The night I played with the hubble-bubble-coals

As a fire-juggler I would consider myself a bit as an addict. Additected to beautiful moments. To being with myself. To movement. To joy. To learning, sharing, adrenalin and laughter.

So what does an addict do, if he has send the object of his desire with a package home before travelling to Iran? (because the addict was sure that the combination of silver kettle and lampoil-burned kevlar would not be held as an object for fun but as a weapon if once found by a police or border control (although there hasn't been one single check of my luggage on all my travels through Iran, so I could have taken it with me...)

He invents new ways to play.

This picture shows it poorly, but I will explain to you what you would have seen if you had travelled with me, like my travel companion.

At night the parks are full. First with families, who go out for a nightly picknick. Then later mainly with men, who are smoking hubble bubble (that's the iranian name for shisha or nargile, waterpipe...how ever you'll call it). To keep the hubble bubble glowing, they use a small basket made out of rabbit kettle, to put in the glowing coals and to swirl it around to make the coals glow again.

'Haha!' the clever addict thought 'that look just like pois!' and went up to one of the youth, asking to try it out just for some minutes. After some tries, the clever little addict was successfull and had two of them!

And then the little addict, which was me, played poi with the hubble-bubble-coal-shakers in a public park in Shiraz, Iran. What a fun! I guess the guys have never seen their coal in such a movement!

Infinite hospitality or „Don't ta'arof me!“

Iranians are said to be the most hospitable people ever. And -in my experience- they are kind of untoppable with this. Getting invited for a tea or for food was something I was used to in Turkey, as the hospitality already amazed me a lot. But there's something special in Iran, which -once you have discovered it- gives you a lot of stuff to talk about with Iranians themselves, as everyone's attitude towards it, is different.

TA'AROF is the magical word for an attitude, a habit, a certain gesture towards guests.

What is ta'arof?

It can come across in various forms.

The first striking moment might be, if an iranian friend or host gets you from the airport or bus station and offers you to drive his or her car. After refusing (because you might know or you have heard about the horrific traffic you can get caught in), you'll be asked again. Three times.

Or you want to pay, but the salesmen or taxi driver refuses and says, that you can take it (the clothes or the ride) for free. What? You might think and ask again. But they insist, that you don't need to pay. Of course, they'll want you to pay, but these forms are a kind of ta'arof.

Ta'arof can come in many different forms. These two mentioned are just the most obvious forms. Others might be, that they'll never let you pay the meal until you really strongly insist upon, or that you'll be always the first person to go through a door. Sometimes being asked again and again and again if you don't want to eat more or if you would like to have a water or, that they can organise wine just because you mentioned that you like to drink wine in Europe, all of this CAN be ta'arof. But it doesn't need to be.

That's the confusing part of it. Sometimes I couldn't distinguish whether it was ta'arof or a real offer. And even my iranian friends got sometimes caught in a ta'arof trap, when they didn't see that an offer was a ta'arof and they should have been refsusing it politely.

In the bigger cities most of the people used to tell me: „I'll not ta'arof you. It is old fashioned and just people in the smaller towns or villages still do it. Make yourself comfortable and just feel at home.“

But to be honest: being out of Iran I started missing the teasing and joking about and the acting in and with ta'arof. And I have to smile, remembering a friend in Tehran teasing me as I was offering her tea two times. She told me: „Now you're an iranian! Stop ta'arof-ing me!“

money or letter?

Are these boxes, that you see everywhere in iranian cities post-boxes? And if so, why is there a family and hands to be seen on, rather than a symbol for a letter and the times of emptying the postbox?!

No, these boxes are not for letters and postcards, these are for money.

Money? Yes!

The so called ALMS collect money and redistribute it. A host of mine called them jokingly „the symbol of iranian islam“. These ALMS are owned by a governmental organisation called „the Committee Emdad Imam Khomeini“ and the money is suppossed to be redistributed to the poor and shall give the person who spends the money protection and peace.

Well...I still feel like posting my postcards in them ;-)

The streets we used to dance in (if I could make a mixtape of my conversations about dancing in Iran, it would sound like this:)

„Before the revolution these were the streets with the nightclubs, the places we went out dancing.“

„And now?“

„With the revoltion they destroyed all the discos and places to go out.Now we have to make parties at home and you can wish to have nice neighbours so that they hopefully won't call the police.“

I look at her and if she could open my head to look inside she would see memories of sleepless Berlin-nights, danced through with friends until the morning.

„Two weeks ago my friend was on a party and got arrested. She had to stay for two days at the police station. She's accused of dancing and drinking. Despite the prohibition of alcohol, people can order it secretly or make it themselves.“

„And now?“

„They are out of prison but waiting for the process. They'll have to pay some money for it.“

„How can you live without dancing?“

„I can't. I love music. I dance at home. Or on the parties. I will even dance in prison.“

biking in Iran

'Juchhey! You're great! Go on! Show them that we won't give in!' I want to scream out in sudden happiness but just stand still and smile.

It is a girl on a bike. Rarely spotted by me in Tehran, more often in Esfahan.



Until now I couldn't find out if it's law or unwritten law (just not common) in Iran. That women shouldn't go by bike, but I point to the second guess: it's not so common or socially accepted.

Women are not to go by bike. Someone told me it would show too much of their body contures and the movements wouldn't fit to a good girl's behaviour. While young boys and men race through the city, I feel like cheering if I see once a brave heroine acting against the social pressure. But as I don't want to embarras her, I hold onto myself and just share a smile. In the hope she might understand.

to camp or not to camp...

One of he things that make travelling in Iran easier regarding your travellers budget might be, that you can take a tent with you and go camping in parks or in special places that are marked out for it.

Interesting enough is that you can see from time to time signs that show you that it is forbidden to camp here.

„Why?“ you may ask.

As most of the young people still live with their parents in one flat, they find ways to have some „private time“ with their girfriends and boyfriends. Someone told me that this made the government suspicious and they decided to set up these signs and to control it a bit more where you can camp and where not...

The small things

How to start with telling you about my experiences in Iran? Maybe by looking at details rather than on everything at the same time. Media just shows politics, so I decided to first show little day to day life. Cause there is a normal life, just as you go walking or out for a coffee or sit in the internet now: it's the same in Iran. The same but different....

So, here are some details, which struck me while travelling through Iran, some lovely, strange and interesting things that I wanted to share with you:

It can confuse people, if you tell them, that you'll come on the 7^th of September. Or that you were born on the 23^rd of April. They might first get their calender and look the date up, even though the date might be in two weeks time. Why? They've got three calenders in one! European, Iranian, Arabian. A lunar, a solar and a made up one (the last one being „ours“/european by the way...)

So...what's this?!

On old door you will still be able to find two spot to knock on the door. One is for men and the other is for women. This was made in old times because if a man knocks, the women in the house will have the time to put over their veil before opening the door... how to decide w´this now with just one doorbell?

Advertisement can come in different forms of course...

...like here on doors:

...or here in the subway in Tehran for shampoo...(besides: there's a lot of German shampoo being used in Iran and you'll maybe find yourself staring at product descriptions in german language on the bottle of the host you're staying with like I did...)

I found an astounding appetite for nuts...although they

sometimes

looked like little brains as they were staying in these glasses in water until being sold.

And also the appetite for

sour things.

Because: this looks sweet, but it isn't!

Dummies in the shops can have beards. (but this I didn't only see in Iran, but also in Syria and Turkey. Someone there who saw this in Europe aswell?!)

And one of the most interesting things:

there are places to work out in every park! You don't need to pay for a fitness center, you can just use the ones that are standing around there...

so: visit the country yourself, stay fit, eat some sour things, knock on some doors and find your way through the land of contrasts...