“Not like that. You have to roll the ‘r.’”
“I can’t”
“It’s simple: rrrrr!”
“I can’t do it. We don’t have that kind of ‘r’ in German, at least not where I come from.”
“Nonsense, everyone can do it.”
“Okay, say ‘Eichhörnchen.’”
“Eickhern-Ken!”
“No, Eichhörnchen. It’s easy.”
“Ai-Kern-Shen!”
“Totally wrong. Let’s go. Berim!”
“Ei-Shern-Ken!”
We both laugh, and then go for an ice cream.
“Did you notice how shy the girl in the library was?” asks Funman while playing with his scoop of chocolate ice cream. “It’s pathetic! We teach the young to be afraid. We don’t think them capable of anything, we pamper them, never allow them to jump in the deep end.”
“Actually, she could speak quite good English.”
“If you live within a system of fear, it rubs off on you. It is not only the government that keeps this system alive but also the parents who restrain their children out of fear.”
“Why don’t you go away?”
“I love my country. If the government were to give us just a little more freedom, not as many people would leave. Today it is hot, so I would love to go out in my shorts. I’m not allowed. We have beautiful beaches on the Caspian Sea, but to go swimming I have to travel to Turkey. Because I can’t talk to people here without fearing the consequences.”
“You don’t seem to be the kind of person who is easily intimidated.”
“Most cops are younger than me. When they stop me on the street because of the loud music on my motorbike, I explain to them that they don’t call the shots. I’ve never had serious problems with them.”
Shyness is not in the nature of Iranians, though, as I realize the next morning in the 22 Bahman Primary School in the neighboring town of Salam Shahr. 22 Bahman is a date and stands for February 11, the anniversary of the revolution. Funman asked me whether I could give a short talk about the ecological aspects of my travels during a presentation about the handling of garbage. I selected a few photos and thought about a few clever phrases and am awaiting my turn from the first row in a large hall.
The national anthem blasts out of an Aiwa cassette player, and everyone stands up with their right hands on their hearts. The principal speaks, a teacher speaks, and a couple kids also speak and play some music on three keyboards. Finally, prizes are given to the winners of a painting competition, and there are cookies and grape juice from Tetra Paks. Funman wanders through the hall taking photos.
There doesn’t seem to be time for my lecture, and it is spontaneously canceled. As compensation I’m allowed to participate in a lesson with the third class. The route from the hall to the classroom proves to be a real challenge because small boys in blue-black uniforms and skater sneakers continuously stop me and ask for my autograph, as if I were a pop star. I sign dozens of notepads and scraps of paper and answer questions about my country of origin, marital status, and soccer. An opportunity to clarify that Messi is better than Ronaldo, and that Borussia Dortmund is better than Bayern Munich.
In the classroom everyone individually introduces themselves in English. “Hello, my name is Farshad.” “Hello, my name is Ahmad.” “Hello, my name is Alireza.”
It’s oppressively hot in the classroom with no air conditioning. I feel a little like an exotic species, as I sit in front of the class telling of my travels so far, with Funman and their teacher translating into Persian. I only understand the place names. Kish, Kerman, Yazd, Shiraz, Isfahan, Mashhad. Finally, the teacher asks me if I have anything else that I would like to share with the kids.
“Learn English,” I say, thinking of the Animal Farm book in the library. “And get to know your country, travel around. It’s a wonderful country.”
Through a jostling horde of schoolboys, I walk with Funman across the playground to the road, past two soccer goals and a wall brightly painted with a map of Iran. The noise is so deafening that even the two teachers running by fail to control it. After how many reprimands do children lose this wildness? Please preserve a bit of it; don’t ever become apathetic—that is what I should have told them.
To: PeaceGulf Tehran
Hi Reza, how are you? I contacted you some weeks ago on cs. would it be possible that I stay at your place for 2 nights from thursday? would be great!
From: PeaceGulf Tehran
Sure Stephan you can stay with me
To: PeaceGulf Tehran
Wow, that was a quick reply:) thanks so much, see you soon!
From: PeaceGulf Tehran
:)
LIFE’S CARAVAN
IRANIANS LOVE THE northern area of their country because it is greener here than elsewhere, because there are swimming beaches, because of the rain and the mountains. If you travel west along the Caspian Sea, there is similar scenery for hundreds of miles: to the right, the sea, to the left forests, and towering above them, the peaks of mountains, some impressive and others not so. Kiwi plantations and rice paddies resembling those on the high plains of Vietnam. And the gray, landlocked sea, bordering on five different countries. If the world weren’t curved, you could stand on any beach and have a panoramic view of Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Apart from that, there isn’t much to arouse the interest of Western visitors. We know similar landscapes from home and are more spellbound by deserts and architectural masterpieces.
I travel along the coast to Astara, near to the border with Azerbaijan, by bus, and then inland to Ardabil, where an MD-80 plane, vintage 1989, transports me back to Tehran. The Elburz Mountains loom ahead, and all the gray cardboard-carton houses of Tehran, the cars in the daily traffic jams, and the Milad Tower. To the east I can make out Mount Damavand, the highest mountain in Iran, a nineteen-thousand-foot snowcapped pyramid clearly contrasted against the blue sky.
Its image hangs between dozens of other tourist posters and maps and handwritten poems in Reza’s basement. Reza, forty, online name “PeaceGulf,” is maybe the most experienced couchsurfing member in Iran. In five years he has collected 1,058 friends and 798 reviews. His reputation precedes him: a number of my hosts have already mentioned that he has been arrested twenty times, that he has argued with members of the government about couchsurfing, that he was the first in the country to offer accommodation, that he has room for fifty guests, and that he is clever and interesting, but nevertheless that staying overnight is not exactly a luxurious experience.
Reza greets me briefly at the door, a well-built man with large glasses, little hair, and white rubber sandals. “I’m in the middle of teaching. Just go downstairs and get to know the others!” A narrow staircase leads to the basement: someone is playing the accordion and singing in French. There are six guests here: one from Malaysia and five from France. The latter are traveling around the world in an old trailer and showing short film clips, with a screen and projector that they have with them. They call their project Nomadic Cinema. They’ve been to Poland, Serbia, and Turkey, and they plan on driving to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. They are not yet sure, however, whether they will be able to put on a performance in Iran. “Here we have to be very careful that a topic isn’t too erotic,” says Sophie, one of the cineasts.
The rooms are full of odds and ends, the largest room being dominated by a ping-pong table on which there is a laminated hand-drawn map showing nearby Internet cafés, food stores, and subway stations. The atmosphere is more like a backpacker hostel than a private apartment. In a small storeroom I discover a camp bed; otherwise, there are only a few cushions there. Without your own camping mats you have to sleep on the stone floor—a point that Reza makes absolutely clear in his profile.