It was hard to leave that warm-hearted family and when I saw the sad face of Sevginaz I also had tears in my eyes. Sameneh left with her parents and Sahand to Turkey, Adel brought Nader and me to the bus station to get back to Tabriz.
In the bus, in front of us, two girls where sitting, maybe between 16 and 20. All along the way to Tabriz the offered an interesting play with their scarves. Sometimes they let them slip down to their shoulders, thus their hair being completely uncovered, then again pulling the scarf half of the head, sometimes one began re-adjusting the position and the other followed sometimes the other way around. And this up and down changed every few minutes, as if they sometimes got the feeling, it would be too much boldness. But I wonder if this was in itself a statement against the rules or they just did something like also wiping around on their smartphones. Those girls apparently were dealing a lot with their appearance but could they at the same time consciously participate in that movement that questions boundaries?
We arrived in Tabriz, took a taxi, took the bikes from Maliheh’s home, went to grandparents to say good-bye. To our surprise we met Fatimeh and Parastoo there, too. The family car had been breaking down on their way to Arak and they had to return. The smaller surprise was, that we could not simply say good-bye but were invited to lunch. But we had to go as 65km were waiting for us! Grandma not only gave us some wafers and cookies for the trip, she saved us from all kinds of adversity by a Quran-ritual. Nader may be more used to it what does not mean he likes it more than me, but we both saw the good will and some worries behind it.
At 14:30, we started our common bike trip. It was “only” 65km, but this was more than Nader ever had gone and we had only the afternoon and it was hot, and it was enough elevation to be exhausted.
But after struggling with these circumstances for 6h, we arrived in Bostanabad. Iraj, a friend of Nader, who makes his living by driving his own truck, came to a meeting point on his bike and guided us home. There, his mother prepared dinner and his nephew, Mohammad Reza, served all the time, be it fruits or tea or melon or dinner. And she didn’t eat with us, sitting separately on the kitchen floor.
Later, she and Mohammad Reza slept in a sperate room and Iraj with us in the living room. For me the evening ended with a challenge as for the first time the was no “European” toilet as alternative and there even was no toilet paper. But also here, the motto is “do what has to be done!”