Funny thing about wearing the hejab was that I didn't mind it so much. I mean it would get really hot in the summer wearing a long dark manteau and a scarf, so much so that when I would walk in to my house I couldn't even make it to my room to change in my swimsuit. I would just peel my shoes off and jump right in fully dressed into the pool to cool down. And of course no one can really look attractive wearing the hejab. But in a way it took away some of the anxiety of having to figure out what to wear everyday. I no longer cared how I looked to anyone, particularly boys. It was too stressfull. I was never a girly girl, so it was always an effort for me to try to be what I thought was attractive to guys. I was tom boy, every boys best friend and I was comfortable with that. But being in a co-ed school there are a lot of pressures to be paired up with someone. Well the hejab and going to an all girls school solved that. Everyone looked the same, effortlessly by wearing the same drab uniform. Another added bonus especially for me was how it would cover up everything I was trying to hide.

When I was 11, the first summer after we returned to iran, I got a nasty strep throat. I hardly ever get sick, and I rarely have a fever, but if I do then it's really really bad. The first time I had a fever was when I was one. It landed me in the ICU. Apparently my Mom's effort to bring me up in a protective and sterile environment, didn't really help once I was released to the wild outside of my bubble. My immune system went into shock. The next time I had a fever to the best of my knowledge was when I got my strep throat at the age of 11. Apparently I have a very high pain tolerance so it takes alot for me to get knocked out by anything. Anyways this strep throat was bad and I was battling a fever for a few days. When my fever finally broke, we noticed all these spots all over my arms and back. It looked kinda like chicken pox, but I had already had chicken pox. So we made a trip to my pediatrician, who correctly diagnosised me with psoriasis. Psoriasis for those who don't know is an auto immune disease, that effects the skin. Basically your skin goes into overdrive with it's cell renewing themselves at an accelerate rate of 2-3 days as opposed to 10-15 days for normal skin. It is not life treatening, it is not contagious. It serves mainly to torture it's victims with flaky skin, something that makes them very very self conscious. So it's skin deep but the wounds emotionally can go very very deep. For me, it was horrifying. In one fell swoop I went from beautiful smooth brown skin, to blotchy, flaky patches all over. The spots would move around my body. First it was my arms, them my back, then my torso and finally my legs. Even my scalp was not immune to it. So what was the cure, well there is no cure. Just alot of steriod creams and lotions. Alot of smelly coal tar medication. I was still in Iranzamin when my skin decided to turn against me. And it was tough being a teen, around other kids and specially boys and having to worry about who would see you skin and cry out in horror. I tried everything to try to hide it. From wearing long sleeves shirts and long pants even in the dead heat of summer. And of course I didn't take the word of my pediatrician who told me there was no cure, that this was something that I would have to learn to live with. That in time I would figure out what aggravated my skin to breakout and then maybe I would be able to control it. Noooo. He was wrong. And so started my very long quest of finding the doctor that would make me all better.
Well it was hell. I don't know how many doctors I saw,in how many different countries, and how many different and crazy treatments I allowed myself to go under. To this day I will never know what kind of damage was caused to my system from all the steroids.
But back to my story of the hejab. The hejab was my sheild and protection against wary eyes. They would never have to see what I didn't want them to see, and so I could relax and be myself. The only people who got to see me without the hejab were people I wanted to see me, like my friends and family. People who wouldn't judge me. As for strangers, well the hejab preotected me from their judgements. And it let me let go of looking for a treatment, and let my skin just be. By the time I was older I read enough about it to know that none of the treatments I had gotten were any good. I found out that stress was not good. Great, well what do you think stressed me out, my skin! One doctor told me this is a worriers disease. What does a young girl like you have to be worried about. Ha!! Everything!!! It like my brain never shuts off, it's constantly on the go and with a million different thing popping into it every second. Every once in a while when I would start dating someone, I'd go on a crash course of steriod creams to clear up any spots. Because I was convinced if they saw me any other way they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. So stupid. Why is it that we accept everyone elses flaws so easily yet we're hardest on ourselves. Eventually that stopped too. I figured if my skin was going to scare anyone off well then I really didn't want to have anything to do with them either. After all, my friends seemed perfectly fine with a less than perfect Marjan. Over the years like my pediatrician predicted, I came to understand my body, and why it behaved the way it did. The same nervous energy that made me full of life, wanting to tackle everything all at the same time, the fast pace of my everyday life, the multitasking that I thrived on, the always on the go, that nervous energy was making all of me rush, rush, rush. Including my skin that was in such a rush that it was renewing itself at light speed.

I figure I have 2 choices. Either stop being me, and slow down, and hope that the rest of me slows down as well, or just accept that this is who I am and get on with my life. I choose the latter. Plus I've learnt thru alternative medeicine and healthy eating and exercise how to keep things in control. I'm almost clear all the time and the few little spots that I have, I regard with fondness because they remind me of how far I've come. They humble me, they remind me that I'm not perfect, they remind me to never judge a person by what's on the outside.

So in a ways the hejab saved my sanity, even if I hated the idea of being told what to wear, the lack of freedom to choose the simplest thing, how you wish to present yourself to others. And in a ways it helped me understand why some women would voluntarily choose to wear the hejab. It offered them a kind of protection from what ever it was that they feared. But eventually we all need to face our fears and come out from under the hejab and face the world in all our glory!! Yes!!!!

Okay so I need to tell you the story of my Dad almost getting arrested for making moonshine in Iran. It was the summer. At the time my cousins were living with us. My cousin Hormoz like most young folk his age was into all the revolutionary books etc. He was 7 years older than me. Him and his sister had been living with us for the past couple years, mainly because they couldn't live with my uncle and his new wife anymore. In a ways Hormoz and and his siter Azita that was a year older than Hormoz were the answer to my prayers. I had always wanted older siblings. I had been told that I had lost a beautiful looking older brother when he was only 6 months in the womb. I was born a couple of year later. I used to fantasize about what it would have been like to have had an older brother. Anyways Hormoz was the answer to that. So he was hotheaded like most youths and had a bunch of books that were banned and fancied himself a young rebel. I forget if it was that summer or the summer before, but my Dad finally decided to put a pool in our yard. The summers in Tehran were intolerably hot. I used to hang out by the pool pretty much all day. Anyways, one of these days, I hear the doorbell. I don't what made me run indoors instead of going to the door to see who it was. As it turned out it was a bunch of the revolutionary guards. With big machine guns, asking to come to see our basement. They had a station setup one street away from where we lived. My Dad being a chemical engineer had set up a small distillery in the basement and had started to pretty much extract alcohol from anything he could ferment. We had a little orchard up in the mountains, some remote place that no one knew about unless you were from there. It took years before the Islamic revolution even became aware that this little place even existed. Anyways we had all kinds of fruit growing there. And since it was remote, there was no chance of getting anyone out there to buy the fruit. We had tried to pass the stuff to friends and family but we were still left with crates and crates of apples, plums and cherries. So my Dad did the only natural thing. Ferment them and turn it into excellent vodka. So he had this whole setup right there in our basement. We also had a whole bunch of damask roses growing in our orchard. They had been in bloom only a few weeks ago and we had plucked the roses and brought them back with us. That week my Dad had been experimenting with extracting rose essence. So the guards show up. My Mom answered the door properly attired in the hejab. They asked specifically to inspect the basement. So my Mom said of course and showed them to the basement. There was no time to do anything. We had a spare room in the basement that was were my cousin Hormoz stayed. They knew exactly what they were looking for. The went straight to the back room were the still was set up in all it's glory. They asked my Mom what the setup was. Ans she answered, my husband is a chemist and this is for his work. One of the guards went to a sniff to the still. Of course it smelt only of roses. Then they started to check the room. There was a closet in that room that my Dad kept all his creations. It was unlocked and of course they opened it. The leader of the pack picked up a bottle sniffed it and then put it down then he picked another bottle sniffed it and let his other buddies take a whiff. Then he turned to my Mom and said well everything appears to be in order, thank you for cooperating. And then they left. That's when the shit hit the fan. My Mom called her best friend and told her to come over. She called my Dad and in encoded speech tried to tell him of what had transpired. Did I mention our phones were tapped. Then started the frantic rush of cleansing the house of any incriminating evidence. All the bottles of alcohol were flushed down the toilet. the my cousins banned bookjs were attacked. They were piled into a garbage bag and buried in the back of the yard. We were all hysterical. We thought any minute they would be back and they would have us all arrested. Anyways my Dad shows up. He's all cocky about how dare they come into my house, what right do they have. I'll have to give them a piece of my mind. Part of his fury had to do with the fact that precious bottle of alcohol ahd been flushed down the toilet! Anyways he goes down to the staion all indignant, demanding to see the officers that had the audacity to storm his house. He created quite the calamity. Anyways finally the leader of the group that had visited our house shows up. He pulls my Dad and says to him, look lets not be too self righteous afterall both you and I know what was going on in the basement. I saw your bottles of booze, but passed them as rosewater, so why don't you get off your high horse, go back to your home and thank God that I didn't take any actions that would have found you in a very compromising situation. At that my Dad, thanked the man and turned and came home. That first bottle that the guard had sniff from the closet was the finest plum vodka in Tehran. After that we went to great lengths to hide our stash of moonshine lest we have another surprise visit. It never happened. To this day we have no idea how they knew what was going on in our basement. If someone ratted us out or what. But we were very lucky that particular revolutionary guard spared us the fate of so many others guilty of possessing alcohol in the Islamic Republic.

It's funny how under the direst of circumstances you find ways to have fun. Although my year in Soroush Azadi was a signal of an end to many happy care free days, we still tried to make the most of it. I remember one day bringing in all my pastel crayons to school and with the rest of my classmates decorating the walls of our classroom with drawings and caricatures. I had this one caricature, of a slutty ditzy girl that was everyone's favorite. I used to draw her in different getups. Anyways the walls didn't stay decorated for long. We ended up having to paint over them ourselves as a punishment. I think our only concession was that we got to choose the colour. Other classes decided they wanted to do the same. This one class ended up painting their walls a lavendar colour. As it turned out, lavendar is not a good colour to live in. It makes you vomit literally. We found this fact out when we had to write an exam in this classroom. One by one students left complaining of nasea!! Painting classrooms became a theme in my life. Later when I went to Fadak public school we pulled the same stunt of drawing on the walls and again got punished. I was the head of class at the time (mobser) so I was held responsible. I spent a weekend with a couple of other girls painting the walls. It was weird afterwards walking the streets with our paint covered gowns. But I remember that day feeling really good because I thought we showed the school admin that we had the last laugh. They thought is was cruel punishment, instead it was really fun. Other pranks that I pulled while at Fadak included hiding the prayer rug. It was a long piece of carpet that was laid out around lunch for the noon prayer attended by all the islamist and of course the school admin. They ended up doing the prayers on the bare ground. Another time a watermelon truck was passing by our school. We bribed the school janitor to go outside and buy us a watermelon and some bread and cheese and then we went to this little room in the school yard and had a feast on the the prayer rug. Did I mention that Fadak was set up in the confiscated home of Farah( the Queen)'s uncle. It was a great home with a huge pool that remained empty. We used to play dodgeball in the pool. Since we couldn't leave the school grounds, we used to get pizza delivered to our classroom. The we'd close the doors and windows and have the pizza and later draw giutars on the back of the pizza boxes and jam on our air guitars. As I was always the class clown and had a nack for mimic everyone, I used to put on shows imitating the teachers and administrators. We were a very close knit bunch, my classmates and I. In Iran by 9th grade you more or less have made a determination of what you'll be studying in university by attending different highschools. Fadak was a Science highschool. In grade 10 there was another level of separation between those studying natural sciences and those studying applied science. I was in the latter group. Natural sciences was by far the most popular. There were 3 classrooms of natural science to the one small classroom of applied science. There were no more than 20 students so we all stayed together for the 4 years of highschool. Most of our teachers remained the same thru the years as well. So by the time we were in our senior year we had gotten to know them well. A favorite was our Physics teacher, Mrs Madarshahi. She was incredibly smart and funny at the same time. She had a way of making you want to do well in her class. One of the students lost a bet to her one time, can't remember over what. The result was that she had to cook soup (Ash) for everyone and bring it to school. The day of the soup, there was some kind of a celebration going on. I don't remember what, but school let out early but we all stayed behind and waited for the soup, which arrive in a giant pot. We invited a select few of our teachers to join us. Then my classmates had me get up in front of everyone and imitiate the very teachers that were present. My physics teacher was laughing so hard at my imitation of her that she kept slapping the English teacher knee and crying out, it' true, it's true. It was a really memorable day. I still have pictures of that day. Another favorite teacher was my math teacher, Ms Shahbakhti. Another very smart lady. She was unusual in that she never could keep her veil on her head. It would always slip off her head and she had these beautiful long fingernails. She was a single working girl which was unusual for those days. She didn't take any crap from the school principal, a born again islamist ( rumour had it that during the Shah's time she and her sister well known party girls, now she wore the strictest hejab with a heavy black chador and made her poor son stand in front of the school assembly every day and recite the Koran). I liked her for her guts. They couldn't touch her because she really was a fantastic teacher. In our final year, my school scored the highest grades in the entire district. We beat all the boys school who where supposed to have the best teachers, male of course. Go girl power!!
The best part of speaking english fluently, was that I got to skip all my english classes mainly because I was better at english than the teacher that taught it. I loved my free time. I used to spy on all the other class rooms with my friend Afrooz. She was also fluent in English. I had met her in Soroush Azadi. She used to attend the British school Rostamabadian. Afrooz and I would spend the time waking around the school and talking out loud to our hearts content in english about everything that bothered us, since no one was around to hear us. That was one of the biggest fears of being in a public school with all these islamists around. You never knew who was an islamist, so we had been warned by our parent never ever to say anything to incriminate ourselves. There were stories of children talking in school about their parents only to find revolutionary guards at their home the next day ready to arrest the parents. Me and four of my friends from Soroush azadi all ended up going to Fadak. For the longest time they were the only people that I trusted. It took a while to finally figure out who was who. At the end I met my best friends that I have to this day in Fadak.
Speaking of parents getting arrested it reminds me of the story of how my dad narrowly escaped arrest for making moonshine. I'll get to that soon ....
Oh and reminder to myself to tell the story of the school play with a gay character!!