Nowrooz

Nowrooz is the first day of the Iranian New Year (Nowrooz literally means 'new day'). It also marks the beginning of spring. (Although this year, spring started a lot earlier, which probably means a scortching summer!)

Many of the Nowrooz traditions are rooted from pre-Islamic (Zorastrian) times, and its slightly annoying that Iranians sometimes try and 'Islamacise' them!

Nowrooz is really like Christmas back home. People go crazy shopping for new clothes, household goods and stocking up the cupboards. The only difference is that unlike back home where you have the post-xmas sales, prices in Iran tend to go up in the new year. (e.g. onions used to be 500 Tomans a kilo, now they are over 1000 Tomans!)

Before Nowrooz, Iranians give their homes a thorough spring clean - called Khuneh Tekouni (or house shaking!)

On the first day of Nowrooz, Iranians sit around the haft seen sufreh (haft means seven, seen is a letter of the alphabet and sufreh is the table cloth, traditionally white for Nowrooz). There are 7 things all beginning with the letter seen on this table cloth:

1. Sabzi - wheat, barley or lentils to symbolise rebirth
2. Samanu - a sweer pudding made from wheat germ to symbolise affluence (I have some in my freezer if anyone wants to try it!)
3. Senjed - dried fruit to symbolise love
4. Sir - garlic to symbolise medicine
5. Seeb - apples to symbolise beauty and health
6. Somaq - sumac berries to symbolise the colour of sunrise
7. Sirkeh - vinegar to symbolise age and patience

Stores sell plastic versions of the above, but I'm told that authentic households use the real stuff!

There's also a gold fish (in a bowl) on the sufreh to symbolise the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving. I was warned before hand that Nowrooz goldfish are like fairground fish - they don't last very long. I still HAD to buy some. I named them Layla and Majnoon after the Persian Romeo and Juliet! Majnoon sadly died after 8 days. Layla couldn't stand the grief and sadly died a few days later :-( The past week, as I've been walking home from school, I've seen dead goldfish in the alleyways being eaten by birds. The circle of life continues...

The 13th day of Nowrooz is called "Rooze Jamhooriye Islami" - the day of the Islamic Republic. Its the day on which the Iranians all voted to have an Islamic Republic.

The 14th day is called "Rooze Tabiyat" or Nature day. Apparently its back luck to stay in your house on this day! All the shops are closed and the town is deserted. Not being an Iranian myself, I just stayed at home and studied. Later in the afternoon, I had to go out on an errand on the outskirts of town. The taxi driver happened to be someone who had picked us up on a previous occasion. The whole way to my friend's house and the whole way back, the driver lectured me on how I had done something really bad by staying at home. I had to bite my tongue and stop myself from telling him that these are your fire worshiping traditions, not mine. In true 'Madagascar' style (the film, not the country), I just smiled and waved!

Interestingly though, my errand took me to Shahrake Mahdiyah, which is one of the small townships built on the edge of Qum for foreign students. The township is situated next to one of the bigger parks of the city - Bustane Allawi. To get to Shahrake Mahdiyah, you kinda have to go further, past the entrance to the park and then do a U-turn and come back. I got a glimpse of the park - it was RAMMED! It seemed as if the whole population of Qum was at Bustane Allawi! People had even brought tents!

Usually, my school gives 2 week's off for Nowrooz, but this year, we only got one week (plus the 13th and 14th!) The 8th to the 12th were really half steam though. Alot of teachers were still visiting their home cities and one day the weather was really bad, so people didn't come it. It rained so much that cars were swept away in the usually dry river! We received news of 8 people dying in Qum!