Life Through the Eyes of the Locals

“There,” my driver gestured to the black speck in the valley below; “there is the camp”. This was the Iran I had come to see, away from the smog and congestion of cities so keen to emulate the high rise urbanity of the West. As I climbed down the barren hill slope mottled with dehydrated bushes and spindly shrubs, the speck slowly transformed into a tent belonging to the Kurdish goat-herding family inhabiting this never ending vista of hill and rock.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the daughter gestured that I may remove my headscarf; it was the first time I had felt the breeze in the oppressively hot Persian summer. In the doorway of the tent a pair of weathered hands worked a spindle of goat hair. The family had been unaware of my coming, yet greeted me enthusiastically with bottomless cups of hot, sweet tea. The father explained that visitors are a welcome breach to the solitary nomadic lifestyle. As my eyes adjusted to the shady interior of the cool tent I realised my nostrils would take longer to adjust to the acrid smell of goats, as the one room served as living quarters for both man and goat alike.

The sun ducked behind the adjacent hills a fire was lit, and we dined together from a communal platter of goat stew, sat on a rug made from goat hair, in the tent made from goat hair, listening to a symphony of goats outside. Afterwards the daughter sang an entrancing Kurdish lullaby, its melody floating through the valley on the still night air, and we soon bed down goats and all to a peaceful slumber only interrupted by the occasional goat tripping over our motionless bodies.

The next morning the father informed me with a smile on his lips yet an unmistakable sadness in his eyes that he was glad I came, because soon he will no longer be found in these hills. He recounted of the sons who used to live with him, moving their herd around the hills in pursuit of seasonal resources. His sons occasionally attended school in the city, and had come to enjoy the comforts accorded by city living, had married, and settled in houses with cars and televisions and mobile phones. His daughter was soon to follow suit, and with his increasing age and the urge to be near his children, he and his wife had decided to sell their herd and also move to the city. Their lives had become a battle between the desire to keep their traditions yet allow their children to live unrestricted in the modern world. There in the city lay their future, their past eroding in the hills.