five in the afternoon

Tabriz, Iran

they say that marco polo came here a few hundred years ago and walked in the bazaar. just like me. i wonder if he had the problem of every second shop keeper approaching him, but then his hair probably wasnt standing up on end like mine. I didnt think it was so bad but a strange guy who approached me as i got off the bus this morning started off his pitch by offering the use of his comb. he even gave me a demonstration of what to do with it.

Samira Makhmalbaf made some movies about afghanistan that i saw a last year, most of them achingly depressing and desolate. its not too far from here, and the scenery is pretty much the same- mountains made from rock and dust and children playing in the dirt and women hurrying around all covered up. on the bus there was a man whose job it was to make sure that a man did not sit next to a woman. amazing.

Each time i think that i am getting a bit nervous about how isolated it is, i have to remind myself that this is these people existence. I f i were them i would have nowhere else to go. I guess that makes it ok ha.

And the smells. I tell you it is like living in the fourth dimension. I do not have the literary skills to tell you how my eyes search for the mint, the tea, the roasting meat, the spices, the carpets, the new shoes, the baklava houses, the petrol, the toilets, the barbers, the perfume sellers every time i pass. But for all the orientalist fantasy, this is the closest i have ever been to flying away on a magic carpet.

More as it happens
rx