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Twenty years after the Iranian revolution, most westerners still imagine Iran to be a warren of anti American rhetoric, terrorism, and fanatical repression, especially of women. Not surprisingly, only an unusual woman would choose to travel there, and Alison Wearing is certainly that. I refused to believe that such a place of unalloyed evil truly existed, she writes. I like to look for saints where there are said to be demons. Since it is the only country the world traveler could not imagine going to alone, she takes her fussy, gay roommate Ian, along with a fake wedding certificate and a story that they're on their honeymoon. Then she dons a black cloak, scarf, and chador the full body covering required by Shiite Islam for a five month journey from the Caspian Sea breaking into the Shah's ramshackle summer palace to the holy city of Qom and Khomeini's shrine to a hidden Zoroastrian prayer site where she faints from heat stroke. From the moment she steps into the country, she's surrounded by Iranians touched by her eagerness to learn about their country. There is the housewife who challenges her to a game of Ping Pong in her long robe and scarf, offering food to her guests in between killer serves, and the Anglican minister who is wholly enthralled by the art of living. There is the couple who spirit her away to a mountain oasis when she complains of the heat leaving a message for Ian, Mister Canada, we take your wife. We make her cold, and the mother who tries to marry off her doctor son, joking that Wearing can't leave not without my doctor a reference to the American film Not Without My Daughter.
ISBN: 0312261810
Author: Alison Wearing
Category: Travel
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