From the archive: Iran

Today, I found an old notebook with the following written in it:

2/21/07 (incidentally Austin's birthday plus 7 years)

We stopped at the rest stop outside of Qom coming and going to the city. On the way in, I switched to wearing the scary nun habity thing, which I actually found more secure and was happy to let my hair hang free (underneath of course).

On the way back, I was on my way to buy special delicious saffron-based Qom cookies when I spotted Geri at a newstand. We decided to to buy some delicious cheery juice to go with our delicious cookies. When we entered the shop girl started grabbing at my habity thing, chatting to me in Farsi and pulling me toward the back of the store. I started to panic, because I thought this was an affirmation of my constant fear of something going horribly wrong with my veil and all of my long crazy curly hair comes tumbling out and causing an international incident. (Think having one's pants fall down in front of the UN Security Council...)

The girl pulls it off my head, starts rearranging it (a process that starts with it OFF your head) and  sticks my head back through and placed it back on. Suddenly the clouds parted...well, ok, it was still a habity thing, but it was on PERFECTLY. It wasn't slipping like before. I was so appreciative. I immediately demanded that Geri take our picture, which I will always have to remind me.

I realize most of my anecdotes are about dress faux pas, but I spend the days on serious issues. Dealing with Islamic dress codes dominates the only room left in my brain.

After the cherry juice/veil incident, I got back on the bus and noticed (in the dark) an infant, about a year old wandering toward the bus as it started to move. I pointed the baby out to our minder and said, "uh, where did that baby come from?" expecting to see a parent a few steps away. No parent. The minder got off the bus, picks up the baby and starts walking around looking for the parents, who suddenly emerge after what seemed like a long while and a great distance.

I keep winding up in the men's room! At the Institute for Islamic Culture it happened. It's hard to tell beween the Farsi and the eastern straddle toilet! In the Foreign Ministry I didn't notice until I came out of my stall, was washing my hands and the person who came out of the other stall was a man! It's an honest mistake, but just seems just about the most offensive one could be in a country so strict about gender relations. It was the perfect storm of a faux pas: inappropriate interaction with the opposite gender in the most intimate of locations...needless to say I'm now totally paranoid!

This morning when I woke up, I put on black pants, black boots, a black top, a black manteau, the black habity thing. I decided to put on bright, hot pink socks and as I did, I thought: this is my quiet rebellion that no one will see except me. So I forgot that when entering many locations, most especially Mosques, you take your shoes off. I was trying to discreetly hide my hot pink socks from everyone. "Hot pink" and "hide" don't exactly go together! Mary Ellen spotted my "rebellion" and pointed it out to everyone. Much to my horror, people in our group began taking photos - even the PBS film producer filmed it!

The secret to crossing the street in Tehran?
Don't look left or right!