Iran Witness: Sara's Return to Her Homeland

I have known of Sara for months through social media. However, I did not realise that she had recently gone back to Iran until her account appeared yesterday on Arshama3's Blog.

This is a fascinating, illuminating, and sometimes frightening account well worth reading to the conclusion of Sara's trip. Her final paragraphs:

I want to thank anyone reading this for reading. If you have any questions, please ask. I will answer them as good as I can. I know I have forgotten things or left them out, to not make a too long story.

Also I want to ask your (continued) support for Iran.

This year’s holiday started with an unexpected stop in Köln, Germany, as it is one of a few airports that refuel Iranian planes in Europe. Other countries (except for Austria perhaps) don’t deliver fuel anymore because of the sanctions. I noticed that for all the passengers it was an unexpected surprise, Iran Air hadn’t let anyone know about this in advance.

Entering Iran was (as usual) a quite relaxed experience. I was quite surprised that nothing was checked, even though it didn’t happen in earlier years, but I was expecting more security this time. After we got our luggage, we were watched by some “guards” who told us to declare our luggage (we had a TV for my mother in law) but when we gave the cart to a cousin and left without passing the “goods to declare”, it wasn’t even noticed. I had, as a precaution chosen to not take any political motivated pictures / films to Iran, but I could have easily done that, as nobody ever asked a thing (on the way INTO the country. The way out was quite a different experience, but I will get to that. Though even then no-one asked for our photos or films.)

What I always notice in Iran, are the people (and children) working on the streets. Selling flowers at traffic-stops, selling fliers with verses from Hafiz (also many children), handing out fliers with commercials for businesses on shopping malls and streets. The working kids (and adults) can’t be missed; at every large intersection they are selling flowers and other stuff. Also you can see women with babies on their arms begging for money or food. Some kids sell small “prints” with pieces of poems of Hafiz, some will sit somewhere in a street, put a scale before them and passers-by can weigh themselves and give some money to the kid.

I keep noticing how few people even seem to notice these kids and adult beggars anymore.

One day, we had been to a cemetery in Tehran (Ghale Hassan Khan), where we had a ceremony. (Explanation for non-Persians: During such a ceremony friends and family come to the cemetery, there will be prayers, and fruits and halwa are given away to people that are in the area, usually there are some old men on the cemetery that will come to graves that are being visited, and they will say some prayers and are being paid some money for that as well)

After the ceremony we left the cemetery, on the parking lot was a young boy (about 9) and he only had one arm and one stump. All the women started saying out loud how sad it was, and how terrible, but no one actually gave him anything. I think people are getting numb, as they see these things every day again and again. It desensitizes. Especially as there are so many kids like this.

For the people that do have jobs, life isn’t necessarily easy as well.The wages are usually low and they work many hours (depending on the work they do). Many shops open at 8 or 9 AM and close around 9 or 10 PM. Often it is the same person working all day. Prices keep going up and even though many things are VERY cheap, it is exactly the things needed to provide in day to day life that keep getting more expensive, such as food. For example, a kilo meat (sheep) costs about 17 Euros. I don’t actually remember the price of eggs, but I remember they went up twice when we were there (3 weeks). Cigarettes went up 37% on our last day. Also gasoline is going to be more expensive. These are just a few examples!

Also people can expect to be surprised by a day of wages being taken off their pay check. Asked why, they will be told that the money will be sent to (in this case) Pakistan, for relief. Another month it was for Palestine.

As we were driving through the streets, we wondered aloud how come, that so much money is being sent to Muslim brothers in other countries, when at the same time our own brothers and their kids are trying to survive in the streets of Tehran. Aren’t they Muslim brothers? Apparently not!

One thing I was very surprised about is that on-line I keep reading about the tightened rules regarding clothes and make up. The last decade though, with every visit to Iran I have seen the manteaus getting shorter, the head-scarves gone further back and way more make up in public.

However, I don’t want to make the mistake to judge the freedom in Iran only by the way people look in the streets. This might seem to imply more freedom, yet it’s only superficial freedom, as I call it. So, maybe you can go out looking like that, it surely can have influence on your life. You might for example not be able to get the job you want, like my cousin. She applied for a job as a teacher and they sent her letter, stating that they had seen her outside and she had been wearing “too much make up and too tight and short a manteau”. If this is true is a second, but as you see, it is being used as an excuse to not hire females or decide to take on other females. So much for freedom.

So, this shows that, even if you can walk around like that, there may always be consequences later on.

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