Persian Odyssey: Part III – A Sense of Space

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness...” So wrote the 19^th Century Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. He was describing how in any relationship people need the space to be who they are without one dominating and manipulating the other. Well and good. But have you ever thought about your own personal space. Where are the boundaries of the space we occupy on this planet? It can be almost non-existent as in sex; it can include largely ignored physical contact in a crowded subway car; a few inches or feet as in a friendly conversation. But when you are alone in the desert where you are vulnerable in the extreme, how close is too close for comfort?

I had an opportunity to discover my own personal boundaries and those of strangers encountered in the wilderness soon after I started out on my desert odyssey. I had stopped for the day and was camping on a mountainside overlooking a village off in the distance below me. Here is a photograph I took at sunset shortly before the incident. 

It was around dusk. I had set up my tent and finished my evening meal and it was beginning to get dark. I was relaxing with a cigarette and a cup of coffee and enjoying the view when I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye on the slope below me. Being alone and feeling vulnerable I kept a close eye on the motion until it coalesced into a recognizable configuration. It was a small group of people climbing up directly in my direction. Remember that the Islamic Revolution was already underway and foreign interests were being targeted and I was obviously a foreigner and alone. I did carry a knife for protection, but it would have been useless against a group if their intentions were unfriendly. It was already too late to strike camp and take off.

I didn't know if they knew I was there or actually had some purpose in coming up the hillside at that hour of the evening. It was getting fairly dark and it was possible that they hadn't seen me. I decided the most sensible thing to do was to make my presence known while they were still far enough away not to be overly startled. They, including some goats, were still coming directly towards me. When they were at a certain distance I stood up and said: “Good evening” in Farsi, the Iranian language. It seemed as if two magnets of the same polarity had suddenly pushed against each other. To my relief, they acted surprised and answered politely and began to veer off the straight line towards me and moved in an arc at a safe distance and continued nonthreateningly on their way. To feel secure I needed to know why they were there and asked them where they were going. They said that they were going to another village, that I wasn't yet aware existed, on the other side of the mountain . Somewhat relieved I said: “Salaam Alaikum,” (Peace be unto you) and they continued on their way. It took me a while to fall asleep though. I kept listening for returning footsteps from the village on the other side of the mountain.

But no, peace was still unto me in the morning. I ate some breakfast, had a smoke, broke camp and continued on to Hamadan where I would visit the family of one of my students.

  daybreak

To be continued....

Persian Odyssey: Part II – Preliminaries

A couple of the stops on my itinerary started at the class picnic. My class completed their course of study in basic English communication and specialized helicopter-related vocabulary in their IIAA cadet training program and were granted leaves if absence before the start of their helicopter flight training. (I was to start as an in-flight language “troubleshooter” after my trip, but that's a story for another time.)

Iranians love picnics which they hold in green belts—oases of a kind in an otherwise desert environment. Such a green belt in Esfahan runs along the Zayandeh Rudh (River) that bisects the city. One of the city's architectural gems, the Si-o-se Pol (33 Arch Bridge) crosses the river connecting the northern and southern parts of the city.

    Si-o-se Pol over the Zayandeh Rudh

In the course of our graduation picnic I told the students about my intended trip and they invited me to visit their homes since they would be visiting their families during their leaves. Two of them lived in towns that were on my itinerary (Hamadan and Kermanshah) and I said I would be delighted to visit their Iranian homes and families.

The day of my departure finally arrived. I had rigged the Yamaha with two enormous bags designed for carrying things on camels. Yes, really! I had to carry everything I would need for survival in the desert—both my survival and the bike's. I intended to camp out when not staying at students' homes, so I needed a tent and cooking paraphernalia. I would pick up provisions at bazaars along the route. I had to carry tools and some spare parts for the bike in case of a breakdown in the middle of nowhere (except the one thing that I eventually needed and had to ride on on a wing and a prayer without).  

  

my silver Yamaha Enduro 250cc. rigged for the journey

The first leg of my journey took me northwest out of Esfahan toward Hamadan. Click on the title to see Google Map.

To be continued....

You're Santa Claus

I guess you've sort of arrived when you can play Santa Claus without a costume. I had the unexpected thrill of discovering this dubious “honor” the other day. I am retiring from my current employment situation. I was doing a publicity gig for my next incarnation as a private part-time teacher at my friend's English language day school here in our town. It was a photo-op for next year's public relations brochure to introduce me as doing sort of “celebrity” appearances teaching Art, story telling and tutoring Japanese returnees (kids who have lived abroad and attended school there in English). To kick off the lesson in cartoon drawing I asked if any of the kids in attendance knew me. One of the little girls who is a 1^st Grader at the school where I have taught Art for 19 years raised her hand and said: “You're Mr. B.” She was right. Although I don't teach the 1^st Grade all the students know me as Mr. B. Another, older boy, who doesn't attend my school, said: “You're Santa Claus.” I said: “Well, thanks a lot.” And muttered to myself: “Well, you ARE pushing 70 after all.”

Well, OK, enough BS. This is all by way of saying HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all and to all a Good Morning. It's 10 a.m. here.

                                                      I added the hat

Persian Odyssey: Part I

I had a dirt bike in Iran. It was a silver 250cc. Yamaha Enduro. Actually, it was my second bike. The first one had been stolen right from my courtyard. It was a royal blue 250cc. Yamaha Enduro. In my eyes, the silver one could never match the beauty of the royal blue one. I learned to ride on the royal blue, but I became a veteran off-road and back-road rider on the silver Enduro.

It was the fateful year, 1978, of the Islamic Revolution and I was living and working in Esfahan, said to be the most beautiful city in Iran. Much of its architectural beauty derives from the 16^th Century when it was Persia's capital under the Safavid dynasty. But, no, I wasn't there researching 16^th Century Persian architecture. I was indirectly working for the hated Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, although we only heard rumors about his tyrannical regime. We were to learn the truth soon and brutally enough.

My work was teaching English to cadets of the Imperial Iranian Army Aircorps who were in the helicopter pilot training program at the army base outside Esfahan. On the right are some of my colleagues on a picnic on the banks of the Zayandeh Rudh. After a few months of classroom study, the graduates would undergo Bell helicopter flight training, using their rudimentary English conversation skills, with American instructor pilots (who, of course, couldn't speak Farsi—imagine!), and who were fresh from the napalm runs of the Vietnam War. When my class graduated I decided to take a 7-day solo trip on the Yamaha that would take me to  the sites of the summer, winter and ceremonial capital cities of the ancient (circa. 500 BC) Persian Empire: Hamadan, Susa and Persepolis.

By then the early convulsions of the revolution had already begun. There had been fire bombings in Eshahan of places that were considered sinful to Islamic sensibilities, but popular with Western expatriates and the younger more progressive elements of the native population—movie theaters, nightclubs, bars and restaurants; as well as a few banks for good measure. Gunfire could be heard nightly outside the thankfully high walls of our house, including machine gun fire. By morning, however, the streets had been cleared of any bodies that might have fallen the previous night. Some of my friends warned me against traveling alone under the circumstances, but I couldn't resist a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these historic places. The trip turned out to be one of the most dangerous but unforgettable experiences of my life.

To be continued....

Throw Away Old Ladies Mountain

It sounds better in Japanese: obasuteyama 「叔母捨て山」」. In modern American slang we might say “throw grandma under the bus”. There is a legend in Japan about this mountain for discarding no longer productive people over 70-years old. Did such a strange custom really happen? The legend has been made into a classic movie titled “Narayama Bushiko” (The Ballad of Narayama) twice, in 1933 and 1983. It takes place in rural Japan sometime in the unspecified past. The original film was shot in pre-war Japan in sort of a mixed western play and Kabuki style. The 1983 version is filmed in a more natural world and is rather explicit in some of the scenes. It's basically a story of survival and family relationships in a subsistence level society.

The time has come for two of the old villagers to go to Mt. Nara to die—one willingly the other not. They must be carried by the eldest son just before the first snow flies so that they will not have anything to eat and potentially survive on the mountain. It is a very moving tale of what it really means to be alive and human in a world of scarcity where an extra mouth to feed can mean hardship for an entire family.

Click on the title for a trailer of the 1983 version with English subs.