Be Good Again

Do you want to write a message on a beautiful kite and send it to someone you like to receive it? well you can do it here:

http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/begoodagain/begoodagain.php

I found this on the official website of the Kite Runner movie. I read the book and I cried every night. not just because the story is sad but because I knew its sadly true. . .

Trip to Iran – Part II

At the end of the first week, Nima joined me in Shahi. There were two concurrent celebrations this year in Iran. Ghorban ceremony which is one of the Islamic celebrations common in most Islamic countries and Yalda Night which is one of the loveliest Iranian celebrations.
The main idea of Ghorban celebration is to donate food to the poor. The ceremony is a commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (Isaac), as commanded by god. Some people buy a sheep and donate its meat to the poor, some people buy chicken, some people just donate money and some just do nothing.:)
My grand father was very serious about these celebrations; I never forget how he used to precisely buy the best male sheep and divide its meat between some of the people he knew were poor and keep the rest of the meat for ours. I remember all of us, my aunts, and uncles used to gather in his place and celebrate the all day by eating delicious kebab. When he died (almost 12 years ago) my father continued this tradition in grandpa’s way. I was telling all this to Nima. We gather in my grandma’s place and ate kebab.
And at night we gathered again to celebrate Yalda night which is the first night of winter and the longest one during a year. Almost most of the Iranians are buying watermelons, nuts and pistachio for this night. Reading Divan of Hafez is also very common.Hafez is one of the most beloved poets of Persian culture. It is true that you can find two books in every Iranian house the Qur'an and the Divan of Hafez.
In our house my father always reads Hafez for us at this night. It’s kind of fun; every one of those who are presented in Yalda party make a wish and then my father open Divan of Hafez randomly and read the poet for that person and we all try to interpret Hafez’s poet in response to that person wish.
After the revolution the government tried to put less and less emphasis on Iranian celebrations and put more on Islamic ones. I don’t understand how they could do this to our culture. Iranians have several lovely festivals. It’s all about showing gratitude toward life, nature, and motherland. These traditions are so old and rich. We should really keep these precious heritages and share them with others.
Fortunately many people stick to their national and Iranian celebrations and keep it alive. I know many Iranian who migrated to other countries but still keep their national celebrations such as Yalda’s night and Norouz. I am defiantly one of those.

P.S. The first photo is my husband enjoying lamb kebab.You can also see a photo of our dinner table for Yalda night. That’s right the other photo is stuffed turkey. YAMMY

Trip To Iran - Part I

Nima and I arrived in Tehran on December 16th. Our plane landed in Imam Khomeini Airport (IKA) opened recently.
We arrived in Nima’s parent’s house around 12:00 AM and I was so lucky to see two of my very best friends (Behis) there after one year for only 5 minutes. They kindly came to Nima’s Parent’s house to say hello and goodbye to us. There were on their way to Libya.
Nima and I decided each of us stay with his/her own parents for the first week. Thus the day after, I headed to the North of the country where my parents live, where I grew up, a city called Shahi. Shahi is about 230 km away from Tehran. I was in my brother’s car and the weather was snowy and foggy. We were chatting along the way and catching up. I felt so good, chatting with my only brother, drinking Cinnamon tea, looking at beautiful snow covers both sides of the road and heading home after one year.
I took photos on the way where we stopped to buy hot tea you can see some here. We arrived home and you can guess yourself: Hugging kissing, greeting….
I put my suitcases in a room, prepared for Nima and me, on the second floor. My mother redecorated everything. She put small fridge in the room full of everything you can imagine. It was just like a 6 star hotels. I didn’t know what to say. I love this room. It’s kind of like an attic. You can see its photo.
The weather was perfect for that week I guess it was around 14 degree (oc). Compare with Toronto weather when we left the city which was around -18 (oc).
It was great to be with my family again and feel I am just a little girl in this house. You know whenever I am going home, I mean my parents home, I sleep so well. I fell so calm and secure. You know just like I became a child again and my parents are around to protect me. It’s like I can relax and rely on them with no responsibility.
Last photo was taken in our yard. The pool with those colorful balls was so eye catching.

I wanna live in a land called paradise

A friend of mine sent this video clip "A Land Called Paradise". I really like this video clip. it simply tries to break the stupid stereotype that all the Muslims are terrorists. it's simply wanna say there are many ordinary people who are Muslims; who are humans.
I am sure if we focused on any publicity we can find many flaws. it's not fair to judge all the Muslims based on foolish acts of some ultra Conservative biased Muslims who can be found in any religious and societies. :) :)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4P5Mvt0fmc

Luggage Door Malfunction

We are finally home after exhausting flight from Iran to Canada. We had kind of bad luck all the way back to Canada. Our check in took more than two hours at Imama Khomeini Airport (IKA) since the lady who was responsible for our line was under training and every 5 minutes called someone for help.

After that long check in we finally got into plane but the airplane didn’t took off until five hours later. It seemed the luggage door had a problem and they couldn’t close it.

I was so tired, I remember how many times I sighed when I opened my eyes and saw we are still on a ground. But it wasn’t that bad until we figured out that we lost our connecting flight from Paris to Toronto because of this delay. Several other passengers lost theirs too. It was a mess at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. We stood for two more hours there in line and finally we got another flight to Montreal instead of Toronto.

We where happy; this was much better than staying for a night. Our second flight from Paris to Montreal had 40 minutes delay and we lost our flight from Montreal to Toronto but the good things was that from Montreal to Toronto there is a flight every hour.

We finally arrived home after 30 hours being in airplanes or airports. We were both exhausted. I barely stayed awake until it got late enough to go to sleep. I fell asleep as soon as I put my head on a pillow and slept like a child.

I am coming back

After one month staying in Iran, Nima and I are coming back to Canada tonight. there was heavy snow during last week in Iran which canceled several flights. It says another Storm is on the way; I hope everything goes well.
There are many things about our trip that I like to write and I will when I arrive in Canada. :)