Summers in Tehran:

Friday, July 4, 2003
At last summer holidays are here! Though I still don’t feel the summer….summer is a bit drowsy over here. The heat makes you feel sleepy in the afternoon & usually people prefer to stay home & enjoy air condition fans.

When I was younger summers was really HOLY days. You know right after my last exam, I would go to warehouse (in the basement of the building) & bring all my toys to the house. As a child I used to have a lot of toys so at school time in order to make room for my books & notes, the toys would be packed in warehouse. Only some of my favorites were kept…. It was wonderful to have them back; the whole next week would be spent cleaning, putting, and repairing the toys. The result was a complete change in my room’s look. This was the beginning of a 3-month holyday….
We used to wake up at 9, I’d rather stay in my bed for a while daydreaming then I would have something & most of the days I had these classes like English conversation classes, swimming, dancing &… so I would attend them. (It was really fun!) In the afternoon, nap was an obligation… although I never took a nap in the afternoons. I would wait till my granny (who took care of us as my mother was away on work) fell asleep; then I would start playing roles, dreaming. In these dreams I used to be an explorer finding new lands, a witch practicing magic, a rocket scientist, a shop keeper, a gypsy, a princess, and almost everything else…. In the evenings we used to play cards with my parents. Or we would simply go downstairs to parking & the yard to ride bikes, play hide & seek & etc.

The best part of the summer was the books. I carried them everywhere with me. It didn’t make a difference to me, I was reading books all the time…. Philosophy, novels, and scientific fictions &…. You know people here don’t read much I mean the kid just have these study books. Our culture is rather verbal, so people rather hearing thing than reading. I was a totally freak then, better to say a nerd! Books were the main reason I found Katherine….

Things have changed since I was a child. 10 years ago war was nearly over & everybody was trying to build a better life for their children. Now we are settled somehow & well, I have grown for sure. So the summers are too different… during university time I had summer classes; most of them were labs. & God knows they were demanding & kept me connected to school… summers didn’t mean summer like that. Summer jobs are not common in Iran. Just students with financial problems or those who have year-round jobs work. Folks don’t like their children to be working over here…. I myself love to have a summer job but one can’t find a proper, suitable job for summers. Well, I wish I could find a job in a book shop! Then I could read all the time & I could be lost in books forever.

Forget about it. Sun is shining & if you feel like a seaside it’s time to be packing! Ava’s back again…. She sure enjoys seaside… & I will meet her soon! Strange; I miss her like she hadn’t been around for a year but it’s just a week!