Have you ever swum against the flow of the river?

by samaneh ostad (Iran)

A leap into the unknown Iran

I always thought when I turn thirty, it would be too late, too late to be able to experience what I like to. However, when I was thirty, I just realized that I still owe a lot to myself. It was a few months before I turned thirty that I found I should give myself a different gift for the fourth decade of my life. I decided to go against social norms and give myself courage in a country where women face many restrictions in their lives and are deprived of their freedom. I shared my decision with my friends. "I want to travel alone hitchhiking on my thirtieth birthday and make a documentary”, I said. Their opinions were different. Some friends accused me of looking for trouble. Others were also concerned about how society would deal with it. But I leaped in the dark. By a loan from college, I rented a camera and bought two days' travel equipment. On May 21st, I took my bulky backpack and went down the road to Alamut, a castle that was occupied by the Mongols after a fierce battle and was always a symbol of fortitude and perseverence for me. I set the camera by the Karaj-Qazvin road and hailed the cars while I was worried that someone might steal the camera. Changing three cars, I reached my destination. One of them was Youssef whom I knew from the virtual world who was a bit keen on participating in this adventure. The beautiful Alamut road with its lush plains made me more confident about what I was doing. Youssef took me on the route where Abbas Kiarostami made his internationally-acclaimed movie "Taste of Cherry”, which excited me so much. The drivers of the other two cars were strangers who talked to me in front of the camera respectfully but agreed that this style of travel is dangerous for girls and that they would not allow their women and girls to do that. I arrived in Gazarkhan, the closest village to the castle, and camped the night in a place I didn't know. I was scared, and a dog barking near the tent wouldn't let me sleep. I got up and danced inside the tent to overcome my fear. Then I polished my nails and wrote in my diary book and tried to sleep again. The first ray of sunshine I saw, I packed up my belongings, handed them to a local family there to keep them for me and went up toward Mount Alamut. I was thinking about the people who were the happiest in the world when I was walking in the remnants of the castle. On the way back I got in the car of a family who believed, "If parents are friends with their children, they would never do such a thing" and worried about the effect that what I did might have on their ten-year-old son. I stood on the road. It was night time and no car would take me free of charge back to Tehran. This time I rented a car and three hours later I was standing in Tehran's Azadi Square (Azadi means freedom). The weight of my backpack, sleeplessness, and shooting had made me tired. I filmed the last scene and talked about the courage I had gained, courage to experience what I liked in spite of others' judgments. For this last scene, however, I unfortunately forgot to turn on the HF microphone. When I arrived at the dorm I felt I had achieved the most important happiness. In a country where women do not have the right to marry without the permission of their father and leave the country without the permission of their husbands, where I have to wear the hijab and if I don't wear it, I would be easily considered a criminal, I did something that everyone around me was against and made the toughest judgments about me. The filming rashes I got were never edited because I did not have enough money but still after two years I feel like it was the best birthday I have ever had. It was a mixture of fear, excitement, and bravery.