George Sand Speaks

After schools closed in Tehran, there wasn’t much to do but wait!

My father continued to go to work every day while at night, he secretly snuck out of our hallway/make shift shelter and took refuge in his own bed. My mother was a high school teacher and worked at a “madreseh estesnaaee”, a school for mentally challenged children, maybe on Hashemi Street. Eventually, she grudgingly left her position because it was too dangerous.

We invented a lot of games to keep us occupied at home. Lunch time was extended to keep us distracted. That’s when I first tried potato “koo koo”. We watched VHS tapes of various cartoons such as “Tom & Jerry”, “Mohaajeraan”, “Khaanevaaadeyeh Dr. Ernest”, Professor Baltazar... We watched a lot of “Rangarang” music videos and danced around like Jamileh. Turkish movies with “Ayesheh” were really popular. Siavash was singing “Dokhtar Irooni” and my mom played Moein’s “Parichehr” a lot. At night, like everyone else in Tehran, we were addicted to “Oshin”. Eventually, that wasn’t enough.

So we headed out doors. As the missiles kept dropping day and night, we kind of got desensitized. Even my mother who was still shaking didn’t mind letting us play outside. Occasionally, an airplane would break the sound barrier and freak everyone out.

We invented a lot of games such as counting the missiles. The routine was that you first heard an airplane noise lingering suspiciously. Then, you counted the number of missiles because if you looked quickly enough, there was a red explosion mark in the sky. My mom used to frantically call my father’s office, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles after each attack to make sure they were ok. Our favorite game was really funny. Whoever spotted an airplane had to yell “Saddam”. Everyone ran around like screaming maniacs, pretending Saddam was there in person and we had to run away from him. If it was a false alarm, everyone got pissed off because we had to stop the game.  

Much to my mother’s dismay and anxiety over our education, school was closed for a long time. There were some TV programs aimed at continuing the curriculum but no one cared.

By the time of the Iranian New Year or “Norooz”, some of our neighbors had left Tehran. A few lucky ones left Iran altogether. I became a fire cracker expert that year; I learned how to make home made “taraghe”. On “Chahar Shanbe Soori”, we jumped over fire while the teenagers really put on a show! You had to be there.

Early the next morning, it was our turn to leave Tehran and try to get some peace. My mom woke us up and we were off to Rasht. What a trip! We were greeted with the first and possibly the only missile on Rasht. This send the stressed out adults into a frenzy of arguments between those who thought Rasht was safer than Tehran and those who preferred the comfort of home. One of my uncles took my grandmother and returned to Tehran. The rest of us spend some time in Rasht. I have to ask mom about how long.

The running water at the “villa” we managed to get was not enough to sustain all of us. Periodically, the water and the electricity were cut off. The unthinkable public bath system became more and more bearable but the waiting list to get a spot was 3 days! Every morning, all of us, and believe me there was a lot of cousins and adults, had to line up for one bathroom and wash up in the sink!

Food was another problem. Rasht was not familiar to us except as a tourist spot. Try surviving there during war time when everyone is angry! We had trouble getting good food. The ladies would argue about cooking and the men about what to buy. No one could agree about what to do or where to go and yet everyone insisted we all stay together. Finally, in a fit of anger my father packed us and we went back home.

Next, we tried a little village called Robaat Kareem. If Rasht was bad this was hell. The place we stayed at was full of bugs and lizards and much too small for the number of relatives there. It was too close to Tehran, we still heard the missiles. My parents got into several huge fights in front of everyone because they couldn’t agree on what to do. Stay or leave Robaaat Kareem? Stay or leave Tehran? Stay or leave Iran? It didn’t help that there was some sort of municipal election going on there and some jerk Hezbolahi knocked on the door every other minute and the women had to cover up. There were no late night drinking, poppy seeds, dancing, jokes or card games for the adults, no games for us and it was just dirty. Everything was dirty. The whole god damn town was dirty.

We came back to Tehran and never left to seek shelter any where else. Waiting at home was better than being miserable elsewhere. But our friends kept leaving, one by one.