School

Today was the last day of school.

A part of my life I haven’t yet mentioned is the Persian class I take. I go to class Saturday through Wednesday from 9:30 am to 12. I take a shared taxi in the morning, up Vali Asr Street, straight to the Persian Language Institute. The shared taxis in Iran have straight line routes all around the city, you can hop on and off along the way. My journey costs around $0.25. Taxi's are often shared, men and women uncomfortably squeeze into the back of a tiny Paykan, while in buses women must sit in the back.

The 10 people in my class come from all over the world. I am the only of Iranian origin. The first day of class each student introduced him/herself and explained why they were in Iran. (Great intelligence material!) Suspects are as follows:

1 Lebanese man—in car business, in Iran, he says, because of “dushman Israeli” ("enemy Israeli")

2 Yemeni diplomats-here working at Yemen Embassy

1 Ukrainian girl—married to an Iranian, they met at a yoga conference in India

1 Syrian-Kurdish lady—her husband works at the Syrian Embassy

1 Iranian-American—here to explore her roots…or is that too cheesy?

1 Moroccan-French lady—her husband works at Embassy

1 Cameroonian girl—who was here studying but has disappeared

3 Korean girls—not sure exactly why they are here, I think they just find it fascinating. They all live in dorms and take buses everywhere, hardcore!

It’s a very interesting place. Other students come from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Indonesia, India, basically a mix of diplomats and hipsters studying Iranian poetry…and it’s probably rated second to British Embassy for being what they call “den of spies.” There are also some great opportunities to be invited to Embassy parties…where champagne tends to flow. (During holiday season especially-they are allowed to order a certain amount of booze.)

cafe

Our teacher is a fiery young Iranian lady. Language seems to be her passion, as she is always jotting down notes, about new teaching methods and the different meanings-especially English and Arabic.

And all the students are lovely:

The Lebanese man seems to be very religious. He talks about his car business, praying, going to the park, and visiting the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom. And he always tries to introduce the most complicated words and sayings, while he can hardly speak a simple sentence. The class suspects that he memorizes what he reads in newspapers. The first day of class he told us he was staying at Esteqlal Hotel-one of the most posh. Since then the teacher hasn’t stopped teasing him about being rich. He is awkwardly polite, always picking up the papers she drops, while reciting from memory the most formal Persian phrases: “I am at your service…always!” and such.

One of the Yemeni men always talks about women, and marriage. He says he is working on getting an Iranian wife (second wife that is), and our teacher gives him a very hard time-all in good fun, though we are still not certain if he is joking or not. He says the woman’s place is at home, in the kitchen,and that life in Yemen is much cheaper so a man can afford to have more wives. Our teacher and the rest of the class did not agree at all. The other guy is like the quiet young sidekick with a mustache.

The Ukrainian lady is into yoga and spirituality. She is very delicate, picky with outside food if it seems dirty, afraid she will be poisoned. But today we went to Superstar Burger for lunch, and she had a double cheeseburger, mashalla. She always talks about the “tragedy of her country,” with a quivering voice. That since the fall of USSR, bad economy and poverty has driven her countrymen into severe alcoholism, and that all the Ukrainian girls want to marry foreigners because of this. She came to the right place!

The Syrian-Kurdish woman is one of those know it all mothers who you can’t help but love. Everything she says is very matter-of-fact. She is a diplomat wife, living in in various countries no more than 2-3 years each. Her favorite place was Kuwait, because of all the lovely malls and restaurants. She also loves Iran, she feels it’s very close to Syria.

The Cameroonian girl, who is 18 yrs old and here on a scholarship to study science, has disappeared after 3 weeks of class. I think she may have been traumatized. Iranians are not at all used to seeing black people in person and, if not out right racist at times, they definitely have a strange and not so subtle sense of humor. On Saturdays we describe in class what we did on the weekend (perhaps more intelligence info??). Once she said, “Thursday I didn’t leave the house.” Why, we asked? “Because Iranian people are bad.” Although other black visitors I've heard had a better time here...No one in class knows what happened. Luckily she did have some family here.

The young Korean ladies are my favorites. One of them was a singer in Seoul and she wears pink converse high tops everyday. Today after school, all the girls from class came over to my place, and she sang us an Italian opera song. She also studies the Daf and Santur, traditional Iranian instruments. They all would sneakily shed off their head-scarves inch by inch in class, and by now just take it off immediately. The other 2 seem to have some kind of humanitarian interests. When they found out I’m married you should have seen the look on their faces, such a shock! They were extremely pleased, “Ohhhhhh!” with mouths wide open…and asked me all sorts of questions with sweet inquisitive eyes. The oldest lady seems keen on getting married. In class conversations she often uses the example “If I had a boyfriend, I would get married.” And when we explain the weekend’s events, all three of them always say the same thing: “Thursday, I went to my Korean friend’s house, and I cooked Korean food. It was very delicious.”