April 15, 2008 Journal Entry

Just GETTING to Iran is work!

We just got our airplane tickets for the trip to Iran. We travel on Lufthansa airline, an 8-hour flight from JFK airport in New York to Frankfurt, Germany, where we have a 7-hour layover, then a five-hour flight to Tehran. I've never been in Germany and it will be daylight the hours we are there. I'm looking forward to sightseeing a bit with others from the group so we don't fall asleep as our body clocks adjust to jet lag.

A few weeks ago, I got a new passport because mine had Israeli stamps from my trip there in 2002 with MCC and CPT. Doing that by express mail added $100 to the trip. Today I need to have another passport photo taken, with my headscarf, so I can send that and my visa ($91) application to Leila Zand. Leila is an Iranian who lived through the Islamic and Iran-Iraq war, then brought her children to the United States in 1999 and is now an Iranian-U.S. citizen. She works for FOR and lives in New York. She will hand carry all our passports, applications and photos to the Pakistani embassy in Washington, D.C. when our visas are ready. The visa itself said, "we cordially ask all female applicants age nine and above to respect Islamic dress code." Females come of age at nine; males at fifteen. (See more details in article below.)

Because the United States and Iran have no diplomatic relations, there is no Iranian embassy in the United States and no U.S. embassy in Iran. We also have no monetary relations, so we won't be able to use credit cards and will have to carry all the cash we will need on the trip-for ourselves and our group. Yes, I have purchased a sweat/bacteria resistant money belt!

Proper Islamic clothing is a matter of law; anyone on the street can comment on inappropriate dress and being seen by a man without a covering can mean lashes for a woman. Last week my head scarves arrived-my photo is one of my first attempts at putting one on correctly. This week we realized that we women need appropriate clothing when traveling from the airport to our hotel to the women's clothing store. Our top needs to reach to our knees and wrists. I decided to purchase an abaya, since I need to wear one daily in Iran anyway. http://alhannah.com/products/ab392.html. (I think I could wear a manteau that reaches only below my knees, but that I couldn't find on the Web.)

I'm somewhat surprised at how much time and anxiety preparing to wear appropriate clothing in a conservative Islamic culture is causing me. I have conservative relatives, have lived with Old Order Mennonites, and at a young age learned the desire to not offend people unnecessarily. However, I have never even worn the typical Mennonite covering; I think mine was the first baptismal class at Prairie Street Mennonite Church (Elkhart, IN) to not wear them. The first time I was going to preach in a Lancaster Conference Mennonite congregation, I volunteered to wear a covering if that would help people better hear my message. I struggled quite a while before suggesting this, but I decided that I didn't want my clothes to get in the way of my message. The pastoral staff wrote back, "If you'd feel more comfortable wearing a covering, feel free to do so, but you'll be one of the very few women in the congregation wearing one."

Part of the problem for women in our group is understanding just how conservative the Muslims and cities are that we will be visiting. We can't carry many clothes and we'll be in many different settings and we know that women's dress is a matter of law as well as politeness. Thus we wonder-how much color can we wear and when? I even wondered if I could have embroidery on my abaya. When I heard it was fine, my joy at being to 'frill up' a bit was unexpected, and I wondered-what purpose does my personal expression with my clothes serve for me?

After 9/11, I began wearing silly socks-YES! Please DO laugh! If a Mennonite minister may say so, this was my way of thumbing my nose at the world, "Yep! You can be furious that Mennonites are not advocating war, but you can't make me wear serious socks!" Consequently, most of my socks are brightly colored with teapots, flowers, chickens, comets and other fun objects. The highpoint of dressing each morning is deciding which pair to wear. But in Iran, I will wear only plain black socks, and already I feel dreary and sad.

Over the years, I've visited London, Honduras, Haiti and Palestine/Israel. Last evening I was wondering about where I have felt most safe, both as a woman and as a wealthy citizen of the United States (pickpockets). I'm puzzled and need to think a bit-in Honduras, a "Christian" country, men touched me very inappropriately and the many beggars concerned me. However, in Palestine, where I dressed conservatively, but not in special clothing, I felt very safe-no man came close to me; in fact, they couldn't even sit next to me in a taxi or on a couch in someone's home! I saw only one or two beggars in Jerusalem. Is the difference religion? Country tradition? My increasing matronliness?

Yes, I've been reading books, listening to tapes, watching movies, reading news articles, and when I add all those hours up learning history and culture, they certainly sum up more than surfing the web and worrying about clothes. This type of learning is where I prefer to spend my time! However, determined as I was not to let female clothing matter much to me on this trip, I'm discovering that it DOES.