Prologue – It floats in the water and it is not a fish … Avoid it at all costs if it is brown and smells bad and you see a guy close by swimming away and looks suspiciously happy …Welcome to Shomal!

There were two great things about summer and growing up in Tehran: No more Emtehane Fasle Sevvom [third trimester / Final exams] or going to school for a while, AND, going to Shomal [slang for Northern Iran]. Spending three whole months by Daryaye Khazar [the Caspian Sea] was the ultimate treat.

The water was delightful, not too cold, not too hot - not too salty not too sweet.

The sun was perfect, not burning hot - not too fading shy, enough for a dark brown tan – as if we needed to get any darker!

The mountains, particularly Ramsar, were gorgeous, not too far, and not too close just about right.

And the beaches … well, the beaches were just that. I don’t remember we ever concerned ourselves with the beaches. A beach in Shomal is what you cross to get to the water, nothing more.

People actually drove on the beach - most carried their day supplies in their cars and drove just feet away from the water, passing by the rest of us as we were playing in the sand. There was always, a car that was stuck in the soft liquid sand – Always – And you would always see some men “Ya-Ali Ya-Ali Konan” [manta-ing or Chanting Ali’s name] trying to push the car out of the soft sand. I wonder how many people are hit by cars on the beach!

We mostly went to NoeShahr and always took OtoBun e Karaj – Paying the Yek Toman [1 toman] toll was always a checkpoint for my sisters and I that we had finally successfully left home, also a reminder that the sibling fights between us has begun. To start with, who was going to pay the toll to the guy who was collecting …

You know how kids sometimes burp grown up stuff to promote themselves that they are adults and grown up? I used to ask my dad if we were going to “ShahreNoe”, pretending that I knew what it was and checked his reactions:
“ Baba, Dareem Meereem ShahreNoe, ManZooram NoeShahr e?”
[Are we going to ShahreNoe, I mean, NoeShare?]
and I loved it when he always, without even looking at me and the smirk on my face said:
“ BachChe, Khodet o En Ghadr loose Nakon – ShahreNoe Chee ye? Jaye Khoobee nist – Adam Inn Harf Ha ro Too Khooneh Jelo Khaharash Nemi zaneh - Dorost Harf Bezan. NoeShahr e.
[don’t be a pest – what ShahreNoe! You should speak such language with your sisters in the room - Speak proper!]
Every now and again, responding to me, he would slip and he himself would repeat ShahreNoe – he would immediately correct himself, saying “AssTaghForAllah” or “LaElahaElLalah”! …

I can still hear the local kids on the coastal road to NoeShahr, shouting off the top of their lungs “Ootagh” [Room] at every passing car, advertising availability of rooms in their homes to be rented out. No reservations were required, no online booking. Just pull up by one, and if you survive being mobbed by a whole bunch of them, haggle a bit and you had your place to stay. Most people generally picked the oldest kid that also meant was the most experienced, and easier to deal with – The much younger ones did not have the authority, or the skills to negotiate the rent and sometimes even more difficult to understand because they only spoke the local dialect. These rentals were like the bed and breakfast Inns, Persian style.

If available, we went to the same place at Khanoom JanNatee, who also had a black dog name Sia [black]. Although her rooms were very clean and very close to the beach, their bathroom, an outhouse, was a “far house” with no lights and a nightmare for a 6-7 year old to go potty at night. One night as I was twisting and turning and my mom didn’t want to walk with me to this “far dark house”, she said “just do it out there behind the room, no one is going to see you” – It is amazing that she didn’t say “To see it!”.

Although proximity helped me to get over my fears to some extend, I was too scared to go to the back of the room - I did it on the ground, next to our room. Although impossible to believe, Sia ate it – It must have been good shit! “BeKhoda Rust Migam”

MahmoodAbad beach was “Rougher” for barefoot ventures and we didn’t go there for the longest time. I liked it because the water was much cleaner and you wouldn’t see someone’s poop floating near you. I also liked it because if I made a sand hill, a lot of times, it would still be there the next day and I could add additional tunnels to it or add little sticks of wood to it and pretend it was a forest on top of the tunnel.

My older sister loved crowds and MahmoodAbad was not crowded – She always made such a big fuss that we had all decided it was better to go someplace that she likes rather than tolerating her negh o noogh [nagging]. My dad always used to say:
“ Agha, na khasteem beReem MahmoodAbad. Een Marzieh Joone maro gereft Baske negh zad! Ahhhh”.
We ended up buying a house there and none of this seemed to matter any more.

BandarPahlavi, a bigger town and the next beach up the road, also had a bad, rocky, “Rougher” beach but we didn’t go there just because of the beach, nor because it was further away. For one, the water was particularly dirty! BandarPahlavi was the only beach where I saw someone’s poop floating near by in the water, and noticed a suspiciously happy guy quickly swimming away – It was fresh out of the oven!
Worse yet, a lot of Jaahels took their Nachmeh [hooker] to BadarPahlavi. You could always find a drunk man or two, again, mostly Jaahels, in the town itself or at the beach. I wonder how the local must have loved and hated Tehrani visitors.

Once, as we were arriving in BandarPahlavi, my dad made a remark to my mom about a woman, walking along the street, that she was a ZaNe Kharab e Ye Tomany! [ a dollar hooker.]

We stopped shortly after, at the store to get food, less than 50 feet from where she was actually standing. After a quick whispering consultation with Mansooree, my expert cousin who is only 8 months older, and getting my younger sister, who is less than a year younger than myself, to agree to lend us money, we ran up to her and started to stare. She was very tall and very skinny, had a white chador with really tiny blue and pink flowers, like the type on my mom’s underwear, which hardly covered her height anyway - she also had a very short very bright pink skirt on underneath.

Mansooree’s mom, my Khale [aunt], had told him that a ZaNe Kharab was someone who showed her Mass to other people and got money for it! Mansooree even knew that this was different than grand ma’s, whose we had seen many times before when she took us to Hamoom [take a bath].

Hers, Mansooree said, would be like one of those green box Shahre Farangs [nickelodeon] which we had once watched in Shabdolazeem [Shah Abdol Azeem – a temple for a Muslim saint] which is also where my grand ma even bought us Ferfereh [whirligig] and JeghJegheh [similar to a squeaky ball but shaped like a cylinder – A squeaky cylinder].

“rika jan boor bazzee beney” [kid, go play someplace else], she told Mansooree, with a strong northern Iranian accent. Mansooree pushed me towards her and stiffing my leg did not help keep me in place. Closer to her now than my comrades, I let go of my sister’s hand, I gulped and extended my arm. In my hand now, I had my panj zar, Mansooree’s char e zar which was doe ta doe zaree and my younger sister’s ye doone doe zaree which she was holding in her 5 year old hand since we had left Tehran hours ago. [5 rials, 2x2rials, and 2 rials]

She looked at me, she looked at the coins in my hand, then she looked at us and said “poser jan, ma ke geda neye” [I am not a beggar]!!!

I replied: “Shahre Farang Daree?”

My sister, as she was sucking her thumb, mumbled “Begoo Ferfereh” [ask her for whirlwig]. The woman reached forward and as soon as she took the money, a big guy came and grabbed her arm and dragged her away. We just stood there and watched her leave with our money. I was holding my sister’s right hand, somehow an automatic protective reflex – She was standing next to me, tightly holding her Aroosak Kachaleh with her left arm close to her chest and as always, sucking her left thumb.

Without taking her thumb out, or without looking at me and as she was looking at the woman leave, she said: “Pool lamo behesh dadee?”

Mansooree said “Mann mass e sho didam – mesl e mal e momOn bozorge gondeh bood” then he said “beh Khaleh migam poole Afsaneh ro beHesh dadee!”
[I saw her private part, it was as big as grand ma’s – I am going to tell your mom that you gave her your sister’s money]

I gave Afsaneh a piece of gum and promised her, as embarrassing as it was going to be in front of all the other boys to take your sister with you, to take her with me to NoonVaii [bakery] when we returned to Tehran. She agreed and nodded, approving the deal, again without taking her thumb out.

I told Mansooree “Agar Beh mamaNam begee bahat Ghahr Mikonam” – Upset that he had lost his 4 rials, he said, “Ghar kon, Beh Darak”.

We ran back to the car – As soon as we got in and my parents returned, my sister, not crying or complaining, simply reporting, told my mom: ”MaaMaan, Bahram Poola ro dad beh Khanoom Shahre Frangy Kharab e Ferfere hash ham Nagereft” [Bahram gave our money to that bad Lady and did not even get his whirlwig] ! The hunt for the bad witch who took our 11 rials is a book by itself – I should make it a sequel to Harry Potter!

… regardless of our final destination, we mostly took Jadeh Kandevon. We waited anxiously for our turn to drive through and loved sticking my hand out to get sprayed by the water dripping from the ceiling. The climax of our trip was always arriving at Chaloos – it was a landmark for my sisters and I, and probably for my mom too, that we made it safe and sound, in one piece, and my dad did not kill us on those narrow, windy, truck packed KanDevan road where we missed Kameeyoons [large trucks] coming from the opposite direction by inches, and in fractions of a second and where everyone FohShe Khaar Maadar Be Ma MeeDad [everyone cursed us] or Nefreen’ed us [omenious wishes also cursed].

Read Part II of The Real Reason Sheep Chew Gum.

 

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