I Am Like You!. Ali PhD Kian
celebration. Even after I contracted polio, I relished our New Year trip. According to tradition, the thirteenth day of the celebration was for everyone to leave their homes and spend the day outdoors. So now, even in the United States, should you find yourself in a park some time on (or around) April 4th, don’t be surprised if you find yourself surrounded by expatriate Iranians laughing around a picnic table. Don’t be alarmed. Grab a plate and enjoy some whitefish.
My father had a great many friends in government and business. Perhaps one of the great gifts I inherited from my father was an ability to make friends easily. People in general seem to be drawn to me. I don't say this to brag, it's simply something I have observed and I'm not sure I can even explain my good fortune with regard to the loyalty of my many friends. While friendships may not have eased my physical pain, I can certainly attest to the fact that being surrounded by the love and support of dear friends has been the most spiritually uplifting element in my life.
Even after my father moved to Tehran at the age of fourteen, he continued his efforts to improve the lot of family and friends who remained behind in his home village of Asekan. Dad approached a number of his powerful friends in an effort to have some kind of paved road built to Asekan. Of course, the village at the end of the road, Jostan, was not happy with the prospect of having a road built that might bypass their village. Businesses would be shut down and lost if a road were built around the other small villages.
Winters in Asekan, and many of the small surrounding villages, were almost unbearable. There was no access to doctors or clinics in the harsh weather. It wasn't uncommon for someone to become stranded in the snow and freeze to death in their effort to walk to the nearest small clinic. Something as treatable as a cold or flu might easily turn fatal, because there was no easily accessible health care.
During the harsh winters, families were forced to hunker down in a room called "deleh khaneh", which means "inside of the house". In other words, people were confined to a single room inside a house, which would keep them warm for the duration of the cold wintertime.
Another unfortunate by-product of living in an Islamic culture is that having a restroom inside the home is considered unsanitary. That meant that restrooms had to be built outside the house. During the winters, the occupants of villages like Asekan sometimes had to dig tunnels through the snow to simply go to the bathroom.
Keeping livestock alive during the winters was a daunting task. Enough grass and hay had to be gathered and stored during the summer months to be prepared for the winter. I have a cousin (Karim) who lost a finger chopping grass during the summer. Had the same accident occurred in the winter, it's very likely that Karim could have bled to death because of the difficulty he would have encountered in trying to receive medical care. In order to feed the animals, the grass and hay were dropped through a hole that had to be pre-cut in the roof of the barn.
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