Fiddler

Every Thursday evening a lonely fiddler walks along the Niloufar Avenue, turns into the Ninth Alley and then into our street. All along his route, he plays the fiddle, a sad, nostalgic tune that reminds me of Greece, and of lost love. He stops by the small park square facing a building on the other side and keeps on playing, even if nobody comes down to give him money. He plays on and on, until a moment he only knows and puts down his bow for a bit. As he walks off, his song of a cruel heart starts again: life must carry on.

A conversation

Conversation between Hossein and his brother on the subject of an older male relative, who grew up in Shahrerey (or colloquially, Shabdolazim), their traditional, religious hometown in the south of Tehran but now lives in a classy, westernised and very expensive north Tehran area.

Brother: Mr X (the relative) says that if he doesn't visit Shabdolazim at least once a week, he feels as if he's lost something; he's in love with the place.

Hossein: I know; I'm a bit like that. As soon as the car turns into the Shabdolazim central square, my heart leaps up with joy.

Sofia (aside, thinking of tiny Greek home island of Kassos, in the south Aegean): Lucky them, that the object of their love is within their reach.

Long time no write

Would you believe it's been more than a month since I wrote last? So much for my resolution to make regular postings. My excuses: moving house (at last!), a temperamental, snail-speed dial-up connection, a server that most of the time cannot access the blog for new posts, and Hossein's absence in London since 21 October, which means that I have to do everything, including helping the children with their homework (not easy since my experience of the Iranian educational system is rudimentary).
Oh, since I wrote last, I have become the proud owner of a PO Box in a central Tehran post office. This is no mean feat: the first time I went to ask, I was told there were more than 2,000 applicants on the waiting list. But I wasn't deterred: next time I went in with Hossein, the Problem-solver, who managed to sort one out for me in a matter of minutes. How? Believe it or not, I still don't know how he managed to sway the very same person who told me about the waiting list. Bless him. And just for the record, the address is Sofia A. Koutlaki, PO Box 15875-1937, Tehran, Iran. So now I can take out subscriptions to my favourite magazines.

First snow

Yesterday the first autumn rain fell on Tehran, making the soil exude a long forgotten, earthy smell that brought back memories of my childhood in Athens. After a long, arid summer, the first rain announced the arrival of autumn, of days drawing in and of long hours spent on homework.

The view of the Alborz mountains to the north of Tehran works as a barometer: yesterday morning the peaks were lost in the low clouds, later on the whole mountain range disappeared in the thick haze, while rain fell on the city. When the clouds cleared, a caster-sugar sprinking of snow covered the peaks. The rain continued overnight, and today's dawn revealed a long, white veil of snow that will remain there until next summer.

Never a dull moment

School started on Sunday 23 September. The start has been alright, although things are not as well organised as the one back in England. The special adaptive school Athena and Yusef go to is about a twenty minute drive from home and a special taxi service is meant to take them, which is not quite sorted out yet, so Hossein is ferrying them back and forth.

The children are coping well with the lessons, but they have to do more than they had to do in England, which they don't like a lot. Athena is not very happy because she misses her friends, especially Mona, and there aren't many students she can make friends with, but she's doing well schoolwork-wise. However, they both enjoy spending time with their uncle's triplet girls, who will be three this week, and with their other cousins, so I suppose what you lose on the swings...

We've been rather busy over the last few days: apart from the ongoing preparations and shopping or the new flat, last Friday we went to visit Hossein's grandmother in hospital, before she, sadly, passed away on Saturday. So Sunday was taken up with the funeral, Tuesday with the third-day memorial service, while the seventh-day memorial service is planned for tomorrow, followed by Iftar in uncle's Ali’s house...never a dull moment.

The work in the flat is progressing well. The painting is now well under way, so we hope that by next weekend (Eid) we will be ready to move in at last. We’ve stayed in Shabdolazim for six weeks and in temp. accommodation no.2 for four weeks tomorrow (and counting). I am fed up with living out of a suitcase.

Ramadan

We are now halfway into the fasting month of Ramadan. For the last two weeks Hossein, I and sometimes the children, have been getting up at around 3.15 a.m. to have some food and water before the call to the morning prayer at true dawn, which this morning is at 4.32 a.m. The fasting lasts until after 6 in the evening, but the hardest part of all is the lack of sleep, especially since last Sunday, when school started: by the time we are back in bed at about a quarter to five there's less than two hours' sleep to be had until the children get up for school at 6.45 at the latest. Some concession is made in terms of school hours: school starts at 8 and finishes at 1.30 during the Ramadan, whereas when Ramadan's over, school reverts to normal (7.30-2.00), along with sleep and meal times.

House hunt no. 2

The post on 16 September 2007 is actually an older one, but I felt I wanted to post it anyway because it records my pet whinges about accommodation.
By the way, this blog was meant to be kept up regularly, but many issues conspire against me.
For the last eight weeks we have lived out of three suitcases, and it is not over yet. We stayed in Shahrerey (or Shabdolazim), to the south of Tehran, until Friday 7 September, during which time Hossein and I often travelled to Tehran on house-hunting and got back late at night. Thank God for the two sisters-in-law: Mansoureh, in Shahrerey, who cooked for everyone and looked after our children during these absences, and Mahboubeh, who lives in Abbas-abad, to the north of the centre of Tehran, and where Hossein and I pit-stopped for noon prayers, lunch and quick siesta.

Open brackets here, to explain the rental system in Iran. One way is paying monthly rent, as in the rest of the world; but there is another system, which I have only come across in Iran, that of rahn. The word rahn can be translated as mortgage, but it is not mortgage as we know it. This is how it works: the tenant pays the landlord a lump sum of money, roughly one-fifth of the total value of the property and moves in. At the end of the rental term, the landlord returns the same amount to the tenant, who only moves out upon receipt of the money. This is a useful system for landlords who may run a business or may have borrowed from the bank in order to buy the property, or who can live off the interest of this (often considerable) sum. Up until recently, when the interest rates were high, this option was attractive for many landlords.
A third way is a combination of rahn and monthly rental, which is now increasingly popular. Close brackets.

Ten years ago, we took our flat on a rahn of 5 million tumans (£7,100 at 1997 rates, £2,670 at today’s rates), so we thought that even with the meteoric rise in property prices and the rate change of pound to tuman (700 tumans to the pound in 1997, 1870 today), we would be able to find a flat to rent. Around Abbas-abad, our old neighbourhood, we were prepared to pay a rahn of 70 million tumans (£37,000) but no rent. But because interest rates have recently fallen, many landlords prefer a combination of rahn and rent. The nearest we got to renting a flat was for a rahn of 40 million (£22,000) and a monthly rent of 1 million tumans (£535), but we didn’t want to commit to a monthly rent until we were settled and had a regular income. That was back in early August.

After days of fruitless search, an estate agent who knew Hossein since our last time here showed us a flat whose owner wanted to sell quickly. It was at a very good price, £230 million (£123,000), in a quiet residential street in the area we wanted, looking over to a small park, with windows on three sides of the building. To cut a long story short, we signed on it, and had to sell some other property, including the Shabdolazim flat, to pay for it. But we still haven’t moved in yet, because it is being refurbished, so my hope of being settled in by the 23 September, when schools start, was proven vain.

At least we are now nearer the new flat. On 7 September we moved to temporary accommodation no.2, a small flat in the street next to the new one. This is an improvement on the Shabdolazim flat: it’s to the north of the centre of Tehran, with a view of the Alborz, the mountains to the north of Tehran, and within much easier access to the children’s school. And Hossein can pop in to the new flat and check up on the builders.