Kathy to Hilary, July 25, 1971, Tehran, Iran Visiting gendarmerie outposts in the middle of nowhere. 
July 25
We went to Sanandaj in Kurdestan for three days last week. The car trips were miserable but only because it was long and hot and I can’t read or sleep in cars. It was so hot and mom wouldn’t let us roll down windows because it messed up her hair. So you just sit and sweat. And I was wearing long sleeves too to try to be modest.
Kurdestan was filled with the most wonderful mountains and valleys--green against the endless desert of Iran south of the Alborz mountains. The Kurds seemed friendly and polite; like, “I know you’re foreign, but you’re a person like everyone else”--sometimes you feel like a freak show, even in Tehran. And of course the Americans are thinking, “make way for me, almighty Americans coming.”
Sanandaj is nicely situated by some mountains--but all Iranian cities are by mountains. Think how depressing they’d be if they were on flat ground. Sanandaj’s houses are mostly the square mud affairs with a few grand buildings interspersed. The Kurds in their gaudy clothes make it interesting. I bought some fabric like the tribal women wear in the bazaars--shiny dark red with hot pink flowers. Not sure what I’ll make. Didn’t get enough to make one of those big flouncy skirts, which would make me look like a walking circus tent.
We saw Hamadan too. Has a good bazaar, but after awhile all bazaars start to look the same. Went into Esthers tomb--the Esther in the Bible--if you want to know more about her read the bible--stuck my hand into Mordacai’s coffin, half expecting a bony hand to grip it though I knew he was thousands of years dead. Hamadan--biblical Ecbatana--would prove a lousy place for archeological work, before I went I thought it ought to be taken down to search for stuff--but I didn’t see how big it was. That task will have to be left for when Time has done his work. What really made my trip was the marijuana growing wild! (It does in Tehran too.)
Mom and Dad went to see darvishes stick skewers through their tongues in Sanandaj, but I had to stay with Buck in the hotel and didn’t even see one single garden variety whirling darvish!
Dad’s leaving for work and I want to give this to him to mail before it gets any longer. Write soon, even if you have nothing to say.
Also, please send a Star or Post obituary on Jim Morrison if you still have one around. It would be greatly appreciated.
Love,
Katarina
In Hamadan, a bad gir in the background (bad girls in foreground) 
A bad gir is a desert air conditioning system. The tower funnels wind across a pool of water in the basement, sending cool air through the building.
7:00:02 AM 
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