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Tuesday 2004-06-01 - Abyāneh, Iran
Museum village
On the way to Yazd we make a little side trip to Abyāneh — after the desert the river valley is in a surprisingly green: the village grew up in this oasis. Abyāneh is architecturally interesting, with all houses facing south to catch most of the sun during the very cold winters, overhanging bay windows in the second floors and all houses reddish in color as a result of the red mud used for plastering the walls. Still I find the visit somewhat disappointing: it’s become a museum village with a population thinned out by migration of those with a good education to Tehrān and other big cities, leaving behind only old people who try to make a living selling handicrafts to tourists. In winter, when there are no tourists, only a few hundred people actually live here. It just doesn’t feel like a ‘real’ village.
Tuesday 2004-06-01 - Yazd, Iran
Culture shock (not for us!)
We arrive a little before dinner time in Yazd; Thom, Carla and I are not all that hungry, so we make do with some fruit that we find in one of the shopping streets. After ‘dinner’, Thom and I go out to find a “coffee net”; the place we’re directed to turns out to be a backpackers’ hotel near the Akmir Chakhmagh complex. There’s a single, slow computer with a slow connection used also for the hotel administration — visitors (even non-guests) can use it though (for a reasonable fee). Other than slowness, there’s no problem and I manage to catch up a little of my travel journal backlog.
Meanwhile Thom chats with two boys from the hotel — I don’t follow it all since I’m busy typing but it sounds like they’re talking about subjects like the difference between religion and culture. When I’m finished and we want to leave, it becomes clear what one of the subjects really was: Thom had explained that shaking hands (specifically a man not shaking a woman’s hand) is not something to do with religion: Muslims in other countries do it; friends kissing each other in greeting or to say goodbye is similarly cultural and occurs in different cultures (we do that, but it’s not done here). Now, the boys, one bold, one shy, want to try how one says goodbye in our culture! Bold shakes Thom’s hand, and then my hand without even blinking but after Shy shakes my hand he quickly withdraws it — as if he burned his hand. Then comes the friendly goodbye kiss - we’re friends, after all, after chatting for over two hours… Now Bold gets less bold and wants to ‘practice’ with Thom first while Shy gets more bold and kisses me goodbye (one friendly peck on each cheek). After that it’s Bold’s turn (he gets three). For us, something that would be quite normal taking leave of our friends, for them it’s really shocking to shake hands with a woman and touch cheeks — even when that woman is old enough to be their mother. It makes me wonder how young men grow up here: they can’t really learn to handle emotions of affection or friendship with a woman — what will happen when they’re finally ready to get married?
We have to be let into the hotel by the night watchman when we return at quarter to midnight.
Wednesday 2004-06-02 - Yazd, Iran
Getting lost
First priority this morning in Yazd is changing money - I’ve already borrowed some from Thom and Carla. So we head for the old town where the bank should be near the mosque and next to the post office. According to our city information, it’s very easy to get lost in the old town — and getting lost is exactly what we do. Not a real problem: the old town is quite beautiful and reminds me somewhat of the old town of Bukhara with its network of alleys and mud-plastered walls. When we finally find ourselves in a ‘real’ street again we find we weren’t even far off: we actually already passed the back of the Jame mosque (I even took a picture without realizing it was this mosque) and once we’re in the right street, the post office is easy to find — but where is the bank?? After walking up and down the street and asking several times we find we walked passed it at least twice already: the bank building is on the corner and they’ve just built a new wing; they are now renovating the main building - meanwhile neither building has a sign this is the bank!
We have to practically walk through a building site to get to the money-changing desk in the new wing. Changing money is a complicated affair with three forms, showing your passport, signatures and stamps, and then going back down to the other building to do the actual exchange at the cashier’s. While working through all the forms the bank employee who helps us chats with us a bit and tells us they actually do a lot of business with people from the Netherlands: Iran is importing a lot of seeds from seed growers in the Netherlands, such as for cucumber and carrots.
The Jame mosque, of which we already had a glimpse, turns out to be one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, with splendid tile work. It’s also a nice, cool space and we see how several students take advantage of this and sit around on the carpets and against the tiled walls with their study books.
Internet in the mosque
Near the Jame mosque we already noted a sign pointing to the “Y@zd Internet Cafe” and that’s where Carla and I head this afternoon (this time without getting lost). It’s only a small room with two machines though - both occupied. One of the young men we ask says to come with him, he’ll bring us to another room; he takes us inside the gates of the mosque, then to a side entrance where there turns out to be a library with a room next to it housing several computers where students can work. The machines are modern, with Windows XP, and the connection is reasonably fast, too — much better than in the backpacker’s hotel here in Yazd where we worked last night. First I help Carla to send an email, then I start typing away my backlog while Carla waits outside, shops, and later brings me a very welcome fruit juice: just what I needed since no drinks are sold here.
Discovery
On the way back from the Internet in the Mosque in Yazd we see again what we saw somewhere else before without knowing what we saw: white stuff scooped into a plastic cup, eaten with a spoon. It’s not ice (which Carla can’t eat I and I don’t like). We decide to try it when the friendly vendor explains: plastic cups stand ready with sugar syrup in it; into that the mysterious white stuff is scooped, then rosewater, a lump of ice, and some poppy seeds are added to it. “Stir” he says, when he hands us our spoons. We sit down at a long table where several women are already sitting, amused to see us trying something new. It’s delicious!
Later, we learn this specialty of this region is called faludeh and can be served with variations: lime juice instead of poppy seeds (fresh or from the ubiquitous bottles here since lime juice is used in many dishes), or flavored with saffron instead of rosewater. We’re immediately addicted to it: it’s a very refreshing snack, and not as sweet or sticky as ice. Something to try to make at home!
Thursday 2009-05-21 - Mashhad, Iran
Meet-up with the Mashhad Linux Users Group
Several weeks before this trip, I ¨met¨ a young Iranian, Mehrdad, on identica, a microblogging community. That was pure coincidence: I noticed him mentioning he lived in Mashhad and couldn´t help myself and told him I´d be in Mashhad in a few weeks. The answer was ¨wow!¨ and a suggestion it might be nice to meet. Thus an idea was born.
Gradually I found other contacts in Iran via identica, either involved in development of Free Open Source Software (FOSS), or users and evangelists of FOSS. Five of them were also members of the Mashhad Linux Users Group (Linux is an operating system, like Windows, except it´s Open Source). Since I´m involved in FOSS myself, I thought it would be nice to meet with Iranian FOSS people. In the end, it turned out too complicated to set up a meeting in every city we would visit (and our program was way too busy fro that), but Mehrdad kindly organized a meet-up in Mashhad, where according to our itinerary we would have a full day. I left the meeting time to Mehrdad; we were to meet at 19:00 which was perfect for me, since I could do almost the whole day program that way.
And so, a few minutes before seven, I sit in the lobby of our Pardis hotel; just a few minutes after, three young men walk in — I recognize Mehrdad immediately from his identica avatar: a photo of himself. Being already used to Iranian customs with respect to shaking hands (especially after our experience in Yazd), I don´t initiate any handshakes, and only one of the young men shakes my hand in greeting. The three came together because they live in another part of the city; Mohammad lives in the same neighborhood as the hotel and arrives a little later on his own. When we´re complete, Majid suddenly asks me what my age is — 59, I say, and counter that now they´ll all have to tell me their ages as well, which gives me a chance to write down their ages and names: Majid, 23; Mohammad, 24; Mehrdad, 23 and Morteza, the youngest at 22. Three of them are still studying, Majid has just graduated and will have to go into military service (for 18 months) soon; Mohammad also has a job — he´s a bit down today since he failed a very hard exam this morning.
After a little chatting about my trip, we get to ¨business¨ and I explain what I´m really interested in hearing about: how they manage here in Iran to download, contribute to and use FOSS, limited by filtering of some sites by the Iranian government on the one hand, and US export regulations on the other. That story is told elsewhere, on my development blog. They also gently grill me about my involvement in FOSS, and usage of Linux (so far mainly for websites).
When the subject is more or less exhausted, Mohammad proposes we go somewhere else to have drinks. We walk a little down the street to where he can easily flag down a taxi (he knows the neighborhood, and thus knows where to get a taxi); ¨I hope you´ll get me back to my hotel¨, I say — just joking because I´m absolutely sure the polite Iranians would not even think of not doing that. Then a car stops, and we all pile in: three of us in the back, two on the passenger seat in front. The car door on my side doesn´t have any lining, it´s practically falling apart, and the whole car is very rickety, seemingly held together with bits of wire. Nevertheless it quickly and safely takes us to another neighborhood where we get off at a corner and walk again a little down the street. I´m really enjoying this part, since we´ve only been transported by bus through the city so far — I don´t feel I´ve really ¨been¨ in a city unless I´ve walked along its streets.
They´re taking me to a juice bar. Little stores where you can buy a big glass of freshly squeezed juice are quite common in Iran, just like elsewhere in the Middle East. But this place is different, an upmarket version of these little juice shops: it´s bright and shiny, roomy, with tables and chairs to sit on, a menu with subtitles in English on each table. The choice is enormous, juices, smoothies and other fruit-based products (¨no sugar added¨) and ingredients are quite varied, too. The menu even has an email address for information, but curiously no website address (I later find they do have one though there isn’t much information there). I opt for a wheat-grass-and-banana smoothie, which turns out to be delicious. Two of the boys now send an update to identica from their mobile phones, to let others know that we´re sitting here. Over drinks we chat on about the software situation in Iran — as it turns out, quite similar to that in China with its ¨Great Firewall¨, where knowledgeable people can easily get around the blocks, and copyright still means almost nothing: for instance, you can get a copy of Windows for about one dollar here.
Drinks finished, I try to buy the round for them, but that is resolutely refused: I´m their guest, period. Then the taxi ritual is performed again, and this time a much better car takes us back to my hotel: they tell me the quality of the taxis is dependent on the neighborhood where they cruise around. Back at the hotel, I say I´d like a picture of all of us together, which poses a little problem: the two people behind the reception desk are occupied, and no one else is in view in the hall. Magically, just in time, our guide Noyan appears from the elevator: I introduce them to each other, and he willingly takes our picture: I leave the arrangement to my hosts, which turns out just a little formal. When they take their leave, I´m somewhat surprised to get three handshakes.
All in all — and impressed yet again by the hospitality of the Iranians — I enjoyed our meet-up very much, and I think the story about Open Source Software development in Iran is a story worth telling, because, indeed, Freedom matters!
