Part
8
January 23, 2004
The Iranian
It was 1985 and the war was getting worse. Tehran
was now getting bombed nightly and we had become
accustomed to a routine where around 2 or 3 AM the
electricity would go out, the air raid sirens would go off, and
our neighbors would dash down the stairs to the basement for safety.
Our place, on the
other hand, was located on the first floor so we
didn't find it necessary to leave our apartment during
the bombings. My mom had created a little safety zone
where my brother and I could sleep in the middle of
the living room. It was the furthest point from any
window and still close enough to the door so that we
could leave in a hurry if we needed to.
The three of
us spent many a night in the little safety zone where
we would huddle together every night once the bombings
started. My dad, on the other hand, refused to give
up his comfortable bed and would actually sleep
through the bombings under the rationale that if a
bomb was going to hit our place it was just as likely
to hit the living room as his bedroom so why not be
comfortable?
I guess in retrospect that makes sense
but at the time the safety zone provided some peace of
mind. We were always amazed, however, at the fact
that the bombings and sirens would never wake my dad
up but if my brother and I even attempted to kick a
soccer ball around indoors he'd yell at us for waking
him up. It was selective hearing, I guess.
At around the same time, my dad got very sick. He
initially went to the doctor and was diagnosed with
cancer. Being somewhat stubborn, he didn't believe
his first doctor and went to his friend's office for a
second opinion where he was subsequently diagnosed
with various ailments -- which did not including
cancer -- but which nevertheless could not have been
properly treated in Iran.
Due to the on-going war and
subsequent lack of medical funding, medical equipment
and medicine in general during that time period were
grossly inadequate for soldiers and even worse for
civilians. My dad's friend told him that his only
option was to go to the U.S. for treatment or else he
would surely die within the year.
My dad, again,
being very stubborn, didn't believe him either and
decided to get treated by the doctors in Iran. That
only lasted for about a month, however, until my
grandparents and my uncles in the U.S. persuaded him
to go abroad for treatment.
Of course coming to the
U.S. was no easy task at that time. Although nightly
bombings, censorship, inadequate medical facilities
and food supplies, are tremendous qualities to have in
a place of residence, some people were actually
willing to sacrifice all those luxuries to get the
hell out of Iran. Go figure.
Luckily for us, my
uncle had applied for a Green Card on our behalf in
1980 and by 1985, when we needed to leave, they were
ready for our interview which was in Athens, Greece by
way of Switzerland. We were all very excited, not
having left the country in six years, we were going to
two exotic places in Europe during the summer, and the
U.S. right after that. That sure beat hanging out in
war-ridden Tehran during the brutally humid summer.
We flew on Swiss Air which was a huge step up from
Iran Air, which we normally flew on. My mom had a
cousin who lived in a small town in Switzerland called
Fribourg and he invited us to stay with him while we
were in Switzerland waiting for our interview in
Greece. After leaving the airport we got onto a train
and left for Fribourg.
Coming straight out of Iran,
it took us approximately 45 seconds after the train
took off to pull out the requisite bags of pistachios,
tokhmeh and feta cheese sandwiches with greens. As we
were devouring the food, we noticed four Swiss
students sitting next to us and staring at us in
shock. Their fascination with what were eating
developed into an international sandwich/pistachio for
Swiss chocolate exchange program wherein they got to
taste sabzi and feta cheese sandwiches for the first
time and we got to eat their chocolate which was
usually hard to come by in Iran.
Once we were done patting ourselves on the back for
our ability to spread international good will with the
Swiss students, we arrived in Fribourg where my mom
instantly recognized her cousin that she hadn't seen
in years. Albeit, I had never seen her cousin in my
entire life and I could have instantly recognized him
too. It wasn't difficult to spot the only bald,
non-blond person there who was sporting the standard
Persian guy mustache.
Anyway, we crammed our stuff
into his tiny European hatchback and headed for what
we thought was the city. Apparently, however, my mom
had neglected to tell us that her cousin actually
didn't live in a small city, but rather a small farm
area outside of the small city.
We arrived at his
apartment and were excited about all the things we
could do now, save for the fact that there was
absolutely nothing to do. He
virtually lived on a farm for the love of God. It
became apparent that we needed to get on the bus
everyday and go to the city if we wanted to do
anything of interest, so we did in search of
everything the Western world had to offer -- which
pretty much meant McDonald's.
The first day in Fribourg, my brother and I demanded
to have McDonald's. The second day in Fribourg, my
brother and I demanded to have McDonald's. The third
day in Fribourg, my brother and I demanded to have
McDonald's and so on and so on. In the entire month
that we were in Switzerland, we must have had three to
four entirely McDonald's-free days. My brother and I
were like hopeless moths drawn to the flame of the
inescapable golden arches.
I still don't understand
what they put in their food that has millions of kids
across the globe developing hamburger addictions a
million times worse than Keith Richards's dependence
on cigarettes and Jack Daniel's.
After a month or so, we left Switzerland for our
interview in Athens. It was August in Athens and that
meant it was 110-degrees and horrifically humid. Our
first lesson in Greek hospitality came when we took a
taxi from the airport to our hotel which cost us 1000
drachma. We thought it was a bit expensive but we
didn't know the cost of a typical taxi ride so we
shrugged it off. It wasn't until we took a taxi from
the hotel to the airport and were charged 54 drachmas
that we realized what we had literally and
figuratively been taken for a ride on our first taxi
ride.
Our hotel was very clean and close to the U.S.
embassy which was the stage for
large anti-U.S. demonstrations every god forsaken day
and night. To make matters worse, since we weren't
used to peaceful demonstrations, the first night the
demonstrations were going on my parents quickly took
us upstairs to our room in anticipation of violence
breaking out as it so often did in Iran during
demonstrations. Fortunately nothing happened and we
slowly got used to drifting to sleep while listening
to the enchanting and soothing sounds of incessant
anti-Reagan chants as our lullaby.
The next morning we woke up very excited for our
interview at the embassy and arrived early dressed in
our best clothes. The guards patted us down and let
us go into a large waiting area where we sat by a very
nice Iranian lady who asked us about our case.
Immediately upon finding out about our case, this "nice" lady
began cussing like a sailor at the woman in charge of our case
who apparently, according to
this nice lady, was Hitler reincarnated. She filled
our heads with stories of how unconscionably
unsympathetic this shell of a human being was and that
we might as well pack our bags and go home.
So there we sat for the next few hours marinating in a
pool of anxiety and self-pity over having gotten stuck
with the Hitler lady on our first try at a Green Card.
After losing about five pounds sweating over our
fate, our name was finally called and we were ushered
into a small room. This woman in charge was an
African-American woman who only cared about the facts
and had little patience for long-winded and rambling
responses. Anybody who knows my dad can attest to the
fact that he's been known to ramble a little when he
gets nervous and seeing that he was the only one who
spoke English between the four of us, it didn't bode
well for our chances.
Anytime my poor dad wanted to explain something in
detail in his broken English, she would cut him off
impatiently and tell him to get to the point. My dad
would then get even more nervous and ramble and
stammer even more while sweating profusely in search
of words in his limited vocabulary. It was looking
like an absolute disaster. My brother and I were
holding our heads in our hands while listening to this
train wreck of an interview.
For some inexplicable
reason, however, this lady took to my dad and his
unorthodox way of presenting our case and eventually
explained to us that she would agree to let us go on
to the U.S. but that there happened to be one small
problem. Apparently, the person who had issued our
Iranian passports had misspelled our last name. He
had dropped a "y" from our last name and if we wanted
to correct the mistake, we had to go back to Iran to
get that taken care of.
My dad asked if there was
anything possible for us to do to somehow resolve the
issue to which she sarcastically replied "you could
change your last name." To her surprise it took us
two seconds to agree to change our last name. At that
point we didn't care as long as we wouldn't have to go
back to Iran. We would have adopted the interviewer
lady's last name if it meant that we wouldn't have to
go back to Iran. So with that, the gigantic Jazayeri
clan developed an offshoot by the name of Jazaeri and
we honestly could not have cared less.
Once we received our documents we headed to the US for
our final leg of our trip. >>> To
be continued >>> Index
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