Jim's Blog
Open Mic at the Local Mosque
Yesterday...
Long, long, long day today. We left at 8 this morning and have been driving all day and just arrived. It's almost midnight now in the city of Harat. It's just endless deserts everywhere and it got dark a 5 o'clock so we've been riding in the dark for awhile now. I was trying to read to pass the time but I got brutally car sick which made the drive pretty miserable for a few hours. So we finally arrived.
All over they're celebrating the fight that they had back 1000 years ago with General Hussein when 72 of his buddies and him fought against 1000 bad guys. The king at that time was a bad guy too, so they fought to the death and even though they lost, they still celebrate that. Even though it happened in Iraq way back then, they still celebrate it here for 10 days too. So every time we drove through a little town, there would be two separate lines of the men and the boys, right now to the littlest boys, with a big giant drum and they would hit the drum once and the guys would all hit themselves over the back with a big flagellation whip. So basically they're flagellating themselves. Each guy has his own little whip, and they would whip themselves on the back and then take a step on the next drum beat, whip themselves and then take another step. So that was really different. There are black flags everywhere with yellow arabic script on them that say Hussein's name and another "Abdul" name that they revere, and then the name of the fight. So the city is gearing up for the major celebration that will happen in a couple of days I guess.
The Next Day...
Here at an underground internet cafe in the Islamic Republic of Iran...or not underground this time, just stuffed under a four foot high ceiling in the back of a hole in the wall place in the city of Harar, just about dead center in Iran. As I said in my blog last night over the sat tel phone, we drove for 16 hours yesterday to get here. I forgot to say yesterday that while we were driving through the city of Zarrin-Dasht, we were pulled over by the police, two cars full. One guy in a black leather jacket, another great big guy in a uniform and another guy carrying an AK-47 came up to our truck and started blabbering in Farsi to Iman. I have to say it wasn't the most pleasant experience I've ever had. After ten or so minutes of examining our papers, they walked back to their vehicles and zoomed off. When I asked Iman what that was all about , he said that normally, he gives the police all along our route, the times we'll be passing through and where we're going, but because we got our Armenian Sheep so early and decided to head to the Kerman sheep area, instead of waiting around for the Esphahan sheep hunt to start in five days, Iman didn't have a chance to warn the local authorities that a truck with two foreigners with a gun and half a dozen cameras stickin gout of the windows, would be passing through their city!
Anyway, all's well that ends well, and off we went to Harar where we spent the night. Then this morning, when we got up to go hunting, we learned that there has been a mixup in our permits and in fact the area we are allowed to hunt Kerman sheep is another six hours drive east from Harar!!! That is actually great news, because there are more sheep in that area. Here in Harar, the success so far this season has been 50%, so it was going to be a tough hunt. IN the new area we will drive to today, the sheep are also bigger, BUT we have just used up a full day of hunting, so we'll have less time.
Have to go, being timed on this computer here in this "cafe" and we need to load up and head out! Can't wait to get car sick again!!!!
Anyway, all's well that ends well, and off we went to Harar where we spent the night. Then this morning, when we got up to go hunting, we learned that there has been a mixup in our permits and in fact the area we are allowed to hunt Kerman sheep is another six hours drive east from Harar!!! That is actually great news, because there are more sheep in that area. Here in Harar, the success so far this season has been 50%, so it was going to be a tough hunt. IN the new area we will drive to today, the sheep are also bigger, BUT we have just used up a full day of hunting, so we'll have less time.
Have to go, being timed on this computer here in this "cafe" and we need to load up and head out! Can't wait to get car sick again!!!!
Later that day...
We drove 6 hours to the city of Bashir, near the city of Kerman. We finally got to this little city and we pulled over for gas and found out that there was oil spilling all in the inside of our truck. So we've been sitting here now for two hours trying to fix it. A hose blew on the engine so the guys took off in the second truck to find out if they can get the spare part.
So we're sitting here waiting and apparently it's open mic night at the local mosque, so everyone can go up to the microphone and scream out their prayers. It's been going on for an hour and it's loud, loud, loud. So I'll be very happy once they get this thing fixed because we're supposed to go hunting tomorrow morning. Other than having to sit through open mic, we're doing good.. no particular instances today, except one truck driver got pretty mad when we were videoing and he said he's going to report us to the police, but Iman just told him to mind his own business in Farsi. Fingers crossed for tomorrow's hunt.
12/13/2010
