Part
5
November 5, 2003
The Iranian
Right when we had gotten used to living in southern
Tehran, we found out that unbeknownst to us, my great
uncle had an apartment in the Jordan neighborhood which was
becoming vacant. This location was a complete 180 degrees from
where we were living as it
was in the nicest part of Tehran.
My grandparents
notified us of the vacancy and it took my dad
approximately 3 seconds to accept to rent it -- without
even seeing it. My dad has made many decisions in his
life, and this clearly ranked in the top 5 best
ones.
So we packed up and got the heck out of
southern Tehran and moved into this high rise in
the northern part of Tehran. It was very chic place and the
neighborhood was somewhat trendy. The only issue was
that once you entered the building on the first floor
you had to go down a flight of stairs to get to
our house, sort of like a basement.
The first time we
went to see the place we were a little put off but
once we saw the interior we were happy and ready to
set up shop. Plus, part of the patio for the whole
complex was partitioned for our own private use, which
amounted to a HUGE concrete soccer field where we
could hone our Pele soccer moves. We grew to love our new
house.
Our
street was one of the safest in town as posed to
where we were living before. It was called
Hyde Park Street (now renamed Golshahr) and five ambassadors
had residences there, with a few guards watching outside.
The house
to our right was the Saudi Ambassador's residence and he had
a ridiculously monstrous back yard with a pool and Jacuzzi.
His huge backyard soon became an issue since the wall separating
us
was quite low; and
we would
constantly kick our soccer ball over the wall and into
his back yard.
Of course being the older brother had
its advantages; so I would make my younger brother go
and get the ball. We had heard that the ambassador had
quite a temper and did not like to be disturbed. Luckily, though,
the housekeeper was a very nice man and the ambassador had to work
during the day so my
brother would always come back with all his limbs.
Unfortunately, the days of summer came to an end and
it was time for us to go to school. Being in a new
area, my dad thought it would make sense to walk
me to school a few times before my first day. That
way I could learn the route and go to school on my own without
looking like a sissy because my parents had to walk me to school.
The first day after our walk back
from Hadaf elementary school, we came across a
restaurant my dad recognized. Always being a bit of a
shekamoo, he took me inside and we each inhaled a
milk shake in record time. When we recovered from the
brain freeze, my dad made me promise not to tell mom where
we had been. Considering that she was waiting for us to get home
and
serve dinner, we had to
come up with an elaborate story about why we were late. My dad
decided to blame the traffic since we all knew how
bad it was.
We got back and mom
had cooked a great Khoreshteh Baademjoon, which
was my favorite. She quickly became suspicious when my
dad and I could not eat a bite. She interrogated us
for about ten minutes and my dad and I, like reading
from a script, pleaded that the traffic was hideous. We never stopped
to think that traffic congestion only affects cars, not pedestrians.
Our pathetic blunder made future collaboration
between me and dad out of the question >>> Go
to index for next part
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