IRAN

TAXI!!!! And the Mosque of Mirrors

 Teheran, April 1973

    This is a rather old story, in a country that has not stopped changing in the last few decades, some would say for the better, others would not agree. However, the story of catching a taxi in Teheran may still be valid.   When I visited Teheran, I was able to speak about ten words of Farsi, which included “how much?”, “too expensive” and “thank you” and “good-bye”, but my every day vocabulary was mostly limited. The family where I was staying, a Farsi family that had lost the father fighting against the Shah and therefore not really on the list of “favourites of the State” was composed of my friend Hushang and his mother and about 6 or 7 brothers and sisters. Their house was ok, although I would say it was modest without being poor. They lived in a two rooms facing a patio, a toilet, a kind of shower and washing room and the kitchen, with little greenery. My friend, the eldest son and thus the head of the family, occupied one of the rooms, and mom and siblings the other.

When I arrived I was given the room of honour and my friend moved with his family. Courtesy and deference were omnipresent, I was always given that first choice in food and although I communicated with Hushang in German, our common language, his siblings either tried a very limited English or sign language. With the mom, it was always through one of the kids, in whichever language was possible. She was a dear lady always smiling and helpful and attentive.

During my stay in Teheran, and before setting up on a trip through the country with Hushang, I wanted to explore Teheran, and of course needed to do so on my own, basically because all the younger members of the family had other occupations and were relatively “useless” in providing me with tourist like explanations. I had my guidebook of the place and so decided to discover Teheran. I managed to get to the centre of town and walked, and walked and walked visiting museums, palaces and markets. The mosques, which mostly were beautiful building from the outside, were not open to non-believers (in Islam), so I was left outside able sometimes to glimpse though a partly open door to their great gardens and huge open spaces. The experience of the markets was if not unique to me, interesting in the kind of wares on sale and of course the possibility almost the compulsion to negotiate prices, like it is customary in my own country. It did not matter if the price looked right or not, it would have been unthinkable to buy it like that, without negotiation, which is an art learned as a kid and perfected with time. I enjoy it very much, even today, although the numbers of places where it can be done are getting very limited and the margin of negotiation is not always very large.

Having spent most of the day sightseeing and walking all over the place, I finally decided it would be nice to get home, to a nice cup of tea and maybe a “conversation” with Hushang and his family. Now, public transport as buses was totally out of the question, since I could not read their destination and could not speak the language enough to ask if they went in the right direction or me. I was only able to give the address of Hushang’s house and it was easy to consider that the only alternative was to take a taxi home. Now, I stood a while on a street corner, trying to figure out the way people were calling taxis, crying the addresses or directions they wanted and when taxis came by, without the notice “taxi”, although quite  obvious in their functions, stopped if they went in the requested direction.   After about quarter of an hour of studying the system, I decided to give it a try, at first timidly and of course without any result, other than being on the sidewalk without transportation. So at one point I saw a car coming and taking my courage I shouted my direction and Yes!!! The taxi stopped and I jumped in the front seat, as I had seen that the back seats get crammed with more people that they would be allowed to carry normally and when I wanted to get out I would not be able to do so in a hurry, as I had seen people do. So the front seat it was and the taxi sped in what I thought was the right direction but …. although we went through several crowded streets and crossing with a lot of potential customers for the ride, no one shouted for the ride and my taxi did not even try to stop and check the potential clients. It became a bit worrying because although I had been given assurances that Teheran was a very safe city, that the crime rate was minimal, that foreigners were in general respected, and all that shebang, I was in a taxi that did not stop to pick up clients, driving in the right direction, yes, but alone, in the front seat of the car, with a taxi-driver that did not speak much, kept looking at me, not scary but and I could not really speak much. Finally I decided it was necessary to try to know where I was standing, so I asked him if he spoke English, and to a timid yes, I asked him why he did not stop to pick up more passengers and then with a big smile, the driver told me he was not really a taxi. Oh! What I had gotten into!!! Jumping out of the car was totally out of the question, charm the driver into being nice to me also, as he HAD been nice to me and had not tried to be even unpleasant or un-nice, apologize was not possible due to my limited knowledge of his language, so the only option left was let him drive me to my house and try to pay for his services.

When we finally arrived home and I was trying to give him some money for the ride, Hushang’s mom came out, she probably was worried about my very long day out, and then she and my taxi-driver chatted and laugh and he explained the misunderstanding and how he had taken me back out of kindness and that was the end of the episode, or so I thought. Later on, when Hushang returned from work and we all were having dinner, mom told them the story and some were laughing, others complaining and all agreed that I should not try to do it again, and decided to give me a card with the address written in Farsi, so I could show it to real taxi-drivers if needed. There were volunteers to come with me in my discovery days, etc. but fortunately in a day or two Hushang and I were starting a week trip into the country, which took us to Shiraz, Isfahan, Persepolis and other beautiful places and being with him, I had to polish my German, but could forget the need of Farsi!!! No more taxis or friendly Iranians.

SHIRAZ and no double room

When finally Huschang had his holidays, especially taken to show me his incredible country, we went first to Shiraz, known s the city of flowers and mainly roses, where in the right season, the smell of flowers is almost overbearing. We arrived to a hotel that looked nice and clean, not the 6 stars thing, but Huschang thought it was OK. He requested a double room, with my agreement, since it was more economical and he had already mentioned that he would not let me pay anything during the trip, so if he was being the perfect host, I had to accept the situation. The hotel clerk asked for ID from both of us and I tended my Mexican passport, Huschang had his Iranian ID. When asked if we were married, of course the answer was NO, and then the clerk explained to Huschang that we could not have a double room if not married. My friend explained that the purpose of the exercise was to save money, as he being the perfect host was covering all the bills. No way to get the clerk to accept, but in the negotiation he offered to give us two singles for the price of a double, of curse we both agreed and then he explained to me, through my interpreter Huschang that there was an Iranian law trying to protect the Iranian men, as there had been many foreign women that enticed them to show them the country, travel around, have all expenses paid and then, while the boys were sleeping, the girls would rob them of their money and at that time, this is over 50 years ago, the most current method of payment was cash, so the perfect hosts were robbed and left with the perfect bills and no money to pay for them.

The next day, after breakfast, we left to discover Shiraz, a beautiful old city full of little streets, markets and of course mosques, all over the place. We came to a square, or a round, with a little fountain in the centre, few cars but lots of chariots and donkeys. Huschang told me to wait for him by the fountain, do not reply if someone talked to me and just play dumb – difficult as that might have been then. A while later he returned with a black piece of cloth, later I learned it was called a chador, and although I was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and jeans, totally acceptable outfit for the city, he instructed me to accept wearing the chador, keep my camera hidden and the most difficult part, close my mouth and make no noise whatsoever. So be it, and also I had to walk behind him!!! He took me by the hand and always walking behind him, we entered a mosque that did not look particularly big, important or the like but OH Surprise. Inside the one and only mosque I have ever seen all the walls and ceiling were covered with mirror mosaics, little squares of maybe 1 sq. cm. mosaics make of mirrors, so it was enough to have a few candles for the whole space to glitter and shine like if the sun was inside! It was very difficult not to make some noises of OH or AH in admiration of such work, but technically I had no right to be inside, as a non-Muslim, and also if they found out I was with Huschang, a Muslim who knew the rules, he could pay dearly for this. That was the only time I believe that wearing a chador or burka was a good thing. I could look without being seen, I could linger studying the mosaics and at worst people would thing I was dumb and slow. We stayed a relatively short time inside, do not forget you go in to pray, not to wonder of the marvellous light and reflections and beauty of the place. Finally we walked out and Huschang took off the burka and went to the market to return it to its owner. Thank you again unknown woman for letting me see that beautiful place of worship. It is not difficult to thank god in whichever name you give Him for making humans with such inspiration and ideas. To this date I have never seen any photo or representation of that mosque, which I believe is normal as those are places of worship, but I hope it has not suffered from all the political upheavals in that country.

The rest of the trip was great, Persepolis walking over the same stones as Alexander the Great had done, the magnificence of the place and “if the stones could talk”……   but they cannot, so you will have to read it in some of the history books on paper or on-line.