Visitor finds warmth, commonalities in Iran | Your Home

My itinerary included visits to the well-known historical and archeological sites of Iran. I visited mosques, palaces, paradise gardens and monuments. The mosques were magnificent – endless geometric designs on blue tiles, swirls of flowing Arabic calligraphy (messages from the Koran), spectacular high domes somehow held up by careful mathematical calculations and soaring minarets.

But the most memorable moments to me were the daily conversations I had with Iranians. If I sat for a moment, often people approached me to talk. We usually agreed that politics were not worth discussing, because there wasn’t much we could do about our governments. Over and over again the Iranians told me they love America.

I traveled to the Zagros Mountains, where I joined in a nomad wedding and visited nomads (a diminishing population) in their tents. The nomad women dress in colorful skirts and blouses, a nice change from the standard-issue black chador (head and body covering). We shared tea in their tents. To our surprise, one of the Western-dressed young men took out his cell phone and took pictures of us!

I visited one of the many large cemeteries where the dead of the Iran-Iraq war are buried as martyrs. As many as 1 million Iranians died during the conflict. The cemetery has rows of graves with pictures of young men who died. Posters of the martyrs with backgrounds of flowers or guns are found all over the streets as a constant reminder of the war.

The omnipresent images of scowling Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor, Ayatolla Ali Khameini (the country’s current religious leader), are abundantly displayed in hotels and banks and on the sides of buildings.

One night as I sat in Isfahan Square, two young women stopped and asked if they could talk with me. We had a delightful time discussing their government (they don’t like it, but little can be done about it), politics (not interesting to them), scarves (they don’t like to wear them, but it is the law), the freedom young people have in America (they are 22 and still living with parents), a rising drug problem among young men (there is no entertainment for young people in Iran) and interacting with boys (they go hiking in the mountains to get away from the “morals police”). They were wistful about the freedom young people have in America.

The strict laws imposed by the Islamic government would be difficult for most Americans to accept. Women must sit at the back of the bus.

Many women wear black chadors in the street because they now work in businesses where the covering is required. However, when women are home, off comes the chador as they change into Western clothes.

As in all travel, by understanding the history of a country, one develops a sympathy for its people. My trip to Iran serves as a reminder that Americans and Iranians share a common humanity.

As I left, I felt that I was leaving a very hospitable friend who had taken us in for 17 days to share the beauty, culture, pride and heritage of his country.