Reflections on Iran

Reflections on Iran | May 2, 2009

The people of Iran are pretty cool. I expected a hollow eyed, wary, worn-from-war populous. I can’t think of a way I could’ve been more wrong. The people here are friendly, heaps more than at home, we are stopped on the street on a very regular basis for people to enquire where we are from and ask how we are enjoying Iran. We have stopped to chat with a range of people, including a group of men a few years younger than I am who are completing their military training (2 years, or if you prefer you can be a public servant for 5 years and skip the training) to be tank drivers. Everyone here has camera phones and are very keen to pose with us to get photos taken. It is a far cry from the scary, war torn place that the term Middle East conjures up. Everyone here, just as they do anywhere I imagine, want to get on with it; to go out with their friends and see new things. I’ve been surprised at just how similar a 22 year old is here to at home.

I regularly comment on the traffic when ever I go away from home, but I think that this time I’m starting to understand it a little more. There are far fewer concrete rules (like traffic lights and pedestrian crossings) and far more unwritten guidelines (if you want someone to get out of the way so you can pass, you give a short blast of the horn, every time they have obliged often with a smile and a wave – which seems more practical than the rage I have seem people get in when they are stuck behind a campervan for 30 kms). I got to thinking about it as we have been on the road a fair amount, and given the staggering number of cars that appear in rush hour I’m not convinced that the a more traditional system would actually work here anyway.

This place has been nothing like the crater riddled, anarchistic, post war bullet fest that the news would have you believe. The news that we see is taken from the worst of the worst, the tiny percentage of situations where bullets are literally flying over head, and bombs have just gone off. The vast majority of the time, this isn’t happening. There isn’t an attack just around the corner, in fact, given scarcity of damage and ruin I’ve seen while here, I’d suggest that a much more likely threat is crossing the street (the traffic may be under control, but I’m still not all that sure about the way pedestrians interact with it).

On an unrelated note… everywhere we go there are these blue and yellow boxes. They are really really everywhere, on street corners, inside monuments and restaurants. They are for a single, nation wide charity. Rather than having lots of different little charities, there is one big one that helps everyone. And people contribute significantly. Sajjad (our tour guide) explained that he contributes to it because he can actually see the good it does, they money donated is used for the purposes in which it is collected. We saw one guy on a small motorbike come, open the box, take out fistful after fistful of money and just tuck it into a bag he was wearing. He had no security, not even a car. Just a heap of cash and a satchel.

We just stopped for a coffee on the side of the road about an hour ago, and there was an elderly man and a younger woman sitting in the rest stop, dressed mainly in rags. One of the drivers took over tea and gave them some money, and the car in front of us pulled in too. The driver got out, gave them some money and drove off again. This guy stopped solely to give them money.

When I compare the comments I got from people when I said I was coming here (mind out you don’t get shot / various comments about bombs etc) with the reception we’ve received from the Iranians and the experience, they are pretty far apart. These are a truly lovely people, in a beautiful country that has had people settled in it for over 7000 years. In one of my earlier entries I mentioned that everything in Turkey is seems to be at least 1000 years old, Iran puts that to shame. The depth of history here has on many occasions left me wondering how New Zealand has even managed to establish running water in our meagre 250 years. We visited a tree that is 16 times older than our whole country. Nuts.

All in all, this place has been pretty ace.