I returned on Saturday after a week in Iran. Dear SH stayed behind for an extra week since he had his talks to give at the Royan Institute in Tehran.

During our time there, we could not access any social media and to be honest, I am not sure I could have found the energy after many hours touring mosques, squares, historical sites, and city streets to write a blog entry. However, now that I am back over the next few days and weeks, I will write about some of what we saw and experienced in Iran.

First of all, Iran is a place of contrasts, stark contrasts, which are perhaps best captured by the landscape. You can drive and walk through barren, dry, brown land, seeing no trace of green. Just shades of brown and grey and maroon. And then you come upon a spot where water is present. Maybe you cannot see the water because it is underground, but you know

On the way to Abyaneh

it is there because suddenly you see green. For example, when we drove to Abyaneh on our last day, when we turned from the main highway to the small 2-lane road that leads back into the mountains to the village, we finally saw green: trees, bushes, grass. It all grew along the sides of a stream that  flowed down from the mountains. At the source of that stream was the village of Abyaneh. None of the many conquerors who swept in waves over Iran ever bothered to attack this village. It was too far back into the mountains and had nothing of value: no gold, no silver. But it did have water. Enough water that a village could exist with fields and gardens to sustain maybe a few thousand people.

Abyaneh

Another stark contrast is how people live their day. In the USA, at least in the north east and midwest, people are outside all day in the summer. But not in Iran. On our first day in Kashan, the heat was close to 98 F (or 37 C). We were walking around all through the morning and afternoon but we saw very few people. The city felt empty and a little eerie. But then, later, around 4 o’clock, people began to come outside and when the call to prayer was made an hour later, I saw more people emerge. By the time full darkness came, the streets were full of people walking, shopping, children playing, women hurrying on errands, men talking to friends. The city had come alive, but in the cool of the evening.

Bazaar in Kashan around 9 pm

Kashan in the early afternoon

Another contrast was that of religion. And contrast is not quite the right word. A better word might be the commingling of religion. In two days, we visited a modern-day Zoroastrian fire temple, saw the closed doors of two Jewish synagogues, marveled at the murals in the Armenian Vank Cathedral, and admired the mosaic and tile work of many mosques.

It will take me some time to fully assimilate what I saw and learned while in Iran. The experience was almost overwhelming in its strangeness: the language, the heat, the daily tempo, the food (all delicious), the religion, the dress. But the people made that strangeness vanish with their greetings and smiles and willingness to engage with strangers, foreigners, Auslanders.

Zoroastrian Fire Temple

Vank Cathedral

Mosque

Jewish Synagogue