Day 327 - Christmas Around the World, Part I

I always found a way to celebrate Christmas while I lived overseas, although I often had to do without the little things that I associate with that holiday. Little things like Christmas trees. And lights. And lefse. And while my biological family was not with me for any of my around-the-world Christmases, I usually had a stand-in family until I got my own family - Alex and his son.

Iranian Christmas Tree

My first Christmas in Iran was colder and bleaker than many I had spent in Minnesota because my roommate Annie and I had moved from our second floor apartment above our landlord's home to a third floor unit in a building with nine apartments. That apartment had central heating, but that didn't mean it was warm. In spite of all that I had learned in science classes about heat rising, the heat in that building seemed to hover right around the ground floor.

There was a doctor's office in the ground floor and we understood that the doctor wanted the temperature in his office to be comfortable for his patients. I don't recall what his specialty was, but it seemed to Annie and me that his patients must not have had to take off many clothes to be examined. Our apartment was so cold that I used to keep my clothes on the top of the bedclothes so I could drag them under the covers in order to dress to avoid having to put my feet onto the cold floor.

We had no tree that first year. Instead, a small evergreen plant that a boyfriend who turned out not to be so reliable had given me served as our holiday tree.

The second year in Iran, Christmas coincided with the most inexplicable Shi'ite holiday of them all, Ashura. That meant everything was closed for Christmas: restaurants, theaters, night clubs, everything that might be construed as providing entertainment. We could get together in our homes, but we had to be careful not to be overheard. I also learned about the difference in the Orthodox calendar which is about two weeks behind our calendar. So while Christmas coincided with Ashura for us, there was another opportunity to observe Christmas just around the corner, on January 7.

I spent that Christmas with my surrogate family - Patty, Cheryl, Neal, Shirley, and Maureen. There may have been others there as well, but those five were the core for me. We exchanged gifts, but mostly for the fun of watching one another open them. For example, Patty received a bottle of White Out because we all knew her alter-ego, Patty Black, who appeared after a few drinks and whose tongue had an acid edge to it. But we loved both Patties and had a good laugh when she opened the package.

by  Resident on Earth 

The following year, I was in Romania where it seemed inevitable that all the foreign lecturers would go somewhere else for Christmas and New Year. Since two of my friends from Iran, Bill and Shellagh, were living in Paris, that is where I headed. Some may claim April is Paris is the best time to be there, but Christmas in Paris is pretty magical.

I saw the Eiffel Tower, Cathédrale Notre Dame, la Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, Musée du Louvre, Château de Versailles, Centre Georges Pompidou, Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, all on the list of the top 10 must-see sights of Paris. Another couple from Iran joined us for Christmas dinner, extending my pleasant experiences of Iran and helping me push away the unpleasant memories.

Next stop: Germany. While Christmas in Paris was magical, Christmas markets in Germany are enchanting. They are a little like a carnival fair with plenty of hawkers selling items such as scarf rings, hand-held vacuum cleaners, and silver polish, but there are so many wonderful and colorful things to see and food and drink to smell and consume that the commercial side isn't distracting. Since my household effects hadn't arrived yet by Christmas, I didn't have my usual Christmas decorations to put up in my apartment. After a couple of afternoons wandering through the Christmas market, I decided I had to have a tree. I bought a very small pine tree and then stocked up on wooden ornaments from the market to fill it with jewels.

by  mv_touristboard  I also was introduced to the Wichtel, Germany's secret Santa, although sometimes a Wichtel is known to play tricks, not just give gifts. My Wichtel must have known my household effects hadn't arrived because I got more and more ornaments for my tree throughout the days leading up to Christmas, My second Christmas in Germany was spent in England where friends from Romania, Gayle and Roger, lived. In addition to getting an introduction to life in England, Gayle and Roger introduced me to their other houseguest, a teacher from China on an exchange program in England for a few months. Having her with us as we traveled in their neighborhood was a good balance for my observations. Every time I noticed something, such as how small many of the homes in England are, she observed the opposite from her Chinese viewpoint, that homes in England are large. She helped keep things in perspective.

Roger let Gayle and me pick out the Christmas tree that year. We got one just the right height, but it had a kink not noticeable from the angle we looked when picking it out, making it lean over ever so slightly.

PJ and Heather in front; Sandra, Zofia, Pete,
and Marge in back

My first Christmas in Doha was spent with my surrogate family in that country: Pete, Zofia and their children PJ and Heather, and Marge. We played Pictionary and I couldn't believe how well those kids understood one another without words. PJ would scribble something on a paper and Heather would announce the word on the first guess. If they were cheating, I never figured out how.

By the second Christmas in Doha, I had met Alex, but he flew back to England to be with his son. I knew they planned to travel through Scotland so when I heard about Pan Am Flight 103 crashing over Lockerbie, I was frantic to know where they were. Alex didn't think to call to let me know they were fine, although on Christmas Day when I was at the house of our friends Alex and Jean, he called five times just to be sure I was OK and we were having a good time.

That's what happens when a telephone guy goes on vacation - he makes phone calls home all the time, except when I want to hear from him.

Day 193 - The Power of Advertising

John, Patty, and Paul

One of my colleagues at NIRT in Tehran, Paul, brought his partner, John, with him. John had been in advertising in Los Angeles. He never stopped thinking like a marketer while in Iran.

For example, we all noticed that the Kleenex-equivalent (what is the generic term for Kleenex? It isn't tissue paper.) didn't come out of the box just one tissue at a time. Pulling out the top tissue usually brought four or five more at the same time. So John envisioned a commercial with two people sitting at a counter, facing the camera, with a box of tissues in front of each, one a box of Kleenex brand tissues and the other a box of the Iranian version. Both people were about to sneeze, taking a few seconds to wind up the facial expressions, followed by simultaneous grabs for a tissue. The person grabbing from the Kleenex box would get one tissue while the other would pull out a string of tissues. No words required to convey the message: Kleenex tissues are better.

I think of this every time I grab a tissue these days. And while we were still purchasing Kleenex brand, the memory of John's commercial idea reminded of the decline in quality as more and more often I found myself with four or five tissues in my hand, that is, if I didn't have to break the connection to the box itself. If the U.S. still had any commercial relationship with Iran, I would suspect that the product was being manufactured there. But the box still says Kleenex tissues and boxes are manufactured in the U.S. from foreign and domestic recycled paper for Kimberly Clark LLC of Neenah, WI. Maybe it's the foreign recycled paper that has contributed to the decline in quality.

Large Kleenex box with sides folded to
half its height.

Large Kleenex box before sides are folded.

We used to buy the big boxes which work better when they are full than when they are oniy half full. I even figured out a way to fold the long sides of the boxes in half and then the bottom half again - the beginning of a Fibonacci sequence - so I could fold the box to half its height, bringing the tissues at the bottom close enough to the top to be able to pull them out. But they still don't come out just one at a time.

We recently switched to Puffs brand because the box design is different. Puffs boxes don't pretend they will deliver just one tissue at a time. They offer a big enough opening to allow reaching in to pick out the top one is possible.

But soft paper tissue boxes are just one illustration of John's marketing thinking. John didn't just think about possible commercials, he knew how to build suspense before revealing his message. For the next example, I need to remind you all of some of the things I loved about Iran snce it has been so long since I wrote anything about it.

One of the things I loved about Iran was the food. Rice and bread are staples of the Iranian diet. When the rice was prepared without anything mixed in it, with a sauce poured over it, it is called chelow. When the rice is prepared with meat or vegetables or fruit in it, it is called polow, the Farsi equivalent of a more familiar word, pilaf.

There were three types of bread in Iran: lavash, barbari, and sangak. In the most typical of Iranian restaurants, chelow kebabis, the rice and lamb kabobs are most often served with broiled tomatoes and lavash bread that can be used to wrap around the rice and meat to eat it.

The guideline for preparing an Iranian meal called for one uncooked cup of rice per person. And since Iranian rice cooks up to three to four times its uncooked volume, that means each portion was a lot of rice. It is like being served a caserole for a family of four. Iranian students in the U.S. couldn't believe how little rice they were served in Chinese restaurants just as we Americans couldn't get over how much rice we were served in Iran.

John was a very particular eater. He had limited dietary preferences, so when he told us that he had discovered an Iranian delicacy that he loved and that he was learning how to make, we were delighted. He volunteered to bring it to a dinner at Neal and Shirley's house. When he and Paul arrived, John rushed in with a tray covered with aluminum foil, explaining that the dish had to be kept in the refrigerator until just before serving it. Neal made room in the refrigerator for the tray and then John and Neal joined the others in the living room.

When it was time to sit at the table for the meal, John brought the tray to the table and removed the foil, revealing colorful cubes on bamboo skewers. He had brought jello kebabs.

Day 191 - Afghanistan, Iran, and Yemen

This video arrived in my Facebook news feed through Upworthy today. And it really made me think.

It made me think of the things about Iran that I loved, you know, on those days - every day - when I loved something and hated something on the same day. There are so many similarities between the scenes in this video of Afghanistan and the scenes of my every day life in Iran. The hats that the construction workers who stacked and mortared the bricks in arches between iron I-beams to give strength to the ceilings were the same hats as many of the men in this video are wearing. You know, the ones that look a little like a beret with a ring of fat caterpillars as the brim. The orchards serving as the child's playground reminded me of the lush gardens of roses in parks and behind nearly every wall that surrounded the houses in town. The women weaving rugs look just like the images of women and children weaving the elaborate designs into the carpets we bought in the bazaar. And the food - eaten with flat lavash bread, just like what we got in Iranian restaurants outside of Tehran, where there weren't so many options for western food.

The mountains at the beginning of the film reminded me of my trips to the Caspian through the Alborz mountains. The turquoise tiles on the mosque in the background reminded me of the mosques and buildings from the Safavid era in Isfahan and Shiraz.

The film made me think of the things about Yemen that I loved - every day, without the burden of competing things to hate. In spite of the bad reputation Yemen has currently, I loved every day I spent there because the people I met there, including lots of anonymous Yemenis who may have been able to guess that I was with the U.S. embassy, but couldn't possibly be sure, were unfailingly kind to me. They smiled, just as the people in this film - men, women, children - smiled. The images of young boys in this video reminded me of the boys who surrounded my car whenever I went shopping for groceries, always with their hands out, looking for whatever I could give them. I had been told I should just point upwards when they approached me, to indicate that Allah would take care of them. One boy who had told me his name was Saddam, responded to my upward pointing finger by pointing downward, towards his feet. When I leaned out the window of my car to see what he was pointing at, I saw that his toes touched head on, the most extreme case of pigeon-toed-ness I had ever seen. And still he was smiling at me.

The image of a man riding a donkey weighed down with his crops on a dusty country road, followed by the scene of three men riding motorcycles through a cityscape reminded me of the feeling I had every day in Yemen that I was experiencing a living museum - examples of nearly every century from the year of the birth of Christ until today appeared before my eyes whenever I traveled around the country. The Old City of Sana'a, a UNESCO world heritage site, was not set aside to be preserved as it was to be an exhibit for tourists. It was a place where people lived in the multi-storied, mud, stone, and brick structures just as their ancestors had done for centuries. It was a place where people worked, selling goods, making goods, baking bread, making available to the people, not just the tourists, what the people needed.

It made me think of the conversations I overheard in the office of National Iranian Radio and Television in Tehran between two colleagues who had visited Afghanistan. The two used the same words to explain why one loved the place and another hated the place. They used the same words, words like there was no electricity so we had to eat our meals by candlelight. One used those words to express how primitive, and therefore distasteful, she found the place. The other used those words to express the joy she found there.

It reminded me of the Afghan students who came to Tehran to study at NIRT's College of Television and Cinema and were told they had to complete a Farsi as a Second Language course before they could attend the classes, most of which were offered in English. The Afghans spoke better English than almost all of the Iranian students. And their native language was Dari, a language that does not differ significantly from Farsi, the two languages being mutually intelligible.

The call to prayer, just a few seconds in the film, reminded me of all the days I spent in Iran, in Qatar, in the United Arab Emirates, in Yemen, as well as my visits to Bahrain, to Oman, to Saudi Arabia, to Jordan. Initially the call was such a foreign sound that it reminded me that I was the foreigner, that I was encroaching on the land of others. But over time, the call became a reminder that I was surrounded by so many believers who did not try to impose their beliefs on me, who allowed me to worship - or not - and who only asked in return that I not try to prevent them from worshiping as they were taught. I was, after all, in their countries, in their environment.

And the man with the piercing blue eyes at the midpoint of the film served as a reminder that the west has left its imprint on these lands even before the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began.

Day 170 - It Isn't Personal, It's Just Business

Image of office by Ben Ramsey, via Flickr.com

Iranian businessmen who applied for visas to travel to the U.S. to develop their businesses had a very difficult job convincing consular officers in Germany that they were being truthful. It isn't that lying is grounds for refusal of a visa application, but certain lies make it impossible to assess a case.

Like for those applying to study in the United States, I had trouble understanding why Iranian businessmen or businesswomen would choose to establish a trading relationship with a business in the United States. Until October 1987, the trade embargo prohibiting trade between the U.S. and Iran was limited to weapons and aircraft, but given the troubled relationship between our two countries, the long-term prospects for vibrant trade relationships were very dim.

Most of these applicants brought invitations from their U.S. contacts inviting them to come to the U.S. for further discussions. Some of these letters looked like they could be legitimate. They were on letterhead paper, were prepared on word processors or at least on electric typewriters. And the invitations appeared genuine. It was the intent behind the letters that was still suspicious.

The invitations were never from big, well-known companies. They were always from small companies and we suspected they were all businesses set up by Iranian friends or family members of the applicants. Most of them were signed by Iranian sounding names. I don't think I ever found one of these cases convincing, so I am sure that I denied them all. And yet more like them kept on coming in.

One of the things about issuing or refusing visas is that it is impossible to know if the decision was the right one. Someone who is issued a visa walks away happy - whether that person should have been issued one or not. And someone who is refused a visa walks away unhappy - again whether the refusal was right or wrong. But someone who is refused a visa often refuses to accept the decision and continues to stand at the interview window, trying to reopen the case instead of walking away. Iranian applicants, especially those who claimed they were traveling for business, were the most difficult to convince there was no point in continuing the discussion. Sometimes the only way we could get them to walk away from the window was to do that on our side first - walk away to make it clear there would be no further discussion.

I learned a better way to refuse a visa to an Iranian businessperson when Shireen (not her real name - I wouldn't be able to remember the real name of a visa applicant if my life depended on it) presented her application and the usual affidavits about her ties to Iran and her wealth, as well as her invitation from a New York company for her to come to discuss a business venture.

This letter was the worst example of an invitation I had ever seen. It may have been on letterhead, but that was about the only business-like aspect of it. The letter was typed on a manual typewriter, with all the misalignments of capital letters that are typical of manual typewriters. The letter had lots of typos, misspellings, wrong word choices, and incorrect grammar. But the error that caught my eye that made keeping my composure at the window a challenge was in the signature block. The name was a Hispanic-sounding name, a curiosity since most such letters didn't try to hide the Iranian behind the invitation. But the title of the Hispanic-sounding name, typed under the name was "Wise President." I looked at it and looked at it, trying to figure out just what a Wise President is until I said it aloud. And then I understood. Farsi has a "V" sound, but no "W". The two English letters were often confused since anytime an English word started with a "W", it was usually replaced with a "V". Whoever had typed the letter had just reversed the subsitution and then corrected the spelling of Wice to Wise.

I asked the applicant to take a seat while I did some research. I had to walk away from the window in order to keep myself from laughing. When I got myself together, I called her back and told her that I was very sorry, but I could not issue a visa to her because I couldn't take the invitation she had presented seriously. I pointed out to her that the letter had so many errors in it, I couldn't believe that it was from an actual business. And the response from the applicant stunned me.

She looked at me straight in the eye and thanked me for letting her know that the business didn't appear to be reputable. She thanked me for saving her the time and money she would have spent pursuing the trip. And at that point, she turned around and walked away.

The light bulb went on. Iran is a shame-based society, not a guilt-based society. All I had to do to get Iranian applicants to accept my refusal was to give them an explanation that allowed them to save face. Life at the interview window got a little easier after that day.

Day 169 - School Days

Image of student by Hossam el-Hamalawy,
via Flickr.com 

One group of Iranians who were very difficult to make decisions about were those who wanted to go to the U.S. to study. The first criteria any applicant had to meet was to overcome the presumption that they were intending immigrants. This was always difficult for students who were applying outside of their home country because of the length of time they would have to remain in the U.S. to complete their studies and because of the age of most prospective students. But for Iranians, it was always a mystery that they would choose to study in the U.S. if they didn't intend to stay. Why would a young adult select a school in the place that was the equivalent of the lion's den to spend 4 to 6 years if they intended to return to Iran at the end?

One applicant that was particularly troubling for me was a man I'll call Farhad. He planned to study nuclear physics. At the time, there were no stories in the media about Iran having a nuclear program, so that wasn't my concern. But the thought of what it might mean if he did study in the U.S. and then return to Iran was my concern. But instead of just denying his application on the basis that Farhad had not convinced me he intended to return to Iran at the conclusion of his studies, I kept asking him for more information. His case was the one that my boss used to help me understand I would never have all the relevant information and that was OK. It was the applicant's responsibility to make his case. If he didn't, then I should deny the visa.

Because we were interested in identifying any of the Iranians involved in the taking of the staff of the embassy in Tehran as hostages in 1979, we ran additional checks on Iranian applicants who were within the age range that the hostage takers would be. We also had to run the same additional name check on any Iranian who planned to attend university in the U.S. Instead of recognizing these checks as only applying in the case of an Iranian who appeared to be a good bet for a visa, I initially saw these checks as part of the process of gathering all available information. In Farhad's case, I ran the additional name check to see if that would give me the clear-cut reason to deny the visa. These name checks took several weeks to complete. In the end, I still had no more information about him than I had at the end of the first interview. My boss pointed out that my desire to gather every speck of information was unfair to the applicant because each additional question gave the applicant hope that he or she would get a visa. By spending so much time with this applicant, I was holding out hope to him which would make it harder for him to accept my refusal.

And that is just what happened. After Farhad had waited in Stuttgart for several weeks, I refused his application because I just wasn't comfortable with his plans. He was very unhappy. Several weeks later I saw him still in Stuttgart, probably looking for alternative student options.

Another case that eventually was revealed as a student case was a young man I will call Said who didn't bring a translator because his English was excellent, Said didn't plan to travel to the U.S. to study. He had already finished his university studies and was working. He wanted to travel to the U.S. to visit a family member. He was an exception to the rule in that he didn't pile on lots of other reasons. He just wanted to travel to see the family member.

I asked Said where he learned English because most Iranian prospective students had to attend an intensive English program before they could begin university studies. The fact that his English was excellent was very difficult to understand, especially since I had met a lot of Iranians by then, something Said couldn't possibly have known. Yet Said claimed he had never visited the United States. He claimed he learned English by listening to the BBC.

Said was quite convincing, but the normal name check revealed that there was additional information about him at the consular section in Vienna. I called Vienna and spoke with a consular officer there who said they had added the code for Said's name to indicate that they had requested the additional name check because of his prior years in the U.S. as a student.

So Said was lying to me.

Image by Dyanna Hyde, via Flickr.com

I called him back to the window to ask a few more questions, including whether he had ever applied for a U.S. visa anywhere else. Said said he hadn't. Again, I asked if he had ever traveled to the U.S. and again he insisted he hadn't. But when I told him I had information that he had not only applied for a visa in Vienna two days before, but also that he had been a student in the U.S. for six years, I saw something I don't think I had ever seen before: Said's face fell. He knew he had been caught in a lie. At that point, Said explained that he only had a month off work to travel and when the consular officer told him he would have to wait at least three weeks before he could get his visa because he had been a student in the U.S., he decided he would go to a different consulate and apply again, not admitting to his previous studies in the U.S. He assumed since he had been told he would get a visa in Vienna, but that he had to wait there, he would get a visa right away if he just hid his studies.

But since the consular officer in Vienna now knew Said was prepared to lie to get a visa, he said he would reconsider his decision if Said ever did come back for his visa.

Day 168 - Just Passing Through

Image of Iranian passport by talsafran,
via Flickr.com

The first group of applicants we always interviewed were non-Germans who were passing through Germany on their way, they hoped, to the United States. Most of the Iranian applicants we saw fell into this group. We didn't see as many Iranian applicants as the consular staff in Frankfurt saw. Frankfurt was the furthest west point that Iran Air flew, so only the most wealthy Iranians who desired to get to the west were able to afford to fly there. Most Iranians who wanted to travel to the U.S. only flew as far as Istanbul. The Iranians we saw were further exceptions because they had the means and connections to travel from Frankfurt to Stuttgart. It isn't that the distance between those cities is so great. It is just that most of the Iranian applicants we saw had friends or relatives in the Stuttgart area they could stay with while they waited for their chance to apply for a visa. So they often appeared to have close ties within Germany as well as back in Iran.

In many cities of the world at that time, such as Mexico City, Manila, and Seoul, the number of applicants was so great that consular officers were expected to make a decision to issue a visa or not within 2 minutes. In some of those places people began lining up at the consular section gate the night before, sleeping on the sidewalks to keep their place in line. To avoid both the physical threats and risks to the applicants and the poor publicity such scenes brought to the U.S. presence in those countries, consular sections began issuing interview appointments. Applicants would get their appointments and then wouldn't have to stay in line to wait; they could leave and come back at their appointment time without having to wait in line again. In those cities, applicants who were refused could not get another appointment until a waiting period had passed. Typically that waiting period was 3 to 6 months. That also kept the lines shorter as those who had been refused one day could not come back the next day.

Image of a line by swanskalot, via Flickr.com

But in Stuttgart we didn't have that many applicants. We didn't make interview appointments. And we didn't impose a waiting time before applicants could reapply. Those were all reasons that Iranian applicants who could made their way to Stuttgart to apply.

We had lines outside the gate each morning, but the line didn't begin to form until about the time the consular section opened. And normally anyone who was in line by the time the visa application acceptance hours ended was allowed to remain in line until they reached the window to turn in their applications and learn whether they should wait or could leave and return after 3 p.m. to pick up their passports with their visas. We consular officers remained at the window until we had interviewed everyone who had arrived in response to our invitation for an interview (sent to the interesting applicants who applied by mail) or were deemed to be interesting by the clerk who accepted the applications who were then told to wait until they were interviewed. I didn't get lunch most days and I lost about 30 pounds in the first six months. I called it the consular diet. My body got so used to eating nothing during the day that I rarely was hungry on the weekends.

The Iranian applicants all knew they would be interviewed. Most of them brought their own translators with them. And most of those translators were the friends or family members the applicants were staying with while in Germany.

Because we issued visas to nearly every German applicant who applied for a visa, we ran the required name checks on our applicants before we interviewed them. This wasn't the case in all the consular posts, but it was what I got used to. Often it meant that we were able to pull out previous applications submitted by the same person in the past so we had much more information available than the applicants provided on their current application forms. The name check system also provided us with information in code when the names matched - or closely matched - those for which a file with derogatory information existed. It also probably contributed to my feeling that I needed ALL the information about the applicant's situation before I could make a decision.

Because we knew that Iranian couples often applied separately for U.S. visas, we also ran name checks on the spouses of any Iranian adult applicant. This made it easier to detect when an applicant was lying to us about whether he or she was planning to travel alone or with a family member.

When I interviewed Iranian applicants, I asked the questions in English, if either the applicant or the translator indicated English was the preferred language, or in German which was most of the time. I never interviewed applicants in Farsi. It had been seven years at that point since I had been in Iran and my Farsi was not strong enough to conduct interviews in it. Most days I wasn't sure my German was strong enough. But I did usually understand the answers. I had to restrain myself from beginning to write down the answer in my notes before the translator told me in English or German what the applicant had just said in Farsi. I didn't want to give away the fact that I understood at least some Farsi.

What I did learn from the experience of understanding what the applicants said is that any stories the applicant had fabricated to make his or her case more convincing had clearly been worked out before the interview began. I never noticed a discrepancy between what the applicant answered in Farsi and what the translator reported. I had to rely on my gut reaction to the whole story, not catching someone in a lie at the window.

Most of the Iranian applicants provided at least half a dozen reasons for their travel to the U.S. Most of them did not realize that the more reasons they gave, the more problem they had overcoming the presumption that they were intending immigrants. Instead of providing a single reasonable, justified reason for traveling and then concentrating on why that reason would only require a temporary stay, they piled on the reasons thinking that was the key to being given a visa.

Often, each of the reasons involved providing a piece of paper to document it. If that piece of paper was in Farsi, the applicant also then had to provide a translation. Sometimes those translations caused problems the applicants couldn't understand. One female applicant, for example, provided an affidavit to support her statement that she was the sole support for her children. The document used the Farsi word for "parent" but since Farsi is one of those languages that requires the use of the masculine version of a plural noun or pronoun if it represents a group of a hundred women and just one man, the translator mistranslated the word "parent" as "father." To someone who had only the English translation of the document, the applicant's story sounded like a lie. She said she was the sole support for her children, but the document referred to the children's father. While my Farsi was very limited, I was able to identify that the Farsi word was not "father." And since the rest of the applicant's explanation made sense, I issued her a visa.

Not many Iranian applicants were so lucky.

Day 165 - The Road to the Foreign Service

Interpreter image by xmacex, via Flickr.com

It all started in 1965 when Miss Buslee assigned a research paper on careers we were interested in. At that point all I knew was that I wanted to do something with foreign languages. I had started studying German in ninth grade, the earliest time that foreign languages were offered. The alternative was Latin, but I wanted to study a language that was still being spoken. I would have had to wait a year to begin studying French or Spanish. So German it was.

I was a long way from mastery of German then - still am - but I jumped into the research enthusiastically. I learned about the difference between translators and interpreters. I learned that beyond those two career options, nearly every other career that involved foreign languages involved mastery of something else. In fact, the foreign language part was secondary to whatever that something else was. Even translators and interpreters had to understand the subject matter they translated. A musician wouldn't necessarily have the vocabulary or knowledge to be able to translate a medical or engineering paper.

That led me to explore careers that involved travel where knowledge of languages would be an advantage. That is how I stumbled on information about the U.S. Department of State and careers in the Foreign Service.

As exciting as such a career sounded, however, what I learned back in 1965 led me to conclude it was not likely a career for me. First, there were the medical requirements. Somehow I had gotten the impression that my eyesight was so bad that I would never be hired for certain jobs, as a flight attendant, for example. And the information available in 1965 about the Foreign Service made it sound like only those with perfect vision could get in. And then there was the fact that until 1972, only single women were accepted into the Foreign Service. It was never in the law that women in the Foreign Service who married would have to resign, but it had become practice. In addition, it was practice that only married Foreign Service Officers would be sent to certain countries of the world, including eastern Europe. As a result, after completing that research paper, I put aside any thoughts of a Foreign Service career. I concentrated on other options for using foreign languges and travel. Teaching English as a Second Language was the path still open.

Ten years after completing that research paper, I rediscovered the Foreign Service. Several people I met in Tehran signed up for the written exam, the first step in what was then a several year process of gaining acceptance into the Foreign Service. The written exam was only given once a year, on the first Saturday of December - in every country of the world on the same day. I heard my friends who took the exam talk about how difficult it was. Everyone seemed to know someone who walked out in the middle of it, giving up at that first step.

I was still devoted to the idea of teaching English around the world, so I didn't sign up for the exam while I was overseas. But after a year of living in Romania where my sense of civic duty was heightened after watching the effect of oppressive practices in both Iran and Romania at the same time as I gained first-hand experience with what those working in an embassy did, I decided I had to try to get into the Foreign Service. I loved teaching English, and I loved the travel it offered, but I was not excited by the lack of certainty such a life offered. Both the job in Iran and the Fulbright position in Romania were temporary options. And in both cases, I didn't know that I was going to get them until less than a month before I needed to ready to leave. A position with the federal government that would transfer me from one place to another seemed the perfect solution.

In 1978, I took the written exam for the first time. There were two separate sections that were graded in addition to a written exercise that was only looked at if the candidate passed the other parts. I passed one of the two graded sections, but not the other. So the following year, I took the exam again. That time, I passed all sections. That meant I would be invited to the second round, the oral assessment.

That year, the oral assessment was offered in Minneapolis where I was living. On each assessment day, six candidates are invited to attend. On my day, only five of us showed up.

The oral assessment involved an-hour long leaderless discussion during which we were observed as we each made a presentation in favor of a proposal that the group would have to decide whether to fund. About half way through the exercise, one of the assessors informed us that we had just had the funding cut, so we would not be able to fund all of any of the proposals. We had to decide how to allocate the smaller amount of money. Most of the candidates seemed to think they would only pass if their proposal was funded. But the exercise was about leadership, and clear thinking, and making sound decisions, not winning or losing.

Discussion image by Writers' Centre Norwich,
via Flickr.com

Another segment involved a two-on-one interview. Two assessors asked questions of each candidate to assess critical thinking, experience, social awareness, and all those things that go into what I recall Dad referring to as "common sense," usually spoken in the sentence, "You don't have any common sense." I recall being asked to describe the Brezhnev Doctrine. I was sure I failed when I admitted right away that I didn't know what the Brezhnev Doctrine was. Later I learned that was the best answer I could have given, unless I knew what it was.

The final segment involved writing - the segment that had been part of the written exam the year before was moved to the oral assessment stage instead - and an in-basket exercise. I enjoyed that part, although I didn't score all that well on it. The scenario was that the candidate had just arrived in country and had one day ahead of the first business day to go through the in box of the predecessor who had left several weeks before. The in box seemed full, but in time I learned what was represented as several weeks of work was more like a day's worth of work. I discovered that all the names of all the people mentioned in the documents were non-gender-specific. That meant that any gender biases in the responses were those of the candidates, not those who wrote the exam. From conversations after this section, it was clear the other four that day hadn't noticed this. They all referred to the ambassador as "he" when the name was a gender-ambiguous Chris.

Interview image by Writers' Centre Norwich,
via Flickr.com

I passed that stage as well, which led to two more stages that could occur simultaneously - the medical and security clearances. Only when they were concluded did I learn that my name was on the register, the list of names, ordered by scores, highest to lowest. Names remain on the register for 18 months. The names move up and down during that time, depending on the scores of those added or dropped off later. Only about half of the people whose names go onto the register are offered entry into the Foreign Service. I knew that my name was in the middle third, but I couldn't learn more. Eighteen months passed. My name never came to the top. And so I started the process again. The second time around, the oral assessment was in Chicago. Other details were similar and familiar. I passed again, and the waiting began again.

Twenty years after Miss Buslee assigned that research project, I had succeeded. I was offered a position as a Foreign Service Officer. It was a long road. More than once during those seven years that I actively sought entry into the Foreign Service I answered that question that was typical during annual assessments - where do you see yourself in five years? - with the admission that I expected to be a Foreign Service Officer by then. It probably wasn't a wise way to answer that question, but when the opportunity came for me to accept the position, I felt the two former bosses I had given that response were as excited for me as I was for myself.

Day 154 - Summer Solstice

I am a week late observing Summer Solstice, but it took me that long to give enough thought to pull memories together about how I learned to celebrate that holiday. As the descendant of Norwegian immigrants, from the land of the midnight sun, I should have been observing that holiday since childhood. But it took a move to Iran to learn the joy of celebration.

Our Assistant Director, Dick

The first summer I spent in Tehran, our newly arrived assistant director, Dick, and his wife Sharon, invited us all to their home to celebrate Summer Solstice. They let us know the day would involve lots of food, so much food we wondered how it would all fit into a meal. The start time was early enough for brunch - and that is when we enjoyed a meal in honor of Dr. Seuss, green eggs and ham - guacamole over the eggs made them green. While brunch didn't include all the promised foods, the start time led most of us to expect we would enjoy a pleasant brunch, perhaps a mimosa or Bloody Mary or two, and then wander away in our many separate directions. But we hadn't given enough thought to just what summer solstice is - the longest day of the year. Dick and Sharon had planned for us to observe the whole of summer solstice, not just part of it.

Each time someone took a step to indicate they thought it was time to leave, Dick or Sharon would bring out something new for us to enjoy. In the end, at least some of us ended up staying until sundown.

Sharon with Patty and Robb

Celebrating Summer Solstice with Dick and Sharon marked the point at which I learned how to have a good time. One important element was not to take ourselves too seriously. We played games, the yes/no game and if this person were a . . . game. We went to costume parties. We enjoyed, learned to cook, and then enjoyed again, wonderful food. Dick was able to come up with the list of ingredients for nearly anything he tasted. Then it was just a matter of experimentation to come up with the process to create the dish. I give Dick credit for my comfort with experimentation when cooking in Romania the following year.

Dick and Sharon bought a car in Iran, something none of the rest of us did. It was a 1940's or 1950's vintage sedan, big enough for three of us to sit across with room to spare, the kind of car my parents had to fit all eight of us in it when we drove to Leech Lake for a week of fishing and swimming.

In 1976, the U.S. Embassy contacted Americans in Iran to advise against any public observation of Independence Day, especially since it was the Bicentennial. To keep our celebrating low key, we decided to drive out of Tehran to spend the day. Since Dick had a car, he was one of the drivers. The other cars and drivers were rentals. Since Dick's car was nearly as old as we were, those in more reliable cars promised to keep Dick's car in sight along the way. For awhile, one car stayed behind us. But we were slow, so slow that the follow car passed us. So we decided to play a game. Dick pulled the car over and we waited. It didn't take long for one of the other cars to come back to check us out. When they arrived, we all smiled and then took off.

Of course, karma will be karma. Tne other car passed us and then something did happen to Dick's car. It stopped. And we were stuck. And this time, no one came back for us for a long time. When they did, we weren't smiling. Neither were they.

Somehow, someone got the car started again and we continued on our way, reminded of the boy who cried wolf.

Years later, when I was back in the U.S., I tried to recreate the magic of celebrating Summer Solstice in Minneapolis. I just didn't have the same ability to give the spark of wonderment that Dick had.  Many years later again I was able to attend the party Dick arranged for himself on the occasion of his retirement. Many of the NIRT crowd were there. We had all aged a bit, but Dick still knew how to make sure his guests had a great time.

Day 130 - Romanian Language

When I learned I would be going to Romania, Karl found a Teach Yourself Romanian book in one of the English language bookstores in Tehran. I found it curious that such a book could be found there; I hadn't yet discovered all the connections between Iran and Romania which provided some explanations. The book gave me a head start on learning about the language when I completed my Iran to the U.S. travels.

I learned that Romanian is a Romance language, related to French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, not Russian or other Slavic languages spoken in neighboring countries. Some said Romanian is closer to Latin than the other Romance languages. Since I never studied Latin, I don't have the experience to compare. A joke told about the similarity between Romanian and Italian concerned a Romanian peasant who traveled to Rome and told everyone when he returned that those Italians were so dumb that they spoke Romanian like children.

It was difficult to figure out just how to pronounce Romanian words and phrases, having only a book to read and no audio sources to hear the language. Some of the phrases didn't look too difficult. For example, bună ziua, good afternoon, had only four syllables and more vowels than consonants. I figured it should sound something like "boon-a zi-wa." Likewise bună seara, good evening, looked manageable as boon-a se-yar-a. But the Romanian equivalent of good morning had a lot more syllables and nearly as high a vowel to consonant ratio: bună dimineaţa, where I understood that little tail under the "t" was pronounced as two English sounds: ts. Thus good morning in Romanian was boon-a dee-meen-ee-yats-ah, a mouthful for a non-morning person like myself.

But when I got to the pronouns, I just wasn't sure I could believe the book. I thought it might be a version of Romanian spoken by those of several generations ago, much like the Russian textbook of my college days. Who ever heard of a personal pronoun having more syllables than the noun it represented? English pronouns are all short: I, you, he, she, it, we, they. Not a multisyllabic one among them. But the Teach Yourself Romanian book said the Romanian equivalent of the plural (and "formal" or polite form) of you was Dumneavoastra. That is six syllables! And the single, informal form of you wasn't much shorter, Dumneata, four syllables. I just couldn't believe that Romanians waste that much effort and time on the personal pronoun, you.

On the plane from Frankfurt to Bucharest, I finally met someone who had at least heard Romanian spoken by those living in Bucharest at that time. I decided to test out my theory by asking her to tell me how to say good morning, good evening, and good afternoon as a benchmark of my interpretation of the sounds. She confirmed that I had figured out those phrases fine. Then I asked her about the pronouns, starting with the ones I wasn't amazed at: I is eu (which sounds a lot like the Spanish equivalent, yo), we is noi, he is el, she is ea, all of them short. So I fully expected my semi-native informant to give me short versions of the singular and plural you. But she didn't. She confirmed what the book said, Dumneavoastra was the polite form of you. But the familiar, singular form was often shortened to te, although Romanian has many cases so the spelling varies, depending on whether it is the subject or object in a sentence.

So I learned to roll Dumneavoastra off my tongue when addressing strangers. There was no point becoming too familiar too quickly as I learned many times over in Romania.

But those are future stories.

Day 129 - Getting Ready for Romania

When I made arrangements to pack up my things in Iran so I could leave at the end of the USC program, I didn't know that I would be going to Romania. I was set to return to the U.S. where I expected to land in San Francisco to get my life restarted. My roommate Maureen and I had managed to get flights leaving Tehran going east to allow for stops in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, and Japan before returning to the U.S. by way of Los Angeles where I planned to visit Ed and others from the program now in southern California. I planned to spend three months traveling.

Indonesian statue

But a week after arranging for the packers to come and a week before we were set to leave, I received a telephone call from the embassy in Tehran, telling me that I had been selected for a Fulbright lectureship in Iasi, Romania. The office in Washington, D.C. that handled the arrangements for Fulbrighters in eastern Europe wanted me to go straight back to the U.S. to take part in an orientation program. I decided to skip the orientation and shorten my planned travel from 3 months to 3 weeks, allowing me to spend about four days at each stop and still arrive in Romania on schedule.

That meant a quick rearrangement of what would be packed up. Instead of shipping everything to California, I had to separate things so that some would go to Minnesota and some directly to Romania.  Maureen's things were being packed out at the same time, so we had to keep everything segregated to ensure that Maureen's things ended up heading to Hawaii, some of mine heading to Romania, and the rest heading to Minnesota. The men who showed up to do the packing were not pleased by these complications. In addition, we had been warned that packers in Iran took every opportunity to include anything of weight they could into boxes to increase how much they could charge.

The supervisor of the packers didn't do any packing - he supervised; he looked over everyone's shoulders while they worked and he marked down what was being packed on the inventory list, a fact that I now have a greater appreciation for after having experienced the worst packout ever when we moved from Virginia to California. Once the boxes were full, he closed the lids and taped them shut, and then wrote the name and destination in large letters. He began by writing Maureen's last name on all the boxes, but with "Mr." in front of it. I pointed out that not all of the boxes were for Maureen, He crossed off Maureen's last name and replaced it with mine, still with "Mr." in front of it. I pushed a little further, pointing out that it would not be accurate to ship my boxes to Romania for Mr. Wenner since there wouldn't be a Mr. Wenner at the other end. With a flourish and a not so friendly look on his face, he marched over to the boxes and added an "s" after "Mr." I decided it wasn't worth the effort to point out that there wouldn't be a Mrs. Wenner in Romania either. At least the last name and gender were correct.

Because I missed the orientation session, my information packet was mailed to Ed's house for me. Ed and I sat on his balcony and read through it. We both found ourselves laughing and reading out paragraphs to one another, paragraphs that made it sound like Romania was going to be a repetition of Iran. It stopped me up short because I was very happy to have left Iran and really didn't want to go to another country that would bring up the same feelings that Iran had. Both countries were governed by autocratic leaders who insisted on the adoration, even if feigned, of everyone around them. Both countries had a reputation for not being able to believe everything people said. Both countries had a reputation for it taking a long time and many bureaucratic hurdles to get things done. I wasn't sure I was going to be any happier in Romania than I had been in Iran.

In the end, I discovered Romania was very, very different. The same words applied in the descriptions of both, but there was a difference in the intensity. More on that later.

Day 128 - Warren Curtis Stewart

JFK airport image by saaby, via Flickr

Warren Curtis Stewart, a man with three first names that also are three last names, came into my life abruptly and remained there only briefly. Introducing him now is a good transition from my Iran days to my Romania days.

I met Curt in New York's JFK airport when I was on my way to Romania, my first trip entirely on my own. There was no one telling me what to do or where to be. I had to figure everything out for myself. I had picked out a matching set of luggage that included a piece advertised as "fits in overhead compartments on most airlines" which I therefore chose as my carry on bag. I also had a purse, a coat, and a hat which I had learned always to wear when traveling in order to get just a tiny bit more respect from the flight attendants than my hatless self seemed to get.  Luggage in those days didn't come with wheels, and I don't recall if I had discovered those collapsible trolleys for luggage. I suspect I was carrying all that stuff around with me from one part of the airport to another, filling in my time between flights.

I dropped something in the middle of a wide corridor and that is when Curt appeared. He stopped and asked if I could use some help. He was in a military uniform, Air Force, I think. It was 1977, not long  after Vietnam ended. And after having lived in Berkeley and San Francisco for nearly six years, my comfort level with the military was pretty low. But he seemed kind and he offered to have me join him in the first class lounge while I waited for my flight. He was the first person I could recall meeting who joined the military during the Vietnam War days and then stayed on beyond his initial enlistment. I had relatives who had joined the military in peace time and stayed in for a career, but that was different. For the most part, I had been surrounded by boys and men my own age who were exploring how to avoid the military, or at least how to avoid combat zones. In response to my question of why he was in the military (a pretty cheeky question I thought) he said he would have been drafted so he enlisted and then decided to make it a career. I don't recall much of our conversation, a likely indication that Curt asked the questions and I happily told him all about how exciting it was to be heading off to Romania, especially after spending the past two years in Iran.

Curt was on his way to Turkey, but I understood it was the military equivalent of a business trip, not an assignment.  With the 20/20 hindsight that many years of working with military members at embassies overseas brings, I wouldn't be surprised now to learn that Curt was in intelligence or military sales, although it was somewhat unusual that he wasn't surrounded by the support entourage in those cases. Military offices at embassies have a minimum of three staffers - the principal, the deputy, and the admin guy (usually) who did all the support work. Even TDY (temporary duty) military members never arrived alone. They were always in pairs or triplets. Maybe Curt was just enjoying the excuse that running into me offered to get away from his traveling companions.

At the end of the wait, he asked if I would write to him because he was curious how I would find Romania. We corresponded for that year, following the same pattern in every letter. We would pose one question to the other in each letter and we would include our own answer to the question in the letter.

When I returned to the U.S. from Romania, he called several times to give me encouragement as I looked for a teaching job. He told me that he had gotten married since we met at the airport in New York. I never saw him again. And when I wrote letters to everyone I knew when I received the offer to join the Foreign Service, my letter to him was one of two that were returned as not being deliverable.

Day 117 - Thanks For the Memories

Shellagh at Takhte Tavoos Office

I missed observing Administrative Professionals Day on Wednesday. Well, I missed observing it in the sense that I didn't do anything to observe it. But since Administrative Professionals Day is my very least favorite unofficial secular holiday of the entire year, I didn't actually miss it. I wish it would be erased from the calendar of days to observe each year.

Other secular holidays like Mothers' Day or Fathers' Day or even Grandparents' Day I understand. I can usually pick out a mother or a father or even a grandparent from a crowd. And even if I make a mistake and assume an adult woman is a mother and she turns out not to be, I can at least be assured that she had a mother so the day has some meaning for her.

But how do you pick out an administrative professional from a crowd? What does an administrative professional look like? 

I've seen restaurants hand out roses to every woman who walked in on Administrative Professionals Day with a "Happy Admin Day" greeting, making at least as many errors by handing roses to women who weren't admin professionals as they got it right. At my office one year, everyone whose desk was in the interior corridor in front of the offices with windows and doors, where the secretaries' desks were, got a plant on their desks on Administrative Professionals Day, including a couple of men whose desks were in that row, although they didn't have the same position titles as the women. At least one was not pleased that the bosses didn't seem to recognize the difference in their titles and responsibilities.

But this year, I am glad for the holiday because it brought to mind the many women who were our receptionists and secretaries with National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT). Each was memorable, some even unforgettable.

Our first receptionist was Shahni, a nickname. Her real name was probably Shahnaz. She was married to an American who came with her to Tehran, but they were no longer living together. Her uncle died shortly after we arrived so we learned a bit about the mourning process in Iran. It was customary for close family members to remain in mourning for 40 days. In Shahni's case, that meant she wore black dresses, some of the sexiest dresses I have ever seen, for 40 days.

When Shahni stopped working for us, Parvin* became our receptionist. She didn't last very long. Her English wasn't very strong. I asked her to write a note for our landlord about the lack of hot water in the kitchen to let him know we needed a plumber. When someone else read her note, he said the verb she used more closely translated to the hot water tap being broken into pieces than not functioning as it should. When we asked her to makes photocopies for us, she never did the work. When we asked her why, she explained that she had looked up the word receptionist in the dictionary and she learned that a receptionist answers the telephone and greets people. That's all she expected to do.

Fereshteh,* the woman who arranged the repair of our washing machine, began when Parvin left. 

Shellagh and Bill

Our first secretary was Mary whose husband probably worked for one of the American oil companies in Iran. It was Mary who invited us all to the Christmas party which led to our adventure on the bus.  Mary and her family left Iran very suddenly. I didn't learn the reason until a few years later when Neal and Shirley came through Minneapolis. I had heard the story generally, but didn't realize that Mary's family was one of those involved. 

An American student at the Tehran American School was arrested for possession of heroin. He was 17 years old, although Iranians considered him 18, and therefore an adult. It took a doctor's testimony that based on his analysis of the boy's X-rays, the boy could not be older than 17 for the court to dismiss the charges against him as an adult. As a minor, the court ordered him to leave the country. Officials at the Tehran American School made it clear to the parents of other students they had reason to believe were involved with drug use that they should take their children out of the country as soon as possible. One of those students was Mary's son.

Jennifer* and Keith*

When Mary left, Shellagh took her place. Shellagh is Australian, married to Bill from Scotland. Bill met Shellagh on a business trip to Australia. Bill worked for IBM in Tehran. Shellagh started working with us when we were still in our office on Takhte Tavoos Ave and she continued when we moved to the space on Pahlavi Blvd where our classes were held after the first year. Shellagh and Bill lived close to several of us so we socialized with them often. When they learned Bill was being transferred to Paris, Shellagh told us she hoped she would be able to find a program to learn French like our program. I continue to hear from Shellagh and Bill each year at Christmas. I was able to visit them in Paris at Christmas when I lived in Romania as well as several other times when I was in Paris on business. Mom and Dad and I also stopped in Paris to visit them on our way home from Romania. When my sister Joan and her family lived in Paris they also met Bill and Shellagh.

Jennifer* began when Shellagh left. Jennifer looked like Valerie Bertinelli and was married to Keith*, whom Karl knew from his days as a Fulbright researcher in Isfahan. Jennifer's parents also lived in Tehran which is how Jennifer met Keith.

This year, to observe Administrative Professionals Day I say thanks for the memories.

*a name, not necessarily the right one