I arrived with my wife at Imam Khomeini Airport Tehran for a three week visit. We have some tenuous plans for trips outside of Tehran.
Well, the first trip is planned with a long drive up north to see the Caspian Sea, then a visit to the mountain village of Masoulah.

Tuesday morning, I awake at 7 a.m. for a leisurely preparation of our upcoming trip to the Caspian Sea, more specifically the port city of Bandar Anzali. We leave the house at 9 a.m.

The city of Tehran is always busy with traffic. While Paria’s father, Mahmoud, weaves our way westward, I notice the map and highways seem to be deficient of a numbering system possibly foretelling an interesting navigational experience. Paria has French music playing.
We reach our first city outside of Tehran, Karaj. The rocky terrain hasn’t changed and has a West Texas feel to it. A sleek metro rail passes us by connecting Karaj to Tehran. Traffic is improving.

Ghazvin, our next city, is 80 km (50 miles) away. After a cd of French music, we switch tracks at my request to older Persian music. Paria’s dad is happy. Not sure if

the idea is the smartest as Mahmoud now has his hands off the wheel clapping to the beat and has slowed the car to a snail’s pace.

We stop briefly at a rest stop. Typical of the ones in the U.S. with a gas station, convenience store, bathrooms and a mosque.

Paria takes over the wheel. We soon pass a thermal power plant that attracts my attention with what looks like a few nuclear stacks in the background. I crazily snap pictures as we drive past.

We made it to Ghazvin. The scenery is a touch greener with irrigated crops and grazing sheep. The city of Rasht is 200 km (120 m) away and is our next goal for a lunch stop. The turnoff to Rasht is confusingly closed. I think a sign advising a new exit is ahead. Paria and her father switch places. Bang! We have an Iranian special. Mahmoud decides to go 800 meters (1/2 m) back to the service station by driving in reverse - not on the shoulder, on the highway. Cars whip by obviously familiar with the technique and I wonder about the strain my neck will feel when a

car plows into us. Somehow we make it back to the station, get directions and proceed ahead to the new exit.

After the turnoff, we run through a series of small villages that remind me of Luxor, Egypt.

The highway narrows as we reach the mountains. We are on a three lane highway. Our flow of traffic only has one of those lanes so that means we are lucky to be driving 60 km/h (35 mph) due to 18 wheelers jamming up the roadway.

After a tedious time in the car, we make it to Rudbar and 2 lanes of road for us. Rudbar is a town which suffered through a bad earthquake 20 some years ago and is also famous for delicious olives.

A lake in Manjil looks delicious as we continue our journey - mostly without a/c. Hot and tired is on my menu. The water in the lake looks wonderfully cool and has a slight olive color.

We pass through a toll area but the booths were empty. Iran has a toll system for their public highways. We finally get to Rasht - hot and sweaty. Stopping on the side of the road for a break, I spot a weed or grass with dark, blueberry looking seed.

After getting directions from numerous people, we arrive at the Hotel Kadus.

Paria’s mother, Hamideh, thought the food would be good since it was a nice hotel. The restaurant didn’t disappoint us as all four of us ate a delicious large meal with lots left over for $32. I ordered Zatoon Parvardeh (olives with walnut paste - very tasty), Iranian flat bread, must (yogurt), Chelo Kebab (lamb meat) and all of it was served with a family platter of rice.

After cooling off at the hotel restaurant, we take off for our final destination, Bandar Anzali. The hotel check-in is 4 p.m. (which I think is late) and amazingly when we call the hotel from the road, they tell us our rooms won’t be ready until 6 p.m. Not what any of us hot souls wanted to hear.

Absolutely beautiful - my first glimpse of the turquoise waters of the Caspian Sea. We need to kill some time so we pull into a public beach - separate for families and men. A first for me as in the past I never was able to visit the “family” section of a beach.

I roll up my blue jeans and merrily walk in the cool water. We sit down in a covered eating area for some Iranian ice cream. I had several scoops of mystery ice cream - possibly saffron and pistachio. Delicious!
Enough time went by for us to attempt check in at the Bandar Anzali Inn. The rooms were made ready and soon we were resting in cool, comfortable rooms.

The area and hotel has a 1960’s American feel. the hotel is off the beach a good ways with a path to the sand. No shops, malls or much of anything besides a man with a skinny pony offering rides. Next door to the hotel is a flea market with cheap Russian/Chinese goods. We find a bamboo coaster set for the house at $3. I also look at Chinese backscratchers but pass on them. The evening is topped with a nice meal and we then head for bed.

Iran has been going through more power outages lately and before we could get settled in bed, the power failed. That meant no a/c with the room getting stuffy quickly plus the hotel installed a very bright emergency light in the room. It came on automatically in these situations but oops, there was no way to cut it off if someone wants to sleep. Luckily the power came back on quickly.

We awoke and had breakfast. I had fried eggs for the first time in weeks. Amazing how good something fried tastes. We checked out and headed for the mountain village of Masoulah. I was suffering from the previous day’s hot journey but recovered slightly when we stopped in a small village for these wonderful cinnamon pastries called in Persian - “Kolocheh”. Yes, just like the Czech pastry “kolache”. The Kolocheh came right out of the oven and melted in my mouth. I decided that only social graces would keep me from eating ten of those sweets.

The drive to Masoulah was about 120 km (70 m) and was much more pleasant with luscious green mountains and cooler air. The area reminded me of Northern California, more so in the feel of the place than the looks.

Masoulah is a very popular tourist village. We had trouble finding a parking place. The village is built right into the mountains with a path that weaves through the village so that as a person walks up the various levels, they have to walk on the roofs of the lower buildings. The village had foodstuff and marketable items.

After an hour or so, we needed to head back for the 400 km (250 m) ride. Eleven hours after we first left Bandar Anzali, we arrived in Tehran. Paria’s dad and mom did wonderfully on the trip while the kids, Paria and James, were exhausted.
One week from now, we leave for another trip - south to Esfahan.

by Matlockjames

National Geographic magazine has just published a great article on Iran. To read this article click here or you can download the whole magazine and read the article from page 33 to 63. To download the magazine click here.

Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran

A glorious past inspires a conflicted nation.

By Marguerite Del Giudice

Two Christian pastors have returned to Martinsville after a year and a half of study in Iran, where they set out to learn and build trust and love between the people of both nations.

Husband and wife David Wolfe and Linda Kusse-Wolfe, both Quaker ministers, studied Islam and Iranian culture at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, from January 2007 to May 2008.

There, they found a “very hospitable, very gracious people” and made lasting friendships, Kusse-Wolfe said.

“It was a really privileged look at a society many Americans don’t get to see,” she said.

The trip was an exchange program through the Mennonite Central Committee designed to deepen religious and cultural understanding between the East and West.

“We’ve had deep interest in reconciliation work, so when this opportunity opened up, we leaped at the chance,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Though they are Quakers, not Mennonites, the exchange program is “open to Christians active in their church and committed to pacifism,” she added.

Kusse-Wolfe said they embarked on the trip expecting to “make good friends, do a little traveling and know what it’s like to live in a Muslim republic.”

Wolfe said they also wanted to “get a feel for all the questions we as North Americans ask about Islam. How do people live out what they believe? What does the Quran really say about different things?”

Perhaps the ultimate question is, “How do you live in a world with each other when you have significantly different histories and tradition?” Wolfe said.

“You have to do it. You have to be sociable and respectful and figure out how to get along,” he added. “Even if some of our beliefs are different, we have to find ways to respect and love each other.”

During the exchange, the couple took classes in English about the Quran, Islamic mysticism, Iranian culture and the Farsi language. But the learning didn’t end in the classroom — both were struck by the warmth and hospitality of the Iranians they met.

Before the trip, “we had people ask us, ‘Aren’t you scared to go over there?’” Kusse-Wolfe said. “I’m convinced the (Iranian) people would’ve laid down their lives for us.”

“We never heard an unkind word,” Wolfe said.

The city of Qom has a “significant number” of English-speaking people, Kusse-Wolfe said, especially among university students.

“They would almost immediately invite us home to meet their parents and share a meal,” she said. “There’s a saying in Iran that guests are friends of God. They really understand that.”

Iran is “very diverse,” with communities of Christians, Jewish people and Zoroastrians, Wolfe said.

Every other week, the couple took a train to the city of Tehran for an Armenian Christian church service. The service was in Armenian, but “someone sitting behind us would make notes in English and pop them over back of the pew to us so we could know what was going on,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “It was very kind.”

On the train ride, she added, people often would get up and offer her a seat.

While in Iran, Kusse-Wolfe had to cover her hair and wear a long cloak. The traditional women’s garment is called a chador.

“There’s still a traditional culture where women are the boss of the home and men are the boss of the public domain,” Wolfe said.

The woman’s role in Iran is “very complex,” Kusse-Wolfe said, and they are proud to have much more freedom than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia.

“Under the chador, many women have master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s. We knew female professors and business people,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Visas between the United States and Iran are “extremely difficult to get,” Wolfe said. “We read that only about 300 American visas were accepted last year in Iran. There’s kind of a tit for tat between the countries.”

The couple had to apply for entrance and exit visas. After their experiences, Kusse-Wolfe said, “We’re encouraged now and want to support really aggressive diplomacy.”

For those who cannot travel to Iran in person, the couple put together a PowerPoint presentation from the trip. They spent five weeks in Kansas and Arkansas sharing what they learned with churches and civic groups.

Now, they hope to make presentations locally and give people a better idea of what life in Iran is really like.

“We don’t have positive media images of everyday people in Iran, and most of them are just marvelous human beings,” Kusse-Wolfe said.

Just as many Americans have misperceptions about Iranian people, television has given rise to many stereotypes about Americans.

In Iran, “satellite dishes are illegal, but a lot of people have them,” Wolfe said, which gives them access to American shows. “Think what your perception of Americans would be if your only knowledge came from movies and sitcoms.”

Some people were surprised to find out that the couple — and other Americans — believe in God, Kusse-Wolfe said. But by living their faith, they proved the stereotypes wrong.

“As we practiced our faith and shared with them, that opened a lot of doors. It meant we had integrity,” she said.

Muslims consider Jesus an important prophet, and the people they encountered showed a great respect for the couple’s faith, she added.

Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be “people of the book,” Wolfe said. “They believe that we all worship the God of Abraham, and they are all protected and have a place in Iran.”

“Islam is a great monotheistic faith, very moral and ethical, with a deep sense of community and respect,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “What impressed me was their deep practice of their faith in God.”

Explaining Christian beliefs to their Muslim hosts was educational for the couple, as well.

“We’ve learned from having to explain what we believe,” Wolfe said.

Kusse-Wolfe added, “My personal faith is certainly deeper, more joyful, more trusting now.”

Before the trip, Wolfe was the chaplain at Memorial Hospital in Martinsville, and Kusse-Wolfe ministered at First United Methodist Church.

“We’re significantly different people from having done this,” Wolfe said. “So what does this mean for our ministry? We don’t know yet.”

They do know, however, that encouraging peace and understanding begins at home.

“We could start by loving our Muslim brothers and sisters in our own towns. That would be a huge step forward for peace and friendship,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “Even if we disagree, we simply have to advocate for each other to live in peace.”

By KIM BARTO