Most days we drove all day and on through the night for as long as possible. When we started to have too many close calls with other vehicles, we would stop and sleep. The mountain roads had been doing as much damage to us as to the vehicles. After a few days of this torture, we decided to make camp at Split, a beautiful Croatian beach resort on the Adriatic.
Our first night at the campgrounds, we arrived very late, and it was after three in the morning before we finally got to sleep. It was a cold, foggy night and we all crowded in the front of the bus, devouring the food so we could ‘crash’ as soon as possible into our sleeping bags.
The town of Split, on the coast of Croatia was the last place on our trip east where a decent shower was available. This was really ironic since all the European campsites had had excellent showers, but it had been so cold and damp in the west that we had not relished this luxury at the time. As we drove into Eastern Europe and crossed the Bosporus into Turkey, the weather became warmer and the camp showers fewer.
The next morning, our first at this excellent campsite, some young Croats came to talk with us. They remembered our caravan from a trip the year before. That was not as farfetched as it sounds since our caravan was quite distinctive. The Unimark camper van, sort of a two-decker modified VW microbus, was painted with tiger stripes, and the decrepit Mercedes bus was also unusual.
Our visitors were cheerful and pleasant companions. For a change, English was the common language. Their enthusiasm was contagious. This, they explained, was their favorite pastime, practicing their English and angering the campground officials. The officials took a dim view of such unofficial contacts with foreigners, especially since we looked like hippie Gypsies.
Later in the day, we walked to a local grocery store for our daily provisions. The little shop was loads of fun. While the store was small compared to those in the West, it had an amazing variety of items, including an international selection of wines, beer, and liquor. The only problem was that no bags were provided, except for our own.
On the way back to the camp grounds, I slipped down a sandy dune and broke some of my eggs. Fortunately, the broken eggs were in a small plastic sack with some crumpled loaves of bread. When we got back to camp, I squashed the eggs and bread together, removing most of the shell beforehand.
The camp-fire was burning nicely when we got back to camp. I jerked out the communal fry pans, poured plenty of olive oil in the hot pans, shaped the egg and bread mess into burgers, and pan-fried some lovely “bregg” burgers, mixing in some local finely cut sausage.
The campers gobbled these up so fast that they didn’t realize what they were eating until after I told them. As a result of this and many little nurturing tricks, people started referring to me as the Earth Mother.
A few days later, after crossing into Greece, we reached a campground outside of Thessalonica. The nicest part of those days was in the evening at the campgrounds, especially sitting around the campfire after supper.
One soon discovers how much alike the middle class is in all countries. This became especially clear during the lengthy fireside bull sessions. We all seemed to be thinking along similar lines. Naturally enough, our main interests were: love, experiencing life, people with ‘good heads,’ drugs, the freaky ways of caravan life, and, of course, rock music and our various business ventures.
The first evening in Thessalonica, we talked about organic food, the idea of eating whole food, solar energy, and what some perceived as the coming Aquarian Age of Peace.
We tend to place an incredible faith in the long shot salvation aspect of technology. Our faith in the future seems based on quick-and-dirty cures, magic-bullets, or some form of amazing grace. I can’t help but feel that this attitude reflects a lazy intellect.
With the Swiss campers, fireside chats also included ethnic jokes, mostly about the Turks. I guess this is the result of the thousands of guest workers or, immigrating groups, such as the Turks, who wound up doing the drudgery and dirty work that the Swiss seemingly ignored.
One popular Turkish joke making the rounds was about two poor Turkish farm workers who saved some money and went to town to buy a car. The used car salesman told them that they didn’t have enough money for a car, but that he had a camel he could let them have.
In fact, he would do them a big favor since the camel was special. The camel had two ass-holes, but the salesman would only charge them for one camel. The two farmers buy the camel. As they ride down the road on the camel, some kids shout, “Look at those two ass-holes on the camel.” One farmer turns to the other and says, “By golly, that salesman was telling the truth.”
On one of my trips to Kabul I brought a copy of the original Arabian Nights in English. Somewhere in the book, there is a story, nested within two or three other stories, about two brothers on a dying donkey, etc. So this story is at least one-thousand years old.
In northern Italy, the jokes are about Sicilians. In Yugoslavia, the jokes are about Albanians. The caravan people especially loved jokes about Californians. “Why does it take five Californians to change one light bulb? The answer is, one to change the bulb and four to share the experience.”
That was the first time I heard Californians treated like a separate ethnic group. Anyone who has spent time in California will recognize the germ of truth in that particular joke. It was hard to explain to Europeans the peculiar character of the American West, especially California.
And what is the special character of Californians that make them the object of our jokes? I suggest that it is the pretense of New Age openness. I’ve spoken with young Europeans who have asked me if California is a separate nation. My stock response is, “Yes, but only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The rest of the week they’re Americans.”
At one campfire supper, some California jokes led to a discussion of Ernest Callenbach’s book, Ecotopia. The book is considered an underground classic, a future documentary that takes place after the secession of the Western states from the USA.
The narrative is done by the first U.S. reporter admitted into a place called Ecotopia following the great Helicopter War. In an attempt to suppress the world’s first ecological utopia, the U.S. stages a surprise invasion with 8,000 helicopters.
The Ecotopians crush the U.S. invasion by electronically downing all the helicopters and planting briefcase-sized nuclear mines throughout the urban Eastern seaboard. These mines are electronically controlled on the West Coast.
My caravan companions considered this a ridiculous scenario, but I tried to explain that the American West, especially the Pacific Coast, is independent minded to an extreme. This was the only part of my trip that was a total failure; trying to explain California.
We spent more time at the lovely beach camp at Thessalonica than we had planned. The bus had a flat the night before, and some rubber cushioning around the axle came off. While we repaired the mishap at a nearby garage, the other campers did the dishes and cleaned up the caravan. We were trying to raise the consciousness level of the caravan, especially of the men.
Looking back over the years, I see my early business efforts as clumsy steps along my path. Yet, I can’t think of anything I could or would have done differently. On the first overland trip every minor mishap was inflated by my naiveté and inexperience into major disasters. I laugh now when I think how upset I got over every near collision on a mountain road, a blow-out on a rainy night or the recurring cracked windshield.
16
INTO IRAN - FALL, 1977
We made better time after crossing the Iran border. Only a few minor repairs were needed, so little time was lost. We were all intent on getting our act together and wanted to get out of Iran as rapidly as possible.
We entered Miraneh, Iran in the morning just as the sun was coming up. Pushing harder, we reached a campsite at the edge of Tehran the same evening. Now I understood why Dharma was pushing the caravan so hard. The Tehran campgrounds had hot showers and modern washing machines, a rarity in this part of the w
orld. It is one of the few modernizations by the Shah that we appreciated.
There was a shower on the Unimark van, and the day before I had traded a copy of Paul’s new book for a shower, using the last of the shower water. The Unimark people were not happy about this trade and told me so. I said that they will be happy when they read the book. Besides, I filled their water tank again when we got to the camp grounds, so all was forgiven.
I figured I would be so sparkling clean that my fellow trekkers would discover the shower thief and heap their wrath upon me, but no one seemed to notice or at least say anything.
Most of our group has not properly showered since Istanbul, and we were quite ripe by the time we reached Tehran. Smelling bad does not seem to bother Middle Easterners as much as Europeans and Americans. Probably this is the result of water being in such short supply in the Middle East.
As each fellow traveler walked by, the odor made me side step a bit. We all became so rancid that only I, the shower traitor, could smell the difference. Not that I was that clean, but in the land of the odorous, the least odorous is queen. A week later I told this story around the campfire. The women howled with laughter, and Dharma began calling me the Afghan Queen.
We were a sticky, gritty lot by the time we reached the showers at the Tehran campgrounds. Having had little else but jam, honey, and flatbread for three days added to our general discomfort. Everything we touched got smeared and sticky. The bus windows looked like the targets of a food fight.
There were no napkins on board so people used their clothes, sleeves, or whatever was handy to wipe the goo off, much as my kids do. The food had gotten into our hair, clothes, and just about everything. We wound up spending an entire day washing clothes, vehicles, and ourselves. The bus windows took the most time. Inside and outside windows needed multiple cleanings.
The Shah was attempting to transform Iran into an American colony as rapidly as possible. This included the transformation of family farms into cash crop farming factories. Some of the produce that would ordinarily be available locally was transported to large urban centers. The bulk of farming produce was shipped abroad where prices were much higher.
We heard stories of fishing cooperatives that could not afford to eat their own fish, of livestock growers who could not eat their own meat. This led to a vast scheme of bribing produce inspectors to declare a substantial amount of farm produce as unfit for human consumption. This resulted in a black market that raised prices far beyond the grasp of most families.
As might be expected, sturgeon production was all but destroyed by overfishing. Fortunately, the Soviet Union, sharing the sturgeon fisheries with Iran, imposed military discipline on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea. Most importantly, 90% of the world’s sturgeon and caviar is produced in the Caspian.
Since the early 1970s these developments had severely stressed the Iranians, and, as their anger grew, they acted out against Westerners with increasing hostility, unfortunately for us. Few deprivations are as anger provoking as food, or the lack thereof.
One particular assault greatly heightened my awareness. Four of us went into Tehran to search the bazaars for unique crafts and stopped at a busy little café suggested by a friendly merchant. It was midday, and it was crowded with local merchants.
After we were seated, an arrogant waiter took our order. As he served us, his hands passed my place setting and he abruptly fondled my breasts and started to walk away with a smirk on his face. At first I was so shocked that I could not believe this had really happened. The three other women howled in rage, while I was speechless.
From the corner of my eye I could see a couple of other waiters in the alcove grandly celebrating their comrade’s triumph as he slowly swaggered back in that direction. I realized immediately that this little scenario had been planned.
They were about to suffer the wrath of a Red Hook Shark. My rage grew so strong and so fast that before the little rat had strutted halfway across the dining room, I popped out of my chair, raced behind him, and pounded with all my strength on his neck. My attacker fell flat on his face at the feet of his shocked conspirators.
They looked like deer caught in the headlights as they dragged him into the kitchen. By this time my companions had raced to my side, and I somehow managed to push them out the front door, the four of us running as fast as we could.
The shouting behind us was frightening. As I herded my lambs before me, I thought we would be cut down by knives. Fortunately, we melted into the bazaar crowd without further problem. From what we learned later, this type of assault was to be expected in Iran.
That was my last ‘up close’ encounter with Iranians. After that assault, we were much more cautious in our dealings. The few remaining outings in Iran were for provisions only. We all, women and men both, were sure to cover ourselves from head to foot.
The events of the late 1970s have since proven that behind the Iranian revolution and the Islamic Republic were decades of suffering and repressed anger. Much of the hatred was directed at the Shah, as the creature of American corporate interests.
It’s as if every nation forced to endure rapid and rabid corporate modernization ends in revolution. The global corporate cabal must expand or perish, like a cancer. Corporate greed acts like a social-economic cancer infecting the entire world.
My anger is not with revolution, but with the virulent hostility toward women. Our experience with Iranian hostility made us far less venturesome in Iran. As a result, we spent most of our time close to campsites and exited Iran as rapidly as possible.
As a result of our stressful experience in Iran, we were getting more edgy with each other. Most of our caravan had experienced some type of unpleasantness. Fortunately, we had avoided serious injuries. The further east we traveled, the more obvious grew the stress outside and inside the caravan.
Each day, though, we made a greater effort to be pleasant and kind to each other. We anticipated the Afghan border with increasing anxiety. One morning I suggested a game to the bus travelers. I’d been driving for two hours and we pulled over so Versant could take the next shift as bus driver.
Someone found a bag of blank lottery slips. After some discussion we hit on a typically French game. Everyone on the bus would write their most secret fantasy regarding someone in the caravan. No names were included. Later that evening at the campgrounds, each person would draw one lottery slip from a hat and follow the directions. This game and the preparations it entailed managed to distract us from the reality we were rapidly leaving behind.
That evening everyone insisted that I pick the first slip, since it was I who had organized the game. My instructions directed me to pick two others for a raw egg race on all fours, with spoons in our mouths holding the eggs. What could be more innocent? The winner could decide the penalty. The need for distraction brought our secret desires anonymously to light.
The same night we met another bus at the campgrounds. A dozen people from Finland were aboard and invited us in to see how they had arranged their living space. It was an inviting and comfortable arrangement. The seats were replaced with wall-to-wall mattresses. The interior décor was in soft gold and orange, providing a warm and mellow womb.
The Finns traveled with a beautiful three-year-old girl. The child was a delight to watch and her angelic antics easily upstaged the adults. She was the focal point of attention and affection. Rosette was the first child I’d seen in the Middle East who acted like a child, and she was a delight.
Most of the children I’d seen acted like little old people. I’d learned that, from an early age, Middle East children are apprenticed to merchants in the bazaars or assist artisans, if they are fortunate. People, especially children, seem to age faster. Is it the stress, the environment, or what?
We spent a few hours with the Finns in their bus. They’d gotten together through a newspaper ad and had been strangers prior to this trip. It was a large bus with two toilet closets in the back corners. Lots of pillows were arran
ged against the walls. Every few feet mesh net bags were attached to the bus walls with Velcro. As with our bus, there were large bins under the bus.
After passing some joints, a sense of gemütlichkeit (wellbeing) set in. It was like hanging out with old friends. After this visit, our tension evaporated. The Finns were just the tonic I needed, since the night before a migraine had denied me sleep. I had been irritable all day until the Finns rescued us.
The campground outside of Tehran was our home for a few days. We had some medical problems among us that needed attention. Satya had a bad leg infection and needed antibiotics and Doris’s uterine coil was causing her pain. I promised to find medical help for them.
Migraine headaches have been a periodic problem for me ever since my periods began. Philip, the Englishman, I’ll call him “English,” kept me distracted from my pounding head while I sipped valerian and chamomile tea. Philip devised an alphabetic psychological code that enabled him to project the personality of an individual from the letters in the person’s name.
English worked with all the names in our family, mine, Paul’s and the boys. These psycho-alphabetic projections were provocative. One projection concerned our oldest son who was seventeen at the time. English suggested that Erik preferred his second name “Josef.” That’s because he couldn’t live up to the strength and power of a name like Erik, the ‘Er’ and ‘k’ sounds being much too harsh for him to handle comfortably. Our last name was also strong.
Josef was a preferable name for him because it sounded softer and came across more gently. English thought it interesting that I had taken the name Lela as it suited my personality better than my American name, Beverly. The name Beverly, he suggested, was a terrible jumble of consonants, providing an almost haughty and pretentious sound.
Lela, on the other hand, had a melodic and earthy quality much better suited to my nature. English told me that I couldn’t escape being an Earth Mother or, in fact, being the mother of everyone on the bus. He suggested that it was a natural role for me to assume.
The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan Page 13