Last Saturday, the day after Eid, I flew to Athens to visit my parents. Since no airlines fly directly from Athens to Tehran, I flew via Bahrain. The flight from Tehran to Bahrain left at 5.30 am and got to Bahrain an hour and a half later. Then I had a stopover of over 3.5 hours and another 4-hour flight to Athens.
Athens is cool and pleasant this time of the year; schools opened today, so an unusual buzz of activity reigned in the neighbourhood this morning. I went to my nephew’s school for the school year opening ceremony, but nothing much happened afterwards, so the children were let out half an hour later, to start in earnest tomorrow.
The building housing this primary school used to house my old school. On this site the old building of my school used to be a two-storey aristocratic mansion with a double staircase. This was demolished in the late seventies and a modern building took its place in 1979, when I was in year 10. Despite the new building, my school only remained open for another two years. It closed down in 1981, and all its students were transferred to the state high school across the road.
Today was the first time I went inside the playground after almost thirty years. The two old palm trees I remember since I first crossed this threshold, six years old in sky-blue overalls and lunch box, still stand tall on either side of the school gate.
