Another long absence: again, after just over two weeks of almost normal life, the pain was back as bad as at the very beginning and suspended normal life again for another eight days. By last Saturday I had become quite fed up with being confined to bed (no, I didn’t tackle War and Peace, as every day I hoped I would be up again).
When I rang the neurosurgeon I had seen about a month ago, he made this extremely wise and encouraging comment: “Until you lose all the excess weight you carry, there is nothing else to do except bed rest”! Easiest thing in the world, to lose about forty kilos lying in bed. I gave up on him.
Then two friends of mine gave me the addresses of another two neurosurgeons. The first one painted a very serious picture of my condition and opined that the only option open to me now is surgery. He only operates in a modern private hospital; my operation would necessitate possibly two nights’ stay, it would be done microscopically leaving only a 3 cm scar and the whole thing would cost about 50 million rials (about £2,800). Piece of cake.
The second doctor absolutely ruled out the possibility of operation: considering my physical condition it would be too risky. He prescribed different medicines and physiotherapy. I have now had three sessions, with seven more to go, and I must say that thankfully I now feel much better.
Deep down I always mistrust doctors, especially where money is involved; the visit to the first one confirmed my suspicions.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
People's Good Prayers (Du'a-ye Kheir)
Since the latest entry, my back condition has been improving slowly; on some days I feel better than others, and generally I need to rest more than usual, but on the whole it’s been a great improvement from the excruciating pain of three weeks ago. After a rough night during which I stayed up with leg pain, I received a telephone call from a friend, a female theologian I met last year when I attended her class on religious rulings. She was in Mashhad, visiting the shrine of the Holy Imam Reza; she knew that I had been unwell and rang to say that she was in the courtyard of the shrine facing the golden dome, waiting for the call to prayer and praying for my health. Then she told me to say a prayer myself and turned her handset towards the shrine.
I have only been to four or five of her sessions, and seen her maybe another two or three times, but she had the kindness to think of me in my pain. When people ask me (quite often) why I left England to come and live here, I think that it is these little thins that matter in my life among the Iranians.
I have only been to four or five of her sessions, and seen her maybe another two or three times, but she had the kindness to think of me in my pain. When people ask me (quite often) why I left England to come and live here, I think that it is these little thins that matter in my life among the Iranians.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Up for Air
This time I have broken all records: I've been away from the blog, and, I feel, lost to normal life, for four whole weeks.
On the Friday after the wedding described on the previous blog, I got a pain down my left leg, as I have had before on a couple of occasions previously. I thought it would get better in a couple of days and I carried on with normal life, although I missed my Arabic class on Saturday morning, just in case. On the Tuesday, I taught my English class, but by the evening the pain was almost unbearable. Contrary to expectations, it kept getting worse.
My GP prescribed three days of complete bed rest and strong painkillers, but after three days it was getting worse. Another three days of complete rest brought no result: I was only able to sleep on my right side in the embryonic position; getting up brought excruciating pain. Eventually I went for an MRI test: nothing much, except "evidence of disc regeneration at several vertebrae, a slipped disc lower down bringing pressure on the leg nerve." (Otherwise all right? as Basil Fawlty would say).
To cut a long story short, another fourteen days of complete bed resulted in four weeks of total disruption of normal life. Classes cancelled, sisters-in law pitched in to cook after hubby left for London twelve days ago. Only in the last couple of days have I been able to stay up a little longer and do bits and pieces around the house.
The silver lining, though, has been that I've been able to catch up with a lot of reading I've been meaning to do for a long, long time but I never had the chance. Starting from the classics (Northanger Abbey), I moved through Graham Swift (Waterland, Out of This World, Last orders), A S Byatt's Possession, Tracy Chevalier's The Virgin Blue, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Irene Nemirovski’s Suite Francaise. I also revisited my E M Forster favourites A Room With A View and A Passage to India, as well as Umberot Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
I stopped short of War and Peace, which I am saving for another crisis.
On the Friday after the wedding described on the previous blog, I got a pain down my left leg, as I have had before on a couple of occasions previously. I thought it would get better in a couple of days and I carried on with normal life, although I missed my Arabic class on Saturday morning, just in case. On the Tuesday, I taught my English class, but by the evening the pain was almost unbearable. Contrary to expectations, it kept getting worse.
My GP prescribed three days of complete bed rest and strong painkillers, but after three days it was getting worse. Another three days of complete rest brought no result: I was only able to sleep on my right side in the embryonic position; getting up brought excruciating pain. Eventually I went for an MRI test: nothing much, except "evidence of disc regeneration at several vertebrae, a slipped disc lower down bringing pressure on the leg nerve." (Otherwise all right? as Basil Fawlty would say).
To cut a long story short, another fourteen days of complete bed resulted in four weeks of total disruption of normal life. Classes cancelled, sisters-in law pitched in to cook after hubby left for London twelve days ago. Only in the last couple of days have I been able to stay up a little longer and do bits and pieces around the house.
The silver lining, though, has been that I've been able to catch up with a lot of reading I've been meaning to do for a long, long time but I never had the chance. Starting from the classics (Northanger Abbey), I moved through Graham Swift (Waterland, Out of This World, Last orders), A S Byatt's Possession, Tracy Chevalier's The Virgin Blue, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Irene Nemirovski’s Suite Francaise. I also revisited my E M Forster favourites A Room With A View and A Passage to India, as well as Umberot Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
I stopped short of War and Peace, which I am saving for another crisis.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Village Wedding (1)
For a long time I had wanted to see a village wedding and compare mentally its customs to those of Iranian city weddings and those of my native island of Kassos, Dodecanese, Greece. My chance came last Wednesday when we were invited to a wedding of a distant relative in a village outside Ab-yek, in the province of Qazvin. The wedding invitations were delivered by the groom himself about a week before the wedding. Unlike city wedding receptions which take place in especially hired reception halls between 7 and 11 pm, this invitation mentioned the timing as 4 pm until the end of the celebration.
We set off from Tehran at 3 pm and, after taking a wrong turn, arrived at the village at about 5.20 pm. As we drove into the central maidan (square) of the village, the honking of car horns and the smoke of wild rue on coals (against the evil eye), filled the air. As it happened, a couple of cars ahead of us followed the bridal car to the groom’s house. According to the village custom, the bride’s and the groom’s families hold separate celebrations: the bride’s family hold a celebration and dinner the night before the wedding, called hanna-aqd, and another one on the following morning followed by lunch and finishing in the afternoon. Then the bride leaves her paternal home for the groom’s house, where the celebration of the groom’s family takes place. Since we are related to the groom’s family, this is the feast we were invited to.
The groom’s family has three sons. When the first one got married, a house was built along the large yard next to his paternal house. In preparation for this, the second son’s, wedding, another house was built next to the other two and the yard was extended and enclosed. Building work is about to start on the third son’s house on another side of the yard, so eventually the parents and the three sons and their families will all live in one residential compound. The family also has four daughters, but they have married and moved away.
The favoured mode of residence, in this area at least, is patrilocality: since the husband provides the accommodation, married women move to their husbands’ villages), Patrilocality is generally common in Iran and, as far as I know, in most parts of Greece, especially the mainland. However, interestingly, in my native island of Kassos, in the southern Dodecanese, the father of the bride provides the accommodation of the married couple, so the groom moves to the bride’s village (matrilocality).
More on other similarities and differences to follow soon.
We set off from Tehran at 3 pm and, after taking a wrong turn, arrived at the village at about 5.20 pm. As we drove into the central maidan (square) of the village, the honking of car horns and the smoke of wild rue on coals (against the evil eye), filled the air. As it happened, a couple of cars ahead of us followed the bridal car to the groom’s house. According to the village custom, the bride’s and the groom’s families hold separate celebrations: the bride’s family hold a celebration and dinner the night before the wedding, called hanna-aqd, and another one on the following morning followed by lunch and finishing in the afternoon. Then the bride leaves her paternal home for the groom’s house, where the celebration of the groom’s family takes place. Since we are related to the groom’s family, this is the feast we were invited to.
The groom’s family has three sons. When the first one got married, a house was built along the large yard next to his paternal house. In preparation for this, the second son’s, wedding, another house was built next to the other two and the yard was extended and enclosed. Building work is about to start on the third son’s house on another side of the yard, so eventually the parents and the three sons and their families will all live in one residential compound. The family also has four daughters, but they have married and moved away.
The favoured mode of residence, in this area at least, is patrilocality: since the husband provides the accommodation, married women move to their husbands’ villages), Patrilocality is generally common in Iran and, as far as I know, in most parts of Greece, especially the mainland. However, interestingly, in my native island of Kassos, in the southern Dodecanese, the father of the bride provides the accommodation of the married couple, so the groom moves to the bride’s village (matrilocality).
More on other similarities and differences to follow soon.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Memorial
Walking through Navarinou Street in Central Athens yesterday, I stumbled upon a makeshift memorial: tied on a scaffolding with a white ribbon was a bunch of wilting flowers, with a short message: "Our beloved Dad, you left your last breath at this spot. We will never forget you, your daughters."
Around the spot, stylish coffee shops were just opening and expensive boutiques advertised their wares. Life carries on.
Around the spot, stylish coffee shops were just opening and expensive boutiques advertised their wares. Life carries on.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Athens, and my old school
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.
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.
A Taxi driver with a difference
Last Friday was Eid Fitr, the feast celebrating the holy month of Ramadan. During this time the schedule of normal life was disrupted, hence my longer than usual absence from this blog.
I have written elsewhere about Tehran’s taxi drivers: some are polite, others grumpy, some talk a lot, others only exchange laconic words with their passengers, but most share a stoic attitude towards the city traffic, which can often drive you crazy.
But one particular taxi driver must stand out. His taxi follows a set itinerary (see Among the Iranians) between Haft Tir Square and Seyed Khandan Bridge, near my house. I stood by the kerb waiting for a taxi, when he pulled up in front of me and a young man in military uniform got out from the passenger seat. I thought he was getting off there, so I got in. As the soldier sat in the back seat and I settled in my seat, the driver thanked the soldier for moving to the back; it turned out that the driver had made that request.
I thanked them both
Then I recognised him: this was the second time I happened to board this taxi. He is an interesting character, evidently in love with his job (very rare!) and with people. As soon as I sat in the passenger seat, he gave me a folder to look at: it was full of newspaper and magazine clippings about him and his taxi, and comments by all sorts of people, Iranian and foreigners, who have boarded his taxi. When I got to my destination, he offered me a boiled sweet and wished me a nice afternoon. His name is Dehbashizadeh and keeps a blog (in Persian) at www.taxiran.blogfa.ir
I have written elsewhere about Tehran’s taxi drivers: some are polite, others grumpy, some talk a lot, others only exchange laconic words with their passengers, but most share a stoic attitude towards the city traffic, which can often drive you crazy.
But one particular taxi driver must stand out. His taxi follows a set itinerary (see Among the Iranians) between Haft Tir Square and Seyed Khandan Bridge, near my house. I stood by the kerb waiting for a taxi, when he pulled up in front of me and a young man in military uniform got out from the passenger seat. I thought he was getting off there, so I got in. As the soldier sat in the back seat and I settled in my seat, the driver thanked the soldier for moving to the back; it turned out that the driver had made that request.
I thanked them both
Then I recognised him: this was the second time I happened to board this taxi. He is an interesting character, evidently in love with his job (very rare!) and with people. As soon as I sat in the passenger seat, he gave me a folder to look at: it was full of newspaper and magazine clippings about him and his taxi, and comments by all sorts of people, Iranian and foreigners, who have boarded his taxi. When I got to my destination, he offered me a boiled sweet and wished me a nice afternoon. His name is Dehbashizadeh and keeps a blog (in Persian) at www.taxiran.blogfa.ir
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