Through sunglassed eyes I contemplate the three men who brought me to this distant and deserted place and try to look relaxed. One moves in front of me. Finally, I hear the click. The ever accommodating Ali photographs me in bandanna, long sleeved tee shirt and ankle length skirt, another picture of "the headgear" requested by chador-expectant friends. After all, what is Iran but a terrorist state, the world's worst place to be a woman? In a week in Iran, I had worn one for perhaps three hours.
I arranged the trip via the Net, using the government travel bureau in Tehran, who could get me a tourist visa. The planning went well until the email telling me that, as a solo traveler, I would be required to have a fixed itinerary, a car, a guide and a driver.
I whined. I obsessed. Privately. With friends. Plaintively. Oh no! Oh no! Ohno! Spies, spies, spies. Watchdogs? Sheepdogs? Touts who would steer me into shops. Was I now expected to be an economic development opportunity, a job creation engine for a country with 7 million unemployed? Until my greedy curiosity triumphed. Now that the politics had quieted down, nothing would stop me from fulfilling a 20 years long dream of visiting this fabled land.
I secured my boss' concerned permission "Are you SURE???" scrawled along with his signature. Playing on stereotype, I had attached my vacation request to the visa cover sheet reading "In the Name of The Almighty - The Islamic Republic of Iran."
Next to the photo shop, steeling myself for comments about the mandatory scarf. Yes, he took visa pictures. As I pulled the neatly folded black square from my briefcase, he exclaimed, "You're going to Iran!" "How did you know?" "I'm Iranian!" In the twenty years I'd lived around the corner, I'd never entered this shop. Now it became a talisman, a favorable omen. He fussed over me, fretting over an invisible patch of neck, taking an extra shot for free. My introduction to Iranian hospitality.
Three months later, at 4AM, I wheeled my suitcase past customs at Tehran airport, into the throng, searching for a sign bearing my name. After several circuits through the crowd, I found the information desk and asked the young chador clad women to page... someone. By 5AM my jet lagged brain filled with murderous Manhattan thoughts. Finally, on the third page, came three young men smiling. My guide, my travel mate for the next 18 days, introduced himself. Mr. S. Ali. As we scurried off to complete the trivial tasks of arrival, their solicitousness - and my inability to hold a grudge - gave them rapid absolution.
That evening we flew to Mashad, the site of Shi'a Islam's most important shrine, commemorating Imam Reza. Since "The Dress Code" would be rigorously enforced, I wore my most modest attire: ankle length black raincoat over black leggings and a black scarf pinned tightly under my chin. Except for the scarf and the fastened top button, standard Manhattan garb.
I was greeted by a bouquet bearing man who later handed me a plastic wrapped chador. When he reappeared the next morning I realized that I would not merely have a guide and a driver. I would have a staff. He was my first local guide.
In my room a Koran usurped the Gideon Bible. One wall had an arrow indicating the direction of Mecca. I have seen Muslims praying facing West in India and East in London. Here they face south.
I put on the chador and went out alone to explore, eager to try on an Iranian woman's life. Islamic drag. Like the men in the gray flannel suits, I became insignificant, part of the mass.
Stall-like shops lined the long, broad, busy avenue. The Iranian affection for classic American cartoon characters matched their fondness for chains no hip-hop artist would covet. One-inch iron or brass links, six inches long, bound to tubular wooden handles: Flail Lite, perhaps 9 lengths of chain, and Grande, too many to count. Men would use these to flagellate themselves during this month of mourning for the 8th century martyrdom of Hussein. I was reluctant to do more than glance at these shops with cartoon mice on their signs and divine pain for sale.
People passed, arms filled with stacks of fresh-baked flatbread. I joined the crowd jostling at the bakery's windows. Iranians do not queue and are not gentle in crowds, especially when it is late and dinner requires bread. I bit into the wafer thin, warm bread and tasted my childhood. Matzoth.
I walked until halted by hunger and a throbbing neck. The chador had wrist loops to make it more manageable. Accustomed to striding with arms swinging at my sides, I unconsciously pulled down as it kept slipping from my head. Leaving the darkness of the street I entered a dazzlingly white restaurant where I ate a chador-clad meal, better watched than the television.
In the morning the guides pointed me towards the women's entrance to the shrine - forbidden even to Muslims who have not undergone ritual purification - and told me to go inside, warning it would be crowded - and that I should speak to no one. I entered a sparkling mirror-mosaic world, where women sat, slept, prayed and supplicated around the gold latticed tomb enclosure.
At the poet Frederowsi's tomb I shed my chador in the hot noon sun. Later, over an enormous lunch, I answered the local guide's questions about America and heard myself argue that its vibrancy was amplified by its waves of immigrants, whose dreams fuel the great American rocket. The immigrants in Iran are Afghans, fleeing decades of war, viewed as drug smugglers. Unwanted.
Back in Tehran, I realized that my clothes were too warm. Iran, like everywhere on earth, is having the wrong weather - July in early April. As I searched the shop-lined boulevard I contemplated creative interpretations of manteaus, the raincoat-like garment traditional in Iran. I bought a knee length brown "big shirt" and a long Indian skirt to add to my wardrobe of oversized long gray dress, leggings and a floral scarf.
Here "The Rules" are interpreted liberally. A scarf and overcoat over pants suffice. The chador is optional, only required in certain settings. It is rejected by many women.
The Revolution initially encouraged women to join men protesting in the streets against the Shah and in support of the Revolution. In retrospect, this was one of many decisions that unwittingly politicized women, many of whom reject strict Islamic law. A significant percentage have, from the beginning resisted clerical dictates to assume traditional roles and give up legal remedies given to them by the Shah, such as equitable treatment in family courts. Having voted in large numbers for the winning reformers in recent local and Presidential elections, their issues are central to the debate over the shape of Iran's future.
Under the Shah, most lower class women wore the chador. It is the upper and middle class women who today oppose it. Women's manteaus vary in length. Head coverings range from mandatory student wimples to kerchiefs worn revealing hair. Clothing is calibrated, disclosing attitudes towards religion, the government and local conventions. It varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, big city to conservative town. .
Some manteaus are sheer and others, worn by teenage girls, who challenge authority, stylish: long and tight, with a slit up the back or mid-thigh length jackets. Platform shoes or, occasionally, sandals, with unimaginably immodest bare toes, adorn feet. All but the most modest dress can earn the wearer 70 lashes, but this is now uncommon.
Iranian's daily lives are governed by an ever-shifting power struggle between the reformist elected government and an unelected clerical hierarchy Khomeini invented that holds critical powers. Daily life has liberalized dramatically - until the unelected clerics decide that things have gone too far and stage highly publicized and dramatic crack downs. Since few Westerners are conversant with the players in this power struggle, to them the Iranian Revolution appears unchanged. Only someone with an understanding of who is speaking - the elected president, Khatami or the unelected religious leader, Khamenei, can begin to decipher "official" pronouncements.
In Mashad, prices were quoted in Rials, 8000 to the dollar. Tehrani's, like other city folk, quote prices in Tomans, which equal 10 Rials - but all bills are Rials. When I get confused and start to overpay, the shopkeeper asks, in excellent English with a weary urban tone "What are you doing?" and takes the correct bills from my hand.
I am alone on the streets without a chador for the first time. When young men speak to me I avoid eye contact. I walk with my eyes carefully focused ahead, in the middle distance, a trick every attractive woman has learned.
We fly south to Kerman where we were met by our driver, a slight young man. I am surprised when he tells me that he had driven 12 non-stop hours from Tehran, to bring the car. I expected a local. When I remark "that's hard work" he responds "And I am still young," in five words capturing the economic reality of Iranian youth trying to survive in a country unable to generate the 700,000 new jobs it needs annually because 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30. Over the coming weeks, his rare comments will sketch his life and sensibility, so different from the guide's.
I had planned to come to three weeks later but was advised to avoid the forthcoming presidential election campaign. Since delaying the trip further would mean too many clothes in furnace-like heat, I found myself in Iran during the month of mourning for Hussein, a time émigrés avoid because they don’t want to deal with all the religious rituals.
The next day was my second holy day, Tashura, the first day when men parade through the streets and flagellate themselves, followed immediately by Ashura, a day of mourning for Hussein. Iranians have not forgotten that "holiday" is "holy day" so all but essential shops are closed. In the morning women go from house to house collecting food, especially a traditional stew, and then return home to family feasts.
Iran has six television stations. One broadcasts endless images of black clad men flagellating themselves with fists or chains, in unison, to well disciplined rhythms. I had been told to watch for a "good group" - but this sure wasn't doo-op. The Western image of Iran, not its totality.
There are flashes of fanaticism - the green-capped Hajji leaving the plane from Mashad engulfed by 30 young men and women who shove to touch his feet, mirroring the way Hassidic men strive for the touch of one of their especially important Rebbes. But, otherwise, far less religious than anticipated.
I passed the morning fiddling with my short wave radio, which was only willing to receive when held like a squalling infant, and reading one of the dozen books I'd bought in anticipation of the lack of nightlife.
Amongst the tourists trapped with me was a young German economist motorcycling home from India. We walked to the town center, the empty streets male on this holiday, the province of groups of black-clad teenager friends, some with flails draped casually around their necks. They inspected my leggings and short manteau but said nothing. I was with a man. Their stares gleamed testosterone, not Islam. My companion was stunned when I told him that the ultra hard-liners newspaper was running a 10 part Holocaust denial series, which would be a crime in Germany
My lower Manhattan apartment's closets are filled with black clothing. But here, during this month, black clad figures have a different meaning: religious observance of the month of Mourning. My "normally religious" guide and driver do not wear black or stop to pray. Iran, a semiotic delight.
The next morning we take the hot 2 and half-hour drive south to Bam, a 2000 year old citadel and UNESCO World Heritage site. The back seat of the new Iranian Peugeot is uncomfortable and I have a bad cold, which troubles me more than the tourist advisory posted after a 1998 kidnapping. It lives on despite the perpetrators' capture. If New York City were a foreign country, what would the State Department have posted, in the depths of the 1970s?
We sped along at 80 miles per hour, our soundtrack Turkish pop, American rock, Iranian rock, the Gypsy Kings, and, when I ask to hear her, Googish, the beloved Iranian singer banned since the Revolution. Every cut forbidden, the Iranian rock recorded in L.A. The driver, Shah, is 26 years old. He is excellent - except for a tendency to miss turnoffs. Miss the sign for Bam? Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to Baluchistan.
Unlike secular Syria, whose visa application demands to know my religion, the Islamic Republic's was unexpectedly disinterested. No one has asks so, to pass the hours, I volunteer my Judaism. Not only was I the first Jew they'd ever met, I was also their first American. So this least mainstream of creatures, comfortable only in her far downtown neighborhood, will be their typical American.
I am not afraid to be a Jewish tourist in most Islamic lands. The current politics of the Middle East and our even pre-911 demonization of Islam notwithstanding, we lived there, persecuted but often less so than in Christian lands, for thousands of years.
Ali attributes the failure of President Khatemi's efforts to improve diplomatic relations with America to Madeline Albright's Jewish faith. I explain that she is Christian and did not know until very recently that she had Jewish grandparents who perished in a concentration camp. Iran and America, good friends who have quarreled and now hate each other because, on some level, they are alike; self-righteous, moralistic. Each other's bogeymen.
When I begin to compare S'hia Islam and Judaism Ali doesn’t know what to think. The similarities include that imams and rabbis are teachers who are free to disagree with each other's interpretations of religion, both are historically persecuted minorities, a legacy that informs their worldview, and there is no central authority like a Pope or Caliph - the Supreme Ayatollah is a new feature. But then, so too are hereditary Hassidic rebbes.
I tour the radiantly hot walled city sans guide, a visor under my veil and pass Iranian women with baseball caps popped over their scarves. Tourists in too-warm raincoats with alarmingly red faces cling to the shade, sipping Pepsis. So much for the American trade embargo. The citadel's ramparts bear a large sign asking the West to engage in a “dialogue of civilizations." Khatami’s plea, now shouted silently from Iran's walls.
Tour groups reserved the sole restaurant so we drive uncertain miles to an empty five star hotel set amongst flat wastelands. A new industrial zone, the gift of former President Rafsanjani, whose family has large pistachio estates nearby. Pork is forbidden to Muslims so I do not teach Ali, who has a BA in English, "pork-barrel politics."
On my first non-holy day, we tour Kerman. The bazaar sells household necessities, and still more flails and decorative banners for the month of mourning. Ali explains with pride as my shutter captures the chains. Neither of us can imagine the other's perception. I buy a scarf. Ali wants one for his 25-year-old wife, who is also his first cousin, a university graduate. More than 50 percent of university students are women and two income families are common due as much to the women's desires as economic necessity. The middle class is dramatically worse off since the Revolution. When I ask about children the answer is "not yet." A marriage without offspring is a tragedy, not a life-style choice.
Shah and Ali are seasonal temps working only when they have tours. Ali earns $125 a month, the standard college graduate salary. Since his brothers and sisters are college educated, he is middle class and his relatively comfortable life undoubtedly made easier by their connections, which are all important in Iran.
Shah, a high school graduate who has taught himself English from tapes, earns $75 a month, which is standard for high school graduates in government jobs. He has worked his way up to this job. His uncertain income makes prevents him from marrying so he suffers, as only a self-aware 26 year old with no economic prospects and no access to women or anything we would define as fun, can.
College attendance skyrocketed for women after the Revolution. Women were sent to university by conservative parents who believed the Islamic schools safe. A 50 percent unemployment rate has resulted in many men skipping college. Graduates, especially doctors and academics, often emigrate, with Canada a preferred destination. 240,000 graduates in the prior year, a massive brain drain that is one of many factors hindering economic recovery.
We take the 5-hour drive north across flat barren distances to Yazd, the world's second oldest city, birthplace of Zoroastrianism. Reroute we breeze through military checkpoints without turning down the sinful tunes. The guards are searching for opium being smuggled from Baluchistan. Baluch trucks are completely unloaded and searched, their crews standing by for hours in the hot afternoon sun. The guards never consider the possibility of a non-Baluch drug smuggler. Cheap, readily available drugs and boredom have made between 1 and 3 million Iranians addicts.
Ali wants to know why America won't help Iran combat the opium that flows freely from Afghani fields. He cannot understand why we will not work together for our common benefit. I cannot answer these questions, for I do not understand either. I can only talk of America's failed efforts to control our long border with Mexico and recommend the movie "Traffic." Pirated videos may already be available in Tehran.
Iranian drivers pass each other by speeding towards you, headlights flashing, seemingly unconcerned about the imminent head on collision. My driver cedes - often narrowly, for there may not be a place. I tell them of hotrods and juvenile delinquents playing "chicken," phrases quaint on my tongue. Ali is taken with the concept and laughingly resurrects it throughout our travels. I try to limit the image to the days when rebels had no causes but it is too strong. I have birthed a stereotype.
I heard that traffic accidents are the number two cause of death in Iran. With perfect timing, Shah replies "No, number one. The war (with Iraq) is over." We speed on to Gypsy rhythms.
Many Iranians have small satellite dishes hidden somewhere around their house which gives them access to the world beyond Iran. Many shows are beamed into Iran by expatriates in Europe and the West. These are illegal and fines are heavy; periodically, the hardliners crack down. Ali was once caught but claimed that, as an English major, he needed it, so the fine was reduced. He throws his head back and laughs whenever he recounts that, on Iranian TV, women shown sitting in bed talking to their husbands wear headscarves. I tell him that, amongst the Satmar Hasidism, married women shave their heads, wear wigs - and often hats. He cannot understand a custom that strikes him as barbaric and which I cannot explain.
Yazd is a small, conservative city where all women wear chadors; a convention of nuns in mourning for the wimples are unrelieved black. A local guide appears, 56 years old and cosmopolitan. He understands references to scenes shot in an Iranian shrine in Philip Glass's film Koyyanisquatsi. He, too, wears normal colors and does not pray. Is a lack of religious zeal one of the requirements for being a guide?
Yazd is the birthplace of Zoroastrianism, the religion of pre-Islamic Persia. Iran's remaining Zoroastrians live free of discrimination.
We climb the long, bad path to ancient Zoroastrian Towers of Silence surrounded by a deserted religious complex. Ali lends me a helping hand although touching unrelated women is forbidden; good manners are imperative in Iran. This was another of the Revolution's mistakes. The "vice squads" that roamed the streets in the early years were no match for an ancient culture that values charm and grace. We share the silence with the creations of a people who refuse to desecrate the earth. It feels more like an archetype than a place. The ancient fire has been moved and now enlightens a modern building, its sparks enshrined in temples globally. I unsuccessfully seek mementos for friends but there are no Zoroastrian tsoskhes.
The hard-liners arrested 30 reformers today, which adds to the 20 they arrested last month, claiming they were trying to undermine the revolution. Ali explains that this is why Khatemi won't announce his candidacy for re-election early despite the hardliners taunts: fear that his opponents will arrest him on trumped up charges, as they did the popular and effective Mayor of Tehran.
I keep abreast of the news via BBC in my hotel but there is no shortage of options for Iranians. Although attempts to control it waxes and wanes, Iran has many newspapers espousing differing views. The debate over the future of Iran is vibrant, a public discourse that may be Khatemi's greatest contribution to Iran. Hopefully, in the years after his second term, it will be his legacy, but nothing is assured.
We drive 40km to see a passion play, a re-enactment of Hussein’s martyrdom in Saudi Arabia on this holy afternoon. The local tradition includes a man in a lion suit on camelback visibly and athletically mourning. The play is bracketed by groups of parading men flailing themselves. The local guide remains outside, remarking, "I've seen it before." Bored. Ali and Shah enter the mosque to watch. I am directed to a flat roof, the place for women and children, the balcony in my immigrant grandmother's synagogue. There are no seats, only an unprotected edge and metal objects rusting quietly. I am the sole tourist and the only person not dressed completely in black.
Even though, to most Westerners, all Muslims are alike, deep and religious schisms are seen in contemporary politics. Iranian's are despised Shi'a while Saudi's are Puritanical Wahabis, one of Sunni Islam's sects. Tribally divided Afghanistan is predominantly Sunni and, before the pre-Taliban imported their alien interpretation, quite moderate in their beliefs.
We had arrived early; the play is over in 15 minutes and I leave. While there will be other events, flagellation has lost its novelty. The roof is growing crowded as the faithful flock to the day's event. How much is religion and how much simply a desire for a break in small town boredom? I've seen people in remote Indonesian villages watch road paving crews with equal intensity.
We thread our way through black-clad throngs. I refrain from photographing a Norouz plate in a shop window. With its seven oval sections it looks remarkably like a Seder plate on this first day of Passover.
Shah unlocked "The Club" a steel anti-theft device well known in America, from the steering wheel. This is the first time I had seen it in Iran so I asked him why, especially in this distant village on a holy day. Car theft is common in Iran, stolen cars are used for drug smuggling and Peugeots are desirable. We compare car alarm frustrations until I end with "it is 3AM and all you want to do is shoot the car." Ali, a citizen of what America considers to be an outlaw land, laughs in astonishment at this violent image, his reactions have clearly never ended with guns. This, too, he will repeat.
The tourist rate for rooms and lodging is ten times the local one, which is what I am paying for the guys' rooms. April is the height of tourist season so they are repeatedly kicked out when a foreign tourist needs a room. Shah is forever interrupting Ali's calls home, which seem to revolve around female relatives giving him shopping orders for the local specialties. We travel on vouchers so I have no sense of what accommodations cost, other than that they are still inexpensive. At 6AM on the morning I arrived, I handed Ali an envelope containing $2,400, the cost of my trip. No matter what Iran's feelings towards America, the payment had to be in dollars, the hard currency Iran desperately needs.
After lunch, I find the guys staring at the car. An accident, my door gouged, orange paint in the tear. The color of a tour bus, the only moving vehicle in the hotel parking lot at that time.
Shah radiates upsetedness. Jobs are very hard to find in Iran and this one, with its access to tourists tipping generously in hard currency that is immune from the vagaries of the exchange rate, is desirable. To be held responsible for this accident would mar his record. It is not easy to lose a job anywhere but here it would be disastrous.
The grizzled pot bellied bus driver denies responsibly. I photograph the buses' dents and our wounded car. As we visit the town we encounter the bus and long discussions ensue between the drivers. No voices are raised. Shah will have to go to the police to file a report. I am wandering alone, inappropriately dressed after a morning in the countryside. Every man, whether on foot or in a car, stares and makes comments, for I have no manteau. I realize the extent to which my experience is being shaped by a protective male bubble.
I tell Shah to leave us at the bazaar and go to the police; he is painfully, but not overtly, distressed. He considers until the local guide says something in Farsi and he demurs. After a quick tour, I have Shah take me to an Internet cafe, to email his boss; a positive email from a satisfied client can only help.
The hotel manager and the other drivers became involved. Finally, nine hours after the accident, the bus driver is pressured into giving Shah his insurance information. My once-again young driver comes, drained, to tell me everything will be OK.
To banish yesterday's demons, I present him with a "Bugs Bunny as Statue of Liberty" New York key chain. A virtual rabbit's foot, a childhood good luck charm. Bugs joins Daisy Duck, who dangles from the rear-view mirror, an ideal place for this wittily subversive icon of liberty.
As we drove to Shiraz, 6-hours over good roads, I conclude that Iranian drivers are the world's worst. Considering what the road-kill is like in most developing nations, this is a distinction. Here, the main reason is carelessness - people change lanes. Period. Check their mirror? Never. Signal? What's that? Cars wander into your lane as the car that happens to be there tries to get out of the way. Horns are not heard on highways. At one point we are cut off by a car that zooms away at very high speed. There is something very different, fundamentally more aggressive, about its driver. He must, I remark, have lived in LA, home to a large Iranian population.
In the countryside, pedestrians meander slowly across the road without bothering to look in the direction of traffic. One woman had her chador modestly pulled out beyond her profile, making it impossible to see the traffic. Shah stopped and shook his head as he let her pass. In cities, where red lights have no meaning, this jaywalking New Yorker became a defenseless child who crossed streets in lockstep with locals who knew how to negotiate the traffic. The guys see me hesitate and bracket me protectively.
Shah has perhaps a dozen audio tapes so we listen to the same ones over and over, for hours. Traveling in Iran will forever be associated with Celine Dion.
The roads are two or three lanes, well paved, cutting straight through the nothingness. Every few hundred kilometers there is a petrol station selling fuel at astonishingly low, highly subsidized prices. We stop and I pull out emergency rations: Marie biscuits, the non-nutritious staple of travelers in developing countries, and sweet jerky brought with me from Chinatown. I tell them that while not halal, the Muslim version of Kosher slaughtering, it is chicken, and, since Islamic law mirrors Judaic interpretation, OK for a hungry traveler to eat. Ali is eager, Shah cautious.
When I say something positive about contemporary Iran, Ali corrects me. The roads are good? No, they're much better in the north - more lanes. The roads are immaculate. No, they are dirty. When I point out the total absence of litter, I am told expatriates say the West is cleaner. If only he understood the unreliability of immigrant tales.
On the road I wear a lightweight floral scarf bandanna style, completely covering my hair but revealing my neck - "immodest" but comfortable. I ride with stockinet feet propped against the dashboard, legginged legs semi-covered by the over shirt. Drivers of the ubiquitous black smoke belching small trucks stare when they glimpse me as we speed past. In towns, I wear a long skirt or leggings under an overdress. In holy places, the bandanna becomes a wimple and, in the holiest places, a chador is added. Everywhere, religion demands respect.
The only restaurant en route, at Persepolis caters to tours. As 430 people dined I envisioned a photo essay on female tourists' "modest" attire, interpretations no mullah ever imagined. One woman wears a long navy velour bathrobe. Most of Iran's 1.5 million tourists are Europeans on group tours. A few travel like me - little pods pinging through the Iranian pinball machine, playing three card monte with the sites: Shiraz, Esfahan, Yazd, Kerman, Tehran.
For lunch and dinner menu choices are chicken kebabs, minced lamb kebabs, lamb chunk kebabs (identified as "low fat"), saffron spiced chicken kebabs, saffron chicken with rice and berries, chicken kebabs, minced lamb kebabs, lamb chunk kebabs, mixed kebabs, chicken with herbed rice, lamb kebabs... The side dishes are rich, dense yogurt, feta cheese, rice, flat breads and wonderful salads - which no experienced tourist dares eat. Beverages are sweet orange soda, cola, non-alcoholic beer and, of course, tea. To experience the diversity of Persian food you need to dine in someone's home. Restaurant choice means picking sitting on carpeted platforms with large carpeted rectangular pillows cushions behind you and water pipes in evidence in a "traditional" one or selecting a "modern" one, with Western decor.
After a long lunch under the trees, I ask to stop at Persepolis, over ruling protests that, since it is close to Shiraz, we can come back tomorrow. My hunch is validated. EVERYONE had just come from there, so Iran's most famous site is empty. I walked alone, free to contemplate the play of light across the pre-Islamic ruins with only the sound of the wind in my ears.
Until I notice the pictograms. A little stick figure of a man. The men's toilet. A little stick figure of a woman - in Islamic head scarf and overcoat. The women's toilet. Not the expected little stick figure with circle head and flared skirt. I photograph my first Islamically correct ladies room sign. Anyone can photograph ruins and mosques. I also document ordinary life, the story of Iran in its third decade after the Revolution.
The story of contemporary Iran since the Revolution is a complex and dynamic flow of reform and repression, a power struggle intensified by the conflict between unelected religious leaders with constitutional powers and the overwhelming electoral victory of Khatamei and other reformers. Voter turnout is high, suffrage universal and the elections honest. Only in the pre-qualification process do the unelected clerics exert power, eliminating candidates both male and female. Clerical hard-liners block reforms, shuttering publications that have mushroomed since Khatemi's victory and arresting their publishers, vetoing legislation and, at times, administering lashes to violators of Islamic law. None the less, they are confronted by the demographic realities of a coalition between women and young people fed up with repression and in need of massive economic changes. The reformers' victory is by no means assured. The constitution established multiple centers of power and gave religious leaders control of the security forces and the judiciary. But, for the first time in contemporary Iranian history, the public debate over the right balance of religion and democracy is vigorous. The Revolution's critique of American mass culture includes concerns articulated in the West by groups as disparate as “globalization - how?" protesters at WTO meetings and America's religious right: mindless materialism, a loss of traditional values, the destruction of other cultures and the suffocating branding of public space.
While not the exchange of civilizations Khatami envisioned, long discussions are entertainment when wandering around for weeks with a couple of young guys. What more fabulous material than 50ish Tribeca meets Islam? I ask endless questions so we talk and talk and talk about our lives. I instigate, wanting to pierce the wall of mutual disinformation asking endless questions and volunteering information so, like a modern Marco Polo, I can tell tales of what life is really like here
Our discussions cover everything. Average Salaries. Medical insurance. The cost of prescription drugs. Pensions. Jobs. Dating. Dutch soft drug and prostitution laws. Japanese coed baths and Love hotels. One Japanese man's guide has treated him to extensive discussions of alcohol and prostitution in Iran.
While my goal is to learn about Iran and explain about America - or at least New York - I learn about myself, my life. In many lands I have tried to explain my seemingly limitless affluence by explaining about the cost of living, as I do here. But now I find better words. My friends and I are not rich. We are successful. Smart, hardworking people from ordinary backgrounds who leveraged America's limitless economic opportunity into good jobs. Not titans of industry. Successful. The word satisfies.
Just outside of Shiraz I see two new sights: migrating nomads no longer colorfully dressed and roadside litter. This is the only place on my trip where Iran is not spotless.
Iranians snack on nuts, dried fruits and all manner of sugary treats. Shops selling a nuts and individually wrapped candies are everywhere, a time warp to my childhood when these same shops were common in immigrant Jewish neighborhoods.
I dine on fried chicken and French fries in a busy main street pizza parlor, a much appreciated change. Afterwards, I wander into a greeting card shop and discover a series of funny, quirky cards. Our stereotype of Iranians does not include them having a sense of humor. When I open their cellophane wrappers, I discover that the cards open "backwards," for Farsi is written like Hebrew, right to left.
In the morning we meet The Local Guide From Hell. Imagine history class. Imagine a really bad history class. Imagine a really bad history class that lasts for 9 hours - and you are the only student. Now imagine that you are Ali and have to sit through this history class twice - first in English, then in Farsi.
A lovely, eager-to-please, man. Like all the local guides, older, the generation that knew life before the Revolution. He spent months in America studying aviation when our nations were friends. Extraordinarily well mannered - but he never stopped talking. Nine hours. I grunted "really?" "how interesting” from the front seat while making hand gestures and faces at Shah, who managed to keep a straight face. At the end of the day Ali plopped down in front of me in the hotel lobby, eyes rolling wildly, hands to his head, and moaned "the history lesson." I foolishly mention that I am considering a side trip to distant ruins and... the local guide is off, drawing detailed maps indicating every carving at the site. A question about places to eat en route yields maps of every restaurant, with an admonition not to eat in any of them. Couldn't he have just said "there's no place to eat?" When he leaves I tell Ali that I will spend tomorrow morning at the outdoor teahouse by Hafez’s tomb and invite the guys to join me. Ali understands that while I want to see the sites my interest is, as he says “feeling the place," the contemporary culture. Tomorrow's history. Today.
This guide was the first to pray at mid-day and whose religious sensibilities prevented him from touching a woman even to accept a tip, like the Hasidic subcontractor in Williamsburg who would not shake my hand. But even this guide was not dressed in funeral black.
I fruitless search the shops of Shiraz for an Islamically correct ladies room sign. In despair, I approach one of the hotel staff and, knowing he will think me insane, ask if he knows where to get one. He insists upon obtaining it for me. The next morning, he hands me one - unscrewed from a hotel door. Unfortunately, the same as those in the West so I return it with thanks and "gift" him a New York key chain. Traditional Iranian hospitality in a twenty first century context.
I have grown fond of Shah and am sad that we will have a new driver in Esfahan. I hint to Ali that I'd like to keep him and not have a new driver. But Ali doesn't appear to understand or is avoids my request.
We go to Iran Air to reconfirm our flight to Esfahan. Ali asks if I'd mind changing to an earlier flight, explaining that, after dropping us at the airport, Shah would have drive six hours to Esfahan to bring the car. I am overjoyed to learn he will be with us and tell Ali to cancel the 9 PM flight so we can spend Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, when everything is closed, on the road.
The guides try to talk me out of it but unaccustomed to sightseeing by car, I allocated too much time to Shiraz. I then realized that after dropping us for the still later flight from Esfahan, Shah would have to drive to Tehran, so I told Ali to cancel that flight too. Driving would let me to see more and would make Shah's job much easier. The guides want to give me time to decide. They don't understand how easy it is for me to cancel two heavily subsidized $15 flights.
We pass the 6 hour drive to Esfahan companionably, lunching at a tiny, surgically clean, roadside restaurant. As always, we listen to "forbidden" music, which there is no longer a need to hide. Shah does not turn down the volume at the military numerous check-points along the road, on city streets or when we are joined by the local guides. I do not perceive defiance, angry rebellion or fear, just life under Khatami. Where Iran will end up is unclear - no one should count the hard liners, who control the judiciary and other key government institutions out just yet. There is considerable debate about what type of society - most people want liberalization - and less corruption among the unelected ruling clerics. A Reformation?
I enjoy the guide and driver, whose presence I so dreaded. Considering how hard it is to find people that you can spend two solid weeks with, it is an unexpected pleasure to hang out with a couple of young guys randomly assigned to shepherd me around Iran. In another moment of self-discovery, I realize that I have built a team.
As someone who has traveled to more than 45 countries, I am often asked to name a favorite. Since the Katmandu I loved in 1973 no longer exists, I may now say Iran - to what will be shocked silence. I will be subjected to endless arguments from people who, like contemporary American policy analysts and diplomats, have no firsthand experience of Iran but are experts none-the-less. I will be accused of wearing rose colored glasses but I will speak as a tourist, not as an investigative journalist, political commentator. Nor as an educated Iranian woman confronted by a revolution very different than her early dreams. A tourist. Not a resident.
I understand the repressive realities of this land - but I can also see how far it has come in the twenty years since the revolution.
The view of Iran as the feminist anti-Christ is questionable when the condition of women in traditional societies is viewed still more broadly. Iran does not practice female infanticide, as does China, nor selective abortion, common in China and outlawed in India. Their infant daughters are not put up for adoption by childless Western couples.
Iranian women are not among the 132 million victims of female circumcision. Impoverished parents do not sell their daughters into prostitution, as is done in rural Thailand. There are no dowry burnings that plague India or sex segregated restaurants and workplaces common throughout Arabia.
Although women had more rights under the Shah, it is in the context of conservative societies that the small victories wrenched by Iranian women from the Revolution must be viewed. Iranian women can work in coed workplaces, go to university, drive and vote, which they do in large numbers. In response to women's pressure, the family courts are slowly becoming less pro-male.
The most commonly discussed women's issues are common to other conservative Islamic societies. Women cannot leave the country - or even their home - without their father or husband's permission. Divorce laws favor husbands. They are stoned to death for sexual transgressions. They must wear modest attire. They are legally worth half of men.
In addition to the spotlight focused by Iranian-American politics, perhaps we are so aware of women's issues here because there is a wealthy, Westernized and disgruntled upper class whose lives were disrupted by the Revolution. Or perhaps the quality of Iranian film and the debates it generates among Western intelligentsia is a factor. Why are there no similar discussions about women's issues in the more repressive states of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, America's official Islamic friends?
This is not to deny the substantial problems with which Iranian women must contend but rather to contextualize them. We continue to brand Iran with the Taliban as the most alien of Muslim "others." Yet it is Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Kuwait that have granted diplomatic recognition to the Taliban while the Iranians, for a mix of political and religious reasons, have not. How little we understand this part of the world.
We arrive in Esfahan, the most Persian of cities, in the afternoon. Being Friday, the city was shuttered so I walked across a historic bridge spanning a dry riverbed, the river dammed upstream to provide water for irrigation during these years of drought. I am denied the unique Esfahani pleasure of sipping tea on a platform under the bridge's arches, tea house sitting just over the gurgling torrent.
As I wandered along the main boulevard a young man spoke to me "I give you my poem" an odd but plausible comment in this culture of poetry.
A few blocks later it dawns on me. He said "I give you my phone." Shah had told me that young people exchange phone numbers on the streets when no one is looking and spend hours talking to their "girlfriends" on the phone.
I walk to the ancient central square bounded by beautiful buildings: mosques, palaces and, underneath, the bazaar. In the time of Persian miniatures, the vast square was used for polo matches. Today it is filled with a reflecting pool and fountains. I sit at its edge under flawless turquoise skies in the clear, glowing light and watch rainbows formed by dancing waters. Around me families picnic on the shaded lawn.
At dusk I walk to a garden teahouse in a former caravansary turned 5 star hotel, the haunt of le tout Esfahan - affluent, Westernized Esfahani's out for the evening. A few clearly older-than-9-year-old daughters play, unveiled and there is not a chador in sight. I drink tea in tiny glasses sweetened by the cubed sugar of my Eastern European grandmother's kitchen. Sipping hot tea through sugar cubes held in front teeth is dying out here, as it did amongst my people.
Not knowing we had changed our plans, the local guide had waited for our flight. Familiar now with the way I travel, Ali called him in the morning to tell him not to come. Ali so dislikes "the history lesson" that he will not guide what I assume to be more lucrative group tours, where he will have to discourse on every last stone.
I encounter an Iranian man who lives in Canada. He came for the first time in 7 years because Khatami is still President and no one knows what will happen with the election. I realize that this time of liberalization is so tenuous, that Iranians cannot count on the future the way we in the West can. It can all change over night. As much as I dislike America's President, as dangerous as I think he is, he can't damage America's fundamental freedoms. Although by no means a flag waver, I am once again aware how amazingly lucky I am to live in America.
Ali and I have the inevitable Salaman Rushdie Satanic Verses fatwa discussion. I explain American concepts of free speech, the problem of hate speech, how the fatwa increased the book's sales and, finally the impression of Iran that the fatwa created in the West. Ali persisted "but you can't say something that is wrong about a religion" as I try to explain that in the West, people can. And do.
When I buy something in a shop, I am often asked "where from" and the shopkeeper is always surprised when I answer "America. New York." Their response is invariably "MOST welcome."
As Ali and I eat traditional teahouse sweets in the garden of the poet Sadi's tomb, watching the falling sun spotlight brilliant flowers, I joke about my friends' fears for me, their personal "Indiana Jones," who travels to dangerous places. I've never felt safer.
Many Western tourists come knowing little, learn nothing and leave with their prejudices reinforced, proof that you always travel with yourself.
I decide to leave Esfahan a day early and drive 3 hours to the oasis town of Kashan, halfway to Tehran, home to one of the most famous Persian gardens.
We adjourned to the teahouse, spending the sunlit dregs of the afternoon talking. I found out that I am the first American that both the driver and guide have known and, of course, their first Jew. They tell me what they have heard about Americans and we talk a bit about Jewish power - what's real and what's not. I talk of my work with computers and of the wonders of the Internet.
We drive to town looking for a place for dinner, laughing about the selection available in Iranian restaurants: kebabs or... kebabs. It feels like cruising any small town in America with the windows rolled down, the radio on and hanging out with the guys.
Over dinner, they ask if I could live in Iran. I tell them that I'm not sure that I could live anywhere except NY and that my inherent rebelliousness probably makes Iran a poor choice. I tell them of my plan to spend my healthy retirement years teaching English as a Foreign Language each winter in different country. I could see living that way in Iran a truly is an enchanting place on many, many levels. The first, of course, is the people. But then, given my love the culture that stretches from southern Spain to India, how can I not love Persia, which helped birth it?
In Iran, temporary marriages have been allowed since Mohammed’s time. These were used primarily by pilgrims to shrines, to satisfy sexual needs, and rarely involve virgins. Sometimes they involve poor rural women who prostitute themselves. The use of prostitutes among Islamic leaders remained something of an open secret until last month, when Khatami shut down a ring of runaway girls “managed” by a mullah who served as head of the local court.
Men establish the duration of the period - from two hours to 99 years - they want to remain "married" to a woman. They are free from all obligation towards the woman once it expires Children of such unions are legitimate and entitled to a share of the father's inheritance. There are many jokes about how the Mullahs make use of this but reformers and feminists see it as a solution to the problem of pre-marital sex in Iran.
We drive into Qom at high noon to the dulcet tones of Celine Dion's "The Power of Love." We count mullahs the way American kids on a long road trip count license plates. When will we see our first one? There! And... there - that one's on a motor bike. Then we pass a madrassa (Koranic school) breaking for lunch and we give up for the street swarms with them.
After wandering around the square in front of the shrine (I don't go in because even the guide thinks that here that would be pushing it), the driver and I sit and await the guide. Apparently, it is auspicious for a Shia to go to the shrine at Qom after s/he has visited the shrine at Mashad, as we did earlier in the trip. We take a seat in the shade and the driver notices that the guy sitting next to us is reading an Arabic newspaper. While his Arabic is poor, he starts a conversation and learns that this guy is from Iraq. The Iraqi says that he likes Iran because things are so free here, which stuns the guide (until I point out that they have elections and some level of democracy which, although not perfect, if more then many countries). So the driver goes for it and asks the guy's opinion of Saddam - the guy says "he's crazy." I then tell the Iraqi that I am an American and he puts his hand over his heart in the characteristic gesture of welcome and smiles.
I take out my camera and one of the grizzled men hanging out on the next bench asks where I'm from. I say "America." He responds "South America?" I say "America, America" He smiles broadly and says "Welcome." I am, theoretically, in the most dangerous place in Iran and, as has been my experience everywhere, when people hear "America" they are surprised and smile more deeply in welcome.
Ali talks about the hard-liners with obvious disapproval.
I am the only tourist. The only American. The only Jew. The only woman not in all black. The only woman not in a chador.
When we are leaving we play the game of "who wants to live in Qom?" which is complicated by the fact that we all mis-understand each other and think the other is saying "who wants to leave Qom?" So we are each surprised when the other says "yes" until we clarify it. We cannot leave town fast enough. The guide tells me that there is graffiti in the men's room at the parking lot "Down with Khatami!" - but, we are in the home of the hard-liners so the sentiment is not unusual.
If a person comes to Iran to study at a madrassa, he and his family can stay as long as they’d like, and receive a stipend to live on. There are many Afghans in Iran who have taken advantage of this, living in Qom and other holy cities until it is safe to go home.
Since I might as well complete my bingo card, we stop at Khomeini’s shrine on the way back to Tehran. It is still under construction and is vast - I feel like I'm at an airport. We can't go in because it is mid-day prayers but it is enough to feel the place. We eat a heavily subsidized lunch at the on-site restaurant and I wander around looking for a button to buy "I ate lunch at Imam Khomeini’s shrine." I am, alas, disappointed.
Since my boss collects license plates and I try to give him one each Christmas, I have asked the guys whether it would be possible to score one. Alas, not. So I decide to photograph one - they are not yet standardized - that will come in 2002, so there is a variety to pick from. Looking for good light, I wander around the parking lot and start to shoot. The guide laughs and tells me that my first choice was the Islamic Religious Police or somesuch. I guess that if you're gonna do it, do it.
I am genuinely sorry to say goodbye to the driver, for I will have a different driver in Tehran. I know how lucky I am to have spent these days with these 2 guys - they have made my trip to Iran really special. I have lucked out - especially since they not only give me my freedom but, surprisingly, get my sense of humor. The driver sees what I photograph and laughs. I over tip the driver considerably - I feel his lack of economic opportunity more keenly then I expected to, given these many years of traveling in "developing" countries where opportunity is scarce. I wish there were more I could do for him. Both he and the guide are temps who are working for Iran Tourist only during the season - after that... I'm not worried about the guide - his family are all college educated, as is his wife, he owns a car - so while he struggles, he's in an entirely different situation then the driver who is so aware of the limits to his life. I feel his sadness when I tell him about social life for 20-somethings in NY and know he will never experience these mindless pleasures. I had hoped to have a farewell dinner with the guide, his wife and the driver but the guide lives 90 minutes south of the center, where my hotel is, and the driver lives to the north - and taxis are expensive.
Walking the busy shopping street near my hotel in Iran's characteristic crystalline light, I look into a jewelry shop window (Frank - still looking for that bauble for Carol, with no luck) and I see gold C'hais - the Hebrew symbol for good luck. There are also crosses and Islamic symbols but I know that this shop must be owned by Jews so I walk in and ask. The 3 men are and we talk briefly. They say there are "many" Jews in Iran - 3,000.
My last interaction with my guide was to show him the Internet.
I had told him about it at length over endless cups of tea but he couldn't conceptualize it. So, after the requisite Tehran sightseeing, we went back to my hotel. He was awed.
While his wife uses a PC at work and his brothers have them, he gave up on computers after a virus destroyed some information he had carefully input. But when he saw what was possible with a few key strokes: access to the days NY Times (no small issue in a country where information is controlled by the government), the NYC government Web site, email, Web cams of NYC (he wants me to send him photos of normal life in NY - once I figure out what that is...).
At the end of the hour, he resolved to buy a PC - probably not a Pentium (!) but something that would get him on to the net. I felt sorry that I can't send him my Pentium 166 when I upgrade - trade embargo. He said that he sees that the Internet is a window the world and understands what I told him about its addictive qualities. He said that it would give him something to do on the days when he has no tours (he is a temp). He has a satellite dish. But this will change his world.
And, when we said goodbye, as friends, not guide and tourist, he said that he would send me his first email. Years later, he did.
And so did Shah.
