A Day at the Chiropractor

I spent the morning reading my Persian Pilgrimages book before going to Aunt Minoo’s house for lunch. Grandmother and Aunt Mahin, another of my Dad’s sisters, had arrived from Mashhad. I spent some time catching up with them. Aunt Mahin had a stroke years ago and now walks with a limp dragging her left foot. We talked about her children, my cousins, in Mashhad. All four of her kids are now married, and she has three grandchildren to date. I then went downstairs to the coffee net and checked my email with Samira. Internet time has been more scarce lately as invitations to see family and old friends has increased.

After taking a nap, we went back to Aunt Farzaneh’s house to get ready to see another family friend. We all piled in to Mr. Moshiri’s car with the intention of going to Dr. Jafari’s clinic first. Dr. Reza Jafari is a Chiropractor in Tehran that Aunt Farzaneh had made contact with for me. I had gotten his information from the internet and a Chiropractor in Houston. He was the head of the Iranian Chiropractic Association, and was one of a few instrumental in establishing the scope of practice for Chiropractors in Iran. Realizing that there was too much traffic and that I was going in a different direction than my parents, we dropped them off to take a cab to their friend’s house, and Mr. Moshiri took me to Dr. Jafari’s office.

His office was probably about 1000 square feet with four exam rooms and a waiting area carved out of it. His receptionist greeted us and asked us to wait in the waiting area. Dr. Jafari’s office was on the first floor of a medical office building, which is the usual setup for healthcare professionals. After seeing a couple more patients and about 8 pm, Dr. Jafari invited me back into his office, which also served as his examination room. He allowed me to sit in on his last two new patients, and then we had a chance to talk. We talked about everything dealing with chiropractic in Iran. There are about 40 Chiropractors in the country with about 30 of them being in Tehran.

They are pretty much all extremely successful. Dr. Jafari had seen 100 patients this before I got there. Right now, visits are about $7 as set by the Iranian Chiropractic Association so as to get people used to going to the Chiropractor. Dr. Jafari said that they will eventually increase the cost of visits. Even still, they are still making a lot of money because overhead is much lower here. My aunt and I calculated the monthly overhead, and he probably meets it in his first two full days every month. Equipment is easy to come by too. The adjusting table and spinalator that he brought from the U.S. have been recreated by a local welder at 1/3 the cost. This guy is now the adjusting table expert in Iran!

Perusing his office, I realized that Dr. Jafari was a 1990 graduate of Texas Chiropractic College, my Alma Mater. We talked about TCC and professors we had in common. After spending two hours talking, I realized that Dr. Jafari had been in his practice for 14 hours, and it was time to say goodbye. He graciously gave me his card and wrote is home phone number and cell phone number on the back. It’s good to see that the brotherhood amongst Chiropractors knows no geographic boundary. Mr. Moshiri then took me to Dr. Shahla’s house. She is a dentist who lives uptown and has been a family friend for almost 30 years. Her house was one of the few that have remained the same since my last visit 20 years ago. As soon as we got to their street, I was able to pick her house out.

It was the one that was eight stories tall with a red roof, dug out of the side of a mountain as were the rest of the houses in this area. We went to their unit, and the inside was exactly as I remembered it too. After eating dinner, we reminisced about my last visit, and Dr. Shahla reminded me that I had gotten up and given some speech about wanting to be a Neurologist and the President. I told her that nothing had changed! Looking out over the city from her balcony, I realized that there was a lot more housing in this area than there was 20 years ago. Her house used to be in the middle of nowhere, and now it was surrounded by other houses and high rise apartments. After saying our goodbyes, we headed back home for the evening.

A Day Shopping

Today we went to some shopping areas to find some souvenirs and handcrafts. Mr. Moshiri, as usual, had the burden of picking us up and driving us around the city. Mr. Moshiri is an old family friend that has pretty much put his whole life at my family’s disposal here in Iran. Just before the revolution, my aunts and grandmother needed a place to live. This man took them in and gave them the first floor of his tiny house for the next 10 or 12 years, until my grandmother passed away. My aunts then moved to nearby Karaj, where they had already bought a house but had not moved due to its distance from my Grandmother’s doctors.

We did some of our shopping on a strip that was entirely bookstores. I went into one that had a variety of medical books and, to my amazement, even found one Chiropractic book on the shelf, despite the fact that there are only 40 Chiropractors in the whole country. Another bookstore had the maps that I was looking for. I bought a map of Tehran, a key map of Tehran, and two maps of Iran. Finally, I was able to get oriented to my surroundings and start learning out the layout of the city. Tehran is a web of roads and highways that have absolutely no rhyme or reason. City planning seems nonexistent.

Most of our shopping was conducted at an area called Ferdowsi Circle. A lot of the intersections in Iran still take this shape – a roundabout that every direction feed into and you drive around counterclockwise until you get to the road you want to turn on. Ferdowsi is one of the most important figures in Iranian history. He was a poet of note (Persians a noted for their poetry and pay much homage to their poets) whose pinnacle was an epic poem called Shahnameh, or Book of Kings. This poem weaves tales about Persian kings and mythical beasts, much like the epics of Homer. This particular circle bears his statue.

Down a little ways was a rug bazaar. This was an extremely ornate building that housed a number of rug merchants. Most of these rugs were handmade in various regions of Iran. Each region has a particular style that is easy to identify by the trained eye. The quality of the work is determined by the intricacy and variety of the pattern, the fabric used (wool is relatively cheap, silk is expensive), the resolution of the weave (number of rows per inch), and the region where the rug was woven. Persian rugs are known the world over and are extremely expensive. In the U.S., they are sometimes sold under the guise of Oriental rugs due to the bad stigma that Iran has received in recent decades. A six square meter handmade rug could cost $2000 and up. Every rug is absolutely unique. Finding matching rugs make them even more expensive. This means that two weavers have to sit side by side, with one calling out the thread color to the other as each knot is tied. There was one small rug portraying the ancient city of Persepolis that I wanted to get, but I decided to wait and look at other rugs first.

The handcrafts down the way were absolutely beautiful. We ducked in and out of shops that had chess and backgammon boards (both favorite Iranian pastimes), beautifully glazed decorative dishes, fabrics, woodwork, hookahs, and decorative swords. There was a beautiful woodworked replica of DaVinci’s Last Supper in one shop. Stepping out of one of the shops, I realized I was standing across the street from the former U.S. Embassy. This is the site where a few Iranians had held dozens of U.S. diplomats hostage for over a year in 1979. Occurring soon after the Revolution of 1978, this officially severed diplomatic ties between Iran and the U.S., which remain nonexistent to this day. The walls of this compound now have anti-Western slogans and other propaganda all over them. The only remaining sign of the past is the stone seal of the United States (the eagle thing of the back of our money) set in brick at the entrance to the compound.

After looking around for a few hours, the shops started closing for lunch. Everything is so laid back here. The city practically closes down for 2 to 3 hours in the middle of the day, and shop owners and workers go home to enjoy lunch with their families and take a nap. So we decided to do the same. After lunch, we got ready to go see my cousin Pejman from Houston who is getting married in a few days. Dr. Rohani, my cousin Shahin’s father-in-law, had thrown a party for the new bride and groom. This was one in a series of parties that various family members have been throwing for the bride and groom.

Dr. Rohani lives in the penthouse suite of a 17-story high rise apartment. When we drove up to this building, I had almost forgotten that we were in Iran. It was absolutely gorgeous. The whole North side of Tehran is undergoing massive residential construction. Houses are being carved into the face of the mountain and are going up from there. Luxury high rise apartments are becoming more commonplace. Dr. Rohani is the number one cardiac surgeon in the country. He had reserved the ballroom in the lobby of his building for the party. Entering the room, it was refreshing to see familiar faces. My relatives from Houston were all there. There was also many extended members of the family there – second cousins, their in-laws, and the new bride’s family as well. As all the cousins on my Dad’s side of the family are getting married, our family is growing rapidly.

They had hired a DJ to provide the entertainment for the evening who played the latest Persian pop music straight from Los Angeles. Waiters were floating around the room serving hors d’oeuvres and tea. I had a chance to catch up with my cousins from Houston. Everyone was dancing on the dance floor in the middle of the room. A lavish six entrée dinner was awaiting us across the hall. The meal was excellent. This was all followed by desert and more dancing. Amidst all the entertainment, I had two aunts, family friends, and new extended relatives enquiring about my relationship status and trying to hook me up with someone right there at the party. Deciding there was too much risk of uniting forks in the family tree at this party, I generously declined their offers and took the risk of being single for at least one more night. However, I now have about 8 to 10 people actively trying to get me hitched. Oh well. So is life…

A Day at Aunt Minoo’s

Waking up at Aunt Minoo’s house, Samira had made breakfast for us. We had some eggs and the traditional bread and cheese. Elmira and Arsalan were studying for their final examinations, and I had a chance to catch up with each of them. Samira and I went to the local coffee net where I had a chance to catch up on email and help Samira set up her new email account. My parents were at my Aunt Farzaneh’s house and called us to say that one of my Mom’s distant relatives was there and wanted to meet Samira. This poor girl constantly gets marriage proposals and other such offers but really has no interest in such things right now. Out of respect for family, Samira and I took a cab to Aunt Farzaneh’s house to drop me off and also meet this man that was looking for someone for his son. She stayed for a short while, and then went home to get ready to take me and my Dad out.

Samira came and picked us up in a taxi, and we went to meet Nadir, her friend, at his university. This campus was interesting because it was on the back end of the former Shah’s old palace. Shah Mohammad Reza was the former ruler of Iran until the revolution in 1978. This, his main palace, was turned into a museum and is now used as a tourist attraction. Some of the buildings of Nadir’s university were Prince Reza’s old playground and private school grounds and laboratory. The swing set he used to play on as a kid was still right there in the middle of the school grounds.

The university was hosting a cultural festival on its campus that had gone on for the last few days, and this was the last day. They had booths all over the courtyard representing different ethnicities that live in Iran. Iran is a very multi-cultural country. Having enveloped many countries during the reigns of some of its foreign kings and having been invaded by many foreign leaders has led to a very colorful cultural landscape. Besides the Fars (what are considered true Persians hailing from the province of Fars in Southern Iran), Turks, Kurds, Afghanis, Lors, Baluchis, Pakistanis, Arabs, and ethnicities from many of the former Soviet states bordering Iran call this country home. Each has its own unique language or dialect, tradition, clothing, culture, music, and, most importantly, dances.

After taking in the festival for a couple of hours, we all headed to Darband, an area at the foot of the mountains known for its restaurants and tea houses. On the way there, we stopped at a small shop called Ab-Anar-e Mohammad (Mohammad’s Pomegranate Juice). This place satisfies the Persian taste for all things sour. Sour trumps sweet as the official flavor of Iran. You can get a variety of sour tasting juices like pomegranate or barberry. They also have Pomegranate ice cream, slushies, concentrate, and fruit roll ups. Nadir told us the story of this guy Mohammad who started this business, which is now a franchise all over the city with units selling for $200,000 (no typo, franchises are expensive here). He started out selling water in the city of Abadan and raised enough money to buy a truck. He moved to Tehran and started selling pomegranates out of the back of this truck. After a while, he got enough money together to start one of these stands. Now, this guy that has a fifth grade education is a multimillionaire.

We made our way to Darband after the sour treats. Darband parking at the foot of the mountain, we walked up the road amidst the tea houses and shops that lined the path. The newer restaurants they have built here are absolutely breathtaking. Each one has multilevel outdoor and indoor seating and is carved into the surrounding mountain. The older tea houses and restaurants are still intact and have some of the same appeal. The tea houses are called ghahveh khooneh in Persian, which is actually a misnomer. Ghahveh khooneh actually means coffee house. It turns out that for centuries, Iranians enjoyed coffee over tea. It has only been about a century that the culture has turned to tea. Now, tea is so engrained in the Persian culture that anyone who drinks coffee is accused of being “Westernized”.

We finally stopped at one of the tea houses and picked a deck next to the flowing water. The sound of this river was overpowering. We ordered a hookah and some tea and enjoyed the weather, which was rather chilly that night, the ambiance, and the company. We then made our way down the mountain and went to get some dinner at a burger joint called Bobby Sands. Persians eat dinner rather late, and it was about 11 pm by the time we got to this stand. We got four burgers and ate them in the car since this place had no seating. It was like one of those pizza joints that just serve out the window onto the street. The name of the place, Bobby Sands, sounds familiar, but I just can’t place it. Since the day was winding down rather quickly, we decided to head home.

Kish (Day 3)

We got up early today, around 6:00, and headed for the beach. After changing at the locker room there, we headed for the water. I wished I had had some snorkeling equipment. The water was clear and pristine with no algae or muck to speak of. It was also extremely calm. The waves were mere ripples due to the light breeze that passed over. The white sandy beach was spotted with shells, and a short swim from shore provided a view of some breathtaking corals at our feet. Just on shore was the largest and most extravagant hotel on the island, Hotel Dariush. Named after a prominent Persian king from about 300 B.C., the hotel was designed to look like the buildings at Persepolis, the seat of the ancient Persian Empire located just outside the modern city of Shiraz.

Just behind this hotel, we could see the beginnings of a development that we later found out at a booth in Paradise Mall were a series of high-rise apartment complexes with units for sale called Sun City (www.shahraftab.com). When developed, this will be 14 buildings, each either 7 or 14 stories with an arrangement that provides a view of the beach for about 70% of the units. The units range from 500 to 3500 square feet with a price of about $180 a square foot. This complex comes complete with all the amenities of a hotel – waiters for your parties, dry cleaning, furniture cleaning, wireless internet, sports complex, water sports complex, and a commons area with live music. We were very tempted to buy a unit right there on the spot.

After swimming, we went back to the hotel and cleaned up and headed to breakfast. Over breakfast, we had another heated debate, this time about religion versus science. It started with a discussion about stem cell research and then went from there. We went to Paradise 2 Mall one last time to walk around, and went to a booth where we got all the information about Sun City. When the call to prayer at lunch was announced throughout the mall, it indicated the closing of the mall for the afternoon. This call to prayer, or azan-e-namaz, is announced three times a day in Shiite Muslim countries in public places – at dawn, around noon, and at dusk.

We rested back at the hotel, where I updated my journal and packed. Around 4:30 we checked out and headed to the lobby where we waited for about 1 ½ hours. The hotel shuttle took us to the airport where we checked in and waited for a while. I once again marveled at the 3D models of the Flower of the East development project (www.floweroftheeast.com). When we went to get our boarding passes, the guy there said that my Dad’s luggage was too big, and he had to check it in. This was a bag that was considered carry-on on the way here, so I decided to get into it with the guy just for kicks. I accused him of never having left the island, and he gave me some silly excuse that extra baggage in the cabin would create turbulence problems and mess with the flight of the plane. Deciding he was no longer arguing at my level, I let it go and we boarded the plane for Tehran.

The flight home on the Russian Topolev jet was short and smooth. Rather than the Southwest Airlines peanuts, we got a dinner of kebab and rice. I sarcastically remarked to my Dad that the bread was the only thing missing, when I turned around and the stewardess was standing above me with a tray full of bread. Dad and I started another political discussion that just heated up as the plane landed. After picking up my Dad’s bag from baggage claim, we went outside where my cousin Saeid and his wife Sholeh were waiting for us. They took us to Aunt Minoo’s house where everyone was waiting. We all looked at the pictures I had taken on my computer and had some more family time before falling asleep.

Kish (Day 2)

Today we got up early to eat breakfast. Over breakfast, we tried to plan out our events for the day, which was virtually impossible given the horrendous map that the hotel had given us. With a traditional Iranian lack of attention to detail, this thing had symbols and numbers that did not correspond to the key at all. We just decided to go to some of the malls, starting with what we were told was the biggest one – Paradise 2 Mall. We walked to this mall and marveled at the construction around us. Somewhere along this path, I decided to start a Chiropractic college on this island. Paradise 2 Mall was a beautiful mall. This one was far more organized and the stores, unlike the other malls, had proper merchandise display that was not too cluttered. This mall was connected to Paradise 1 Mall with a covered walkway. This mall was older and more indicative of a modern Iranian bazaar.

On the way back, we stopped at Olive Mall again before returning to the hotel. At the hotel, we had a lunch of bread and cheese that we had brought from Tehran and left in the fridge and had a heated debate about architecture and city planning. In the midst of this debate we stood over the bag of cucumbers and sour plums that my Aunt had given us and finished every last one. Iranians are very partial to cucumbers and anything sour as a snack or treat rather than sweets.

After taking a nap and waiting out the mid-day closings, my Dad and I decided to pursue separate activities. He went and rented a bicycle and rode around the eastern coast of the island. I went to Maryam Market to find out where to get a better map of the island. Just like everything else here, everyone gives you a different answer. The hotel directed me to the market, the market directed me to a newsstand behind an abandoned building across the street that didn’t exist, the cultural center nearby that I went into directed me to the Kish Airlines building across the street, and the information desk there said that the office I was directed to was closed and handed me the same crappy map that I already had but in English.

Venus Mall next door provided me an opportunity to check my email at one of its coffee nets and upload my latest journeys to my blog. I then went next door to bowl at Maryam Entertainment Complex. I had received a 25% off coupon from the hotel when we checked in, so I bowled for an hour for $15 U.S. The lanes were brand new but horrible. I think the surface was a synthetic plastic rather than varnished wood, and all the balls were drilled for bowlers that bowl straight. Needless to say, the ball had no rotation down the lane. The guys that I bowl with would probably say it’s because I always bowl bad, but even they would have to admit that my balls usually curve too much rather than not at all. All in all, it was a frustrating experience. There were a few guys on a lane a little ways down, and one of them worked at the alley. He kept coming over to my lane and looking over my shoulder as I bowled. It just added to my frustration. I think his intention was to be attentive and helpful, but his approach was different than what I have grown used to in the U.S. I have encountered this a few times since I’ve been here, and I’m still trying to get accustomed to it. I think by the time I am, I’ll be back in Houston.
After bowling, I headed back to the hotel but stopped at Olive Mall for one last look around. Back at the hotel, Dad and I caught up on our separate activities and then called it a night.

Kish (Day 1)

We got up at 4:30 am today to go to the resort island of Kish in the Persian Gulf. After going through two sets of metal detectors and getting our boarding passes from a ticket agent that did not even ask for identification at Mehrabad Airport, my Dad and I got on a Topoloff jet plane headed for Kish. The flight almost straight South took about 1 ½ hours and was very smooth, despite the fact that the plane was a Russian fossil. Arriving at Kish International Airport, we saw an advertisement for a PVC pipe company that used a picture of the skyline of downtown Houston (a little bit of home on the other side of the world)! Outside, a van awaited us that took us a couple of miles to our hotel, Hotel Maryam (Mary, in English). Looking down the main hotel strip, I could not help but compare this place to Las Vegas, or what Las Vegas probably looked like when it was first being developed. The island is absolutely gorgeous with modern housing, hotels, shopping areas, and miles of beaches. The architecture here is everything I knew that Iran could be and hoped that more of Tehran would be. It is about 10 miles long by about 8 miles wide and sits slightly north of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
We checked in to this hotel, and to my amazement, its entertainment complex, which is in a separate location, has bowling and billiards (www.maryambowling.com). I recently finished a bowling league with some of my friends back home, and I’m sure that they would appreciate the fact that I get to practice my horrendous skills here. After eating breakfast in the hotel and resting for a while, my Dad and I decided to walk around. When we first started walking around, everything was closed. We asked some locals and realized that practically the whole island shuts down from 1-4 pm for lunch. So we went to the beach.
This is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The coastline of the U.S. on the Gulf of Mexico is extremely murky, not necessarily due to pollution but due to the currents that suck up mud from the bottom and fill the shoreline with the nasty brown color. Here, that problem does not exist. Clear blue as far as the eyes can see. The locals on the pier were extremely friendly and warm. One offered a one-hour trip around the island for about $35. The man in the booth on the pier was renting out pontoon boats with clear bottoms and marketing it as a natural aquarium. He even said that one can go at night, where they drop a light to the bottom of the water.
We went back to the hotel because it was way too hot and decided to wait out the lunchtime siesta back at the hotel. At dusk, we took a walk back down to the main strip and ducked into one of the shopping malls. These malls are the same as the malls that we have in the U.S. except that there did not seem to be any big department stores and some of the shops have this uncanny ability to cram two store’s worth of products into one store. The prices were comparable to the U.S. Some things were more expensive and some were less expensive. The only difference is that in the U.S we buy goods with the buying power of a $3000 a month average salary and over here they buy goods with the buying power of a $300 a month average salary.
The whole island is what is considered a free trade zone, where you pay no import taxes or customs taxes for your goods. Iran also has no sales tax to speak of. The whole culture has centered on trade for thousands of years. A sales tax would probably be a huge insult to that culture. Tehran served as a midway point on the Silk Road, a trade route that extended from China to Europe. The country’s main exports include handmade rugs, copper goods, other handcrafts, pistachios, caviar, and obviously oil and natural gas.
Dad and I then decided to take a taxi to the local aqueduct. This is an underground structure that was discovered in recent years. A German investor came in and further excavated and renovated these waterways. The idea is to turn it into a museum of handcrafts, a restaurant complete with a stage for a band, and a traditional shopping area for merchants to sell handcrafts and other goods. For now, for about $2.50, they give tours of the vast tunnels with detailed information about the excavation project, the natural history of the rock formations, and the ancient history of the island and how the aqueducts were used in the past.
We then took a bus back to the main strip. On the bus, a couple of locals sitting near us answered some of our questions. Land is fairly expensive on the island. One guy was selling a 2500 square foot plot of land for about $60,000. Development on the island is very interesting. In order to expedite progress, a developer has a short window in which to finish a development project. This is usually about six months. If the project goes over, there are severe fines. Development began on the island about 20 years ago and really took off about 10 years ago. Everywhere you look, people and machines are working around the clock to meet their deadlines. A paved walkway that was only halfway done when we walked out in the morning was near completion on our return to the hotel at night.
Stopping in the middle of the strip, we went into another shopping mall that was even larger and more beautiful that the first. Next to it was the Maryam Entertainment Complex. Affiliated with the hotel we are staying at, this complex has a 16-lane bowling alley on the first floor, an expansive billiard and snooker hall on the second floor, and an unfinished food court on top. Looking in the billiard hall, there was a bar in the middle. This is very ironic being that they don’t allow alcohol in this country. Or do they? Well, kinda. They have non-alcoholic malt beverages with advertisements all over the place.
Deciding to get in some bowling later, we headed back to the hotel. On the sidewalk on the way back were some busts of recent Iranians of note in the realms of science, art, and culture. Iranians are very attached to their prominent people. When a building is built, everyone wants to know who the architect was. When a song is sung, we argue over who originally wrote it.
We ended our night with dinner at the local KFC (yes, KFC). This building was a blend of modern architecture and old-school outdoor seating with the benches I have described before. The fried chicken was really good. It didn’t have the Colonel’s blend of 11 different herbs and spices but was good nonetheless. The fries were the best fries I have ever eaten. Sometimes you have to go half way around the world to get good fried food!

A Day in the Park

Today we got up early to meet my cousin Samira downstairs for a trip to Jamshidieh Park. Mom, Dad, and I went with Samira and met Nadir, a long-time friend of Samrira’s, before the short drive up the mountain. Looking into the entrance to this park, the breathtaking view took me aback. I was entering the Garden of Eden compared to the dusty roads and alleys we used to get there. The whole park is paved with gray stones, and trees cover all of the walkways. Pavilions are interspersed throughout where women’s groups or youngsters playing guitar and singing had gathered. Waterways trickled in the middle of some of the walkways and steps, adding a tranquil sound to the surrounding scenery.
Flowing water is very common to the Iranian landscape, especially Tehran, since it is located in a valley with mountains to the North and East. This is why many businesses and residences all over the country have ponds with fountains. Many Iranians in the U.S. still have an affinity for decorative water. A little ways up the mountain, the park ended and a hiking path began alongside a wide creek. We stopped there to take pictures, and I videoed my Dad, the poet of the family, reciting a poem while standing next to the water.
We then went to my Aunt Minoo’s apartment for lunch. Her family lives in Phase 1 of Ekbatan, a series of large apartment home buildings that basically form a large village or small town. There are three phases, and each phase has its own shopping areas and grocery market. My Aunt Farzaneh and Rouhi live together in Phase 2. Aunt Minoo had made a stew with a vegetable that is a cross between celery and artichoke. My other Aunt Farzaneh (Uncle Houshang’s wife) had just arrived into town as well from Atlanta, GA. Everyone is coming for my cousin Pejman’s wedding in a week and a half. It’s interesting seeing someone that you see all the time in the U.S. on the other side of the world.
After a long nap, Samira and I went down to the local shopping center to walk around and use the internet at a local internet café (coffee nets, as they are called here). The interesting part is that most of them are just internet businesses and do not serve coffee or anything else for that matter. We spent a couple of hours looking at websites and talking, catching up on a lifetime of being apart. The shops were also very interesting. You could find anything you needed without ever really having to leave Ekbatan. Banks, clothing, barbers, electronics, groceries, internet, and many more products and services are right at your fingertips. After leaving the shops, Samira and I walked up one of the streets alongside Ekbatan to her dad’s sandwich shop called Haida. Haida is a franchise very similar to Subway. There are about 30 located all over the city. Uncle Jamshid owns one of them. We ate there and continued to catch up on each other’s lives.

My Day in the Government Offices

Today I spent the day pursuing a renewal of my birth certificate. Since the government changed in Iran in 1978, they will not accept any document with the old lion and sun emblem. The Islamic Republic of Iran now has the word Allah (God, in Arabic) in the middle of its flag, and it is used as the official symbol of the country. The birth certificates in Iran also serve as an identification card and are small booklets that look similar to a passport.

Pursuing an errand in a government office is really comical. If you think it’s bad in the U.S., you don’t know what you’re missing. In order to help expedite matters, my Aunt Farzaneh had called the office ahead of time on a Friday (the weekend in Iran) spoke with a man named Mr. Moe (his name changed just in case). Mr. Moe is an administrator that works in one of the government offices dealing with documents such as the birth certificate and the national identification card. On the side, he also serves as an unofficial “expediter”. In Iran, an undertaking such as the one I was about to pursue would normally take weeks, countless visits to multiple offices, frustrations, bickering, bribes, and numerous cab fares.

I spoke to Mr. Moe, and he told us to meet him in front of this particular government office. As we arrived, he was waiting for us outside as promised. Mr. Moe is a middle-aged man who is bald on top with gray hair on the parts that remain and is blind. As we entered this building, someone looked at my documentation as told us that we were at the wrong office. We hopped in the car that has so graciously been put at our family’s disposal for the last 30 years by a family friend named Mr. Moshiri. Mr. Moshiri drove us to this other office, where I went in with Mr. Moe to a waiting area on the second floor. This place was a zoo. As we approached one of the counters, the man on the other side immediately recognized Mr. Moe and greeted him. We went to the other side of the counter, and handed the man my paperwork. He then referred us to another man sitting in a corner office. As we entered, he immediately greeted Mr. Moe as well. I was beginning to realize how this man planned on expediting our paperwork.

We then went to about four other desks in this building to get signatures and pull files. During this time, I happened to have my camera with me and took a picture of the office to post on my photo gallery. Seconds later, I was ushered into the office of the head administrator of this facility where I was immediately surrounded by three men. This administrator was a stern lady that addressed me and asked me why I took the picture. She then informed me that it was not allowed, and I graciously deleted the picture from my digital camera right there in front of her. Not a good start since it turned out I needed a signature from her a little bit later. Luckily, I was with Mr. Moe.

After about two hours of bouncing back and forth, we were asked to go to another office to get signatures from the “triumvirate”. I call them this because this office had three people whose sole purpose is to sign paperwork similar to mine. Three people who do the same thing on the same document. They spend the rest of their day drinking tea and kicking back as frustrated people come through the doors. We then had to fill out another form very similar to the two that we had already filled out, and go to get a number placed on the document in another office downstairs. They then sent us back to the office where we came from to finalize the paperwork. Here, Mr. Moe sent the documents back and we were asked to wait for about half an hour. He went back himself after a while, and then they called me back. It turns out that the man would have forgotten the paperwork had Mr. Moe not gone back there. I signed one final document and they handed me the new birth certificate.

As we left and dropped off Mr. Moe at the subway station, my parents and aunt, who were with us, we celebratory as if we had a new baby in the family. I think this is because it usually takes about nine months to get something like this done with just about the same labor pains. Mr. Moe was paid his “professional fee” of 50,000 tomans ($60 U.S.) for his services. It would have cost much more in cab fees, lost document fees, and aggravation to get this job done.

We then went to some shopping areas to pick up a few things, including some novels that my Mom wanted. We then realized that the 18th Annual Book Fair was in its last day at the city’s fair grounds and convention center in the north of Tehran. This convention center was a series of small buildings surrounding a beautiful outdoor fountain and rafters. My parents and I went into some of the buildings, and they bought some books. My Dad incidentally ran into a publisher of a book he has translated into English there. He had spoken with this gentleman in the past and by chance ran into him here. What a small world. This convention center is hosting a Medical Fair in a couple of weeks that I look forward to attending. As we were leaving, we passed by a building that was really beautiful architecturally. As I went to take a picture, some random guard posted in the middle of the street told me that I couldn’t take a picture of the building (see the picture on the picture gallery). It turns out that this was a building where they hold summits of Middle Eastern nations. These summits, I’m told, are not just political, but deal with such topics as trade, health care, and civil planning.

The mountains north of Tehran are absolutely gorgeous. They are a constant backdrop to a number of the pictures that I have taken. I look forward to doing some hiking in them. Driving in Tehran is a true art form. Someone had once told me that in a few short years, the length of all the cars in the city added together will be equal to the mileage of roads in the city. There is no observation of the traffic laws. Everybody drives all over the place. Motorcycles weave in and out of traffic. Cars rub against each other regularly and just keep going. People just stop in the middle of the road to drop passengers off. A car will turn right from the leftmost lane. It’s really a sight to see. I’ll try to take some video footage to post on the site.

The Rest of the Flight and My First Day in Iran

The rest of the flight from Paris to Tehran was marked with my Mom realizing that my Dad did not have his watch on. Dad suddenly realized that he had left it at the metal detector earlier when we came into the terminal. The plane doors were already closed and the plane was minutes from take-off. He jumped up and asked one of the flight attendants to see if he could get off the plane. He assured my Dad that he would call the terminal and take care of it. My Mom and Dad were slightly panicked. The watch was one that my Mom had sought for a number of years to give my Dad for their 30th wedding anniversary. I assured them that everything would be okay. Moments later, the flight attendant appeared with the watch and a ring that he had left as well.

The flight was about 6 hours long and 2625 miles. Landing in Tehran was similar to Paris. We were let out on the tarmac and were bussed to a terminal where we got into line for passport presentation. A distant relative of my Mom had arranged to meet us in the terminal as we arrived and was there as planned. The idea was to get us through customs easier. This man has a high post in the government and as he showed his identification, they swept us through customs without so much as opening a bag.

On the other side awaited family. Aunt, uncles, cousins, and close family friends had come to the airport to greet us. After 20 years of absence, I recognized everybody. The two halves of our family have grown up getting to know each other over occasional phone calls and pictures and, more recently, the internet. The greeting was overwhelming. Immediately there were reminders in conversation to test the memory of this nine year old kid who had visited Iran so long ago. We all hopped into different cars and went to my Aunt Farzaneh and Rouhi’s house. Spending the evening getting to know this side of my family in person was a blessing. Occasionally, I sat and just listened to the conversations of others as I soaked it all in. While I listened to their laughs and looked at their smiles, I wondered why I had to grow up apart from this side of my family for so long.

The next day, everybody came over to my aunts’ house again for lunch. I then went over to my cousin Saeid’s house where I was able to access the internet and check out his drum set. He’s really into hard rock and is really into System of the Down, Metallica, Tool, Linkin Park, and others. His dad (my uncle) and brothers have moved to the U.S., and he is the last one trying to get his paperwork in order to join them. To give him a little sense of closeness, I pulled up his parent’s place on Google Maps (maps.google.com) and showed him a satellite photo of his parent’s house and neighborhood. Modern technology has really affected us in more positive ways than we sometimes realize.

As we were surfing the web, I received an error message stating that “The Islamic Republic of Iran has disallowed access to this website.” A whole country with censored access to the Internet! Not to worry, though, because Iranians always find another way to get the job done, and he showed me a roundabout way that they had established to get to the same website. Now, this website we were trying to get to was not a porn sight or one that had anti-government propaganda. It was one of those friend network sites. Once again, it makes you count the blessings that we have over here every day.

The trip there

Well, I’m in Paris now. We went to the airport at around noon in Houston and got checked in at the Air France terminal. There was the three of us and about six bag worth of souvenirs and gifts for friends and family in Iran. My Mom had the thankless job of putting that all together and making sure that no one is forgotten. She forgot to weigh the bags before getting to the airport though. Every single bag was overweight. We had to redistribute the weight of each bag into this overflow box that Air France gave us, and pay a ridiculous overage fee for it.
The flight from Houston to Paris was 9 hours long and just over 5000 miles. The seats each had a touch-screen where you could watch movies or TV shows. The selection was very limited. I got to catch up on my MacGyver reruns though. The monitor had an interesting feature where you could see exactly where the plane was on a world map along with time remaining and distance traveled. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I love keeping track of stuff like that. The plane took a really interesting path. We went North through Canada, and as we were going over the Atlantic Ocean, we were never more that a short distance from land. First it was Greenland, then Iceland, then Ireland, England, and eventually France.
I also got to start a book that I had been meaning to read. It’s call Persian Pilgrimages by a young Iranian born columnist named Afshin Molavi. He writes for the Washington Post and went to Iran after a long absence to explore the culture and the politics. Reading the first chapter, I started getting a strong feeling that my experiences over the next 32 days are going to be very similar to his.
The Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris really sucks. We got out of the plane third-world style down the stairs onto the tarmac and to a waiting shuttle bus that took us to one terminal where we had to wait for another bus to take us to another terminal where we had to go through security again since we had technically “left the building”. Sometimes it takes a trip out of the U.S. to realize how good we have it here. More to come…

Day Before Departure

Well, I finally packed everything and came over to my parent's house for the evening since we are all traveling to Iran together. I am really excited about going, but to tell you the truth, I'm a little nervous. I have appreciated all of the well wishes that I have received in person and via email from everyone. It's good to know that people care about you. Hopefully my pictures and comments from Iran will be educational for everyone. I know the trip will be for me. Having grown up here in the U.S. and only having traveled out of North America once in my life (to Iran 20 years ago), I will definitely have many new experiences. It's going to be a long flight though. We'll be in transit for about 20 hours. The flight from Houston to Paris alone will be probably about 12-13 hours. Hopefully I packed everything I need. I will be posting some pictures here and some on a picture gallery that I have just set up. Bookmark the page when you go to it.