Trips, Prostitution, and Getting High

 One of the things I wanted to do here was go camping
and trekking.  I have since found out that I am unable
to do this by myself and I must go with family, or a
guide, because I am a woman.  This was less than
uplifting news to me as my list of limitations in what
I can do with my six months here seem to be growing at
the rate of the population in hell.  Thus it was with
this frustration at hand that I entered my fabulous
weekend. 

 Weekends, here, are Friday.  That’s it.  It’s quite
sad, I know.  But anyway, my cousin took me to this
famous coffee shop on Thursday evening to talk about
my turkey trip, and trips around Iran.  We walked into
the café and I immediately smiled upon hearing the
familiar sounds of Coldplay.  Interestingly, this was
a CD of Coldplay covers done by what sounded like
Tibetan monks chanting and humming.  It was really
cool.  I hadn’t drunken any caffeinated drinks for
three weeks, as hangovers are not an issue for me here
nor is doing anything which requires early mornings.
My first espresso after such a long abstinence nearly
killed me.  For six hours I felt like my heart was
palpitating so fast that it was on the verge of flying
right out of my chest.  As I gazed at the stacks of
antique books lining the walls of the café and tried
to suppress my looming heart attack, my cousin and I
got down to the business at hand.

 After much arguing with my family, I have
begrudgingly conceded to do most of my traveling with
the assistance of a tour group.  This is,
unfortunately, the only way I am legally and feasibly
allowed to travel about the country as a single
Iranian woman.  We have planned three trips for me
already.  Next week I shall go Kashan and Abyaneh.
Abyaneh is one of the oldest places here consisting of
a village of adobe houses and things like this.  The
week after, I’m going to Hamadan to see some caves,
and the week after that I’m going to Tabriz for a
week.  I am so stoked for all of my trips.  If you’ve
ever seen Gabbeh, the nomadic tribes in the film are
from the mountains around Tabriz.  At the end of next
month I’m going to Istanbul and Athens to visit one of
my best friends.  This is going to be my temporary
liberation during this trip.  It’s his birthday and
he’s just as crazy as I am.  Even as I’m typing this
I’m creaming my pants with excitement.  But my cousin,
who works in a travel agency, advised me to stay
longer in Greece after my friend leaves so that I can
travel around Greece and Turkey a little more by
myself because that’s what I like to do and I have to
go back to Istanbul anyway to catch a bus back to
Iran.  So all in all, I’m probably going to be
spending a month traveling in Turkey and Greece.  I am
so excited.  I think I’m going to go to the Mikonos
Islands and then take a boat back to Istanbul, but all
of that will be decided when I get there.  If you have
any ideas, please send them to me.

 My cousin is the most fluent in English out of all my
family, so he took it upon himself to explain to me
some ways in which Iran is different from the US and
why I can’t do certain things here that I can do in
the states.  I was shocked to discover that in
thanking the waiter for my espresso, he had probably
perceived my acknowledging him as a come-on.  When a
woman looks a man in the eyes, they also perceive that
as a come-on.  I guess that is why most women walk
around with their heads down here.  Also, it is
apparently common knowledge here that if a woman is
standing alone on a street corner, she is a
prostitute.  So all those times that I had to leave
the house to smoke my cigarette on the street corner
because it’s not good for women to smoke in front of
elders, I was getting millions of stares not because I
look like a tourist, but because everyone thought I
was a prostitute!  Supposedly prostitution is big here
and a lot of girls run away from their families
because of the social restrictions, but they soon find
out that they have no other choice but to sell their
bodies to survive.  The choices for women in the
workforce are so few, even though there are more
educated women than there are men here.  Women cannot
work in any service jobs, so that eliminates a ton of
jobs for young women right there.  They can work in
some womens clothing stores but even then, most of
those jobs are taken by men, too.  This is unfortunate
because in these cases, you can’t try on the clothes
that you want to buy because there are men there.  You
just have to hope that they fit you, which is totally
ridiculous, as it is such a hassle going to the mall
anyway.  My first time in a mall here was quite
hilarious as I hadn’t learned about the trying on
clothes restriction and when I asked them where the
dressing room was, they shook their heads “no.”  In a
lapse of self control, I loudly blurted out “what do
you mean, ‘NO’?!”  They soon realized that I was a
tourist with no concept of their rules regarding
buying clothes.  After a little coaxing, they actually
let me go to the back room to try the clothes on.
That was such a sweet gesture of them.

 I also learned from my cousin what my name on my
passport, Neda Seyed Mahmoud Baraghani, means.  Neda
means good voice, Baraghani is derived from a village
in Iran called Baraghan where, I guess, my ancestors
came from, and the Seyed part means that I am a direct
descendant of the prophet Mohammad.  I don’t know what
the Mahmoud part means yet, but isn’t that crazy that
I’m a descendant of one of the most famous prophets in
the world, especially considering my aversion to
religion of any sort? 

     After leaving the coffee shop, we ventured to the
house of my cousin’s friend.  There were a couple of
guys and one girl there.  They are all a little older
than me and are freelance tour guides so they do a lot
of traveling, especially in India and China.  One of
the guys was like this happy Buddha character.  It
made me giggle just looking at him.  They were totally
obsessed with India, and upon hearing that I am
visiting from America, immediately inquired as to why
I didn’t go to India instead of Iran.  They said I
must go to India before I leave, so if I have enough
time and money, I might go to India as well!  Anyway,
they were talking about India and how you can smoke
weed in front of police offices there and they won’t
care, when they asked me if I smoked.  I thought I was
dreaming when they promptly produced a joint.  You
wouldn’t believe how many times I wished I had a joint
on this trip already!  So it was there, on the huge
and beautiful terrace of this new found friend’s
house, that I had my first joint in Iran.  It only
took me a couple of hits and I was totally gone.  The
excitement of actually hanging out with chill people,
smoking weed, and them truly being hilarious had me
giggling and smiling constantly for hours.  They told
me about acid parties in India, and I told them about
acid parties in Patagonia, and we talked about eating
dog and scorpion.  It was such an amazing time.  They
said that I was really lovely and told me that they’d
try to arrange some camping parties and a nomad trip
for me, whatever that is.  We left with hugs and
kisses and I was still really stoned when we got to
the car.  I put on some Yo La Tengo and my cousin
drove me around the mountains so that I could see the
whole city.  It was the time of day right before
sunset when the weather is cool but the light is
strong.  It came in at an angle right above the
mountains and just beamed magic onto the whole city.
Somehow, the smog, and rubble, the construction, and
everything else that makes Tehran kind of unsightly
dissipated to reveal this shining white sparkling
kingdom.  It was totally magical and I just gaped in
awe happily at its beauty.