The story of Daryush
My friend and student in the past was Drayush. In the time I was teacher in the South of Tehran with the students who with the time started to like me and respected me very much. First they did not want to accept me as I was young and came from North of Tehran, but with the time they realized that I like them and want to help them; so they answered my like and they liked me also. I was also students in the foreign language department and worked as a part time teacher.
My German language professor Mr. Diploma Engineer Saleh Alizadeh asked me if I have time to help his nephew who in student in High School at his house ; I agreed and next day I was sitting with an intelligent boy behind a table to review his lesson and his books in their house. The boy was nice and speaks fluently Persian and German. His mother was German and the father Iranian.
Few months later my new private student finished the high school and went to Germany for further study. Mr. Alizadeh was very satisfied of my helping and teaching as his nephew has successes in the final high school examination. So he asked me if I like to be also teacher in German School in Tehran. I liked the foreign language very much and wanted to write fluently in this language, so I told him “O yeas I love to be teacher there”. He wrote a letter and gave me the letter to take to the principal of Tehran German School. In the letter he wrote that I have a BA in fine arts and also I am learning the German language with him and I am a good teacher as I help his nephew to pass the final exam and I am also good student and learn good German language.
This letter was more than enough from a German professor to help me to get the position. After some exams; they hired me as a local teacher in the Tehran German School. The time of German Gymnasium is nine years and trains the students to be student at the university. If is different than American High School that every body goes there. But in Germany there are five forms of high schools; one of them is training the students for office work or as trained workers and so on. But this type of school is very hard and the students should learn a lot of materials there. German, French, English or Latin and Greece plus other subject are thought there. I was teacher for fine arts.
I was three or four years older than my students. The students like and respect the teacher; it is not like US that the parent and the students do not respect the teacher. There is no counselor and no administered before the teacher and the teacher has power and respect in the class room. So it was fun to be teacher there with so many young beautiful young boys and girls. Mostly the parents thought I am also a student in higher level and as they knew I am the teacher; they respected me more. Also I had a very good time with the parents who supported me and the students who liked me. In US it is different, the students (some) do not like you and the parent support the students. The counselor and administer also support the students and parents to make them happy and to keep their job and salary. The poor teacher is alone. May be the American teacher does not feel this, but as a European teacher I felt it very deeply.
The salary that the local teacher got was much less that the salary that the teacher got who were appointed for three or four years teaching in Tehran German School. They had may be five to six time more salary as the local teacher. But this salary was two times more that the salary Iranian teachers got who were teaching in Iranian schools. It passed two years until the Iranian teacher in Iranian school knew the teachers in German School have two times more salary than them. So they were trying to move to Tehran German School and get more salary and also keep their Iranian government salary. And some Iranian teachers who had good connection with the system had the permission to work in the German School and keep their Iranian government salary also. They were very happy, but now they want to send us the local Iranian teachers hired by the German School system out and replace us with their families and friends. As they wanted them should have good salary also.
We were only three teachers who were hired by the German School system. All of us were finished the University of Tehran and not the college for training teachers. But we knew German. But the Iranian government teacher does not know German or just a little bit, but they were discussing that they are the real Iranian teachers and we are not. Now a lot of them wanted to work in this school and as the two of them were there and tried to influence the German School administration that they are right and we should not work there. And actually they did and their family and friends overflow the school like a big family. The first two brought there their cousins, nieces, uncles, aunt and the husbands and wives of them.
They influence the school that they are better and should have more salary than us and also they got the full salary from the Iranian government and another full salary from the school. And with the time they tried to send us out of the school. That is one of the problems in the Shah’ time that the people who had friends in the system could get more salary and two or three jobs in the same time. It is clear that they could not work in two or three jobs in the same time; the fact is they got the salary of two or three jobs in the same time. They were very smart and did very thing that we should go by ourselves. First the asked us which classes we like to have and as we said that; they did the opposite they gave us the classes that we did not asked for. They tried to teas us as much as possible and gather negative points from us. They gave three classes to me that was the same; so I must repeat the same things over and over. One of us three went to their side and tried to help them and he did what ever they asked him to do for them and now all of them were trying to send both of us out of the school.
At the end the school system has agreed to fire us so they would have more space for their family to come to school and be hired also by the school system. My lady friend and I both have been sent out of school after so many years of working there. Now the government will no hired us and will not also take their own teacher who is paid by government take out of the school so we can have work again. The people or the teacher who had a full time job was hired by the school system to have the second job; and we have sent out that we had only one job. That was unjust, but nobody care. I went to lot of places and wrote a lot of letters and explained that is not fair that one teacher has two full time jobs and the other teacher should lose his/her only job and make place for the other teacher to have the second full time job. But the people were indifferent and did not even listen what ever we were trying to explain. As if we were from other planet. So these so called Iranian government teacher came to this school they got a full salary from the Iranian government and a full salary from the German school system and the only salary that we had; has been cut. In the same time many government school had no teacher, because their teacher were teaching in the German School. I went to British school and they hired me, but their salary was half as in German school so the Iranian government teacher did not have any interest to be teacher there; so the whole stuff of teacher were hired by the school system. In the German school more than 8 Iranian government teachers were working and most of them came from the same family.
In the year that I have worked in the German school I became friends to a lot German students and their parent. Most of these students were from a German mother and an Iranian father. The Persian students who studied in Germany and married a German girl as they finished their study and came back with her to Iran. Also there were also some Iranian women who married the German or European man and so their children were coming in the German school.
Daryush and Mehrdad were two young boys who have blond golden hair and very fair skin. Both of them were very nice to me and I loved them like my own children. They were very nice friendly and sweet. With beautiful green eyes or blue and golden hair. Their mothers were tall and beautiful and their fathers were good students from the middle high class family who were studied in Germany. Daryush has green dark eyes and very fair skin like North European. His hair were golden blond. He was tall may be 186 cm and has a nice friendly face. His lesson and education was very good and he was a very good student, he always plays with Mehrdad another Persian German boy who had nice face and dark blue eyes. Both of them were very close friends and both of them were good in all subjects form language to mathematics and from sport to music. The speak fluently German, English, French and Persian. They wrote composition in all four languages in a very good still and they use nice works and nice sentences.
Daryush finished the German Gymnasium and went to Germany and finished a Master degree in Telecommunication and later he did his PhD in Engineering Telecommunication from Germany and was hired as assistant professor at the University of Tehran. Meanwhile I was working also as a language instructor at the university. So I saw sometimes Daryush in the university café restaurant and we ate together the lunch. With consideration that I was his teacher in the past and I was nice to him, he came very close to me and we get very good and closed friends. Daryush was telling the whole story of his and I was one of his best friends. He married with a German girl and has brought her it Iran. But after the revolution and or rebel in Iran; Daryush and his wife went to Germany and may be he could not find a good job there, so they went to USA. Daryush went to Florida and got a position as a college teacher there. His wife has also divorced him and took all his three children with herself to Germany. Daryush told me that his wife did not accept him as an European and always humiliate him as an Iranian. And she did not respect Daryush bicultural attitude. As Daryush was very fair and like Swedish people, she expect a full European attitude and not a Persian culture. She later did not let the children contact the father. We both now were working in a college in Florida. Daryush told me that his wife did not like any Persian culture and she thought that I am like North European. Daryush was not a fundamental Moslem, but he liked Moslem and feel part of it. He was like many other Iranian or Turkish people who are half European ,but still they are half Middle Eastern and Love their culture and even their religion. With other words Daryush was a very modern Moslem and as the people mentioned half Moslem.
The problem is when you are between two nationalities or two religions you some how believe both of them. You cannot ignore one of them and just believe one of them. You cannot love your mother or your father only. You love both of them. It is the same as religions. Or you can eliminate both of them and say I believe in Humanity and not in any religions any more. So as my mother was also Bahai ;the government of Iran did not let me to work and I have to come out of Iran and as I said we met each other after few years again in Florida. I saw Daryush for the first time in a university party and we were very happy to see each other. We know each other for such a long time. He said that his wife left him about eight years ago and took all his belonging and the three children.
