Whitcomb's Overland Trip continued - June 13-15, 1963

June 13, 1963

                We got off early.  The Iranians know how to save their water and every time there is any water at all there is a lovely settlement with tall cypress trees and green fields.  So refreshing after hours of scorching heat, miles of sand dunes, prickly bushes, sand eddies and not a living soul. 

                At noon we got to Kerman and bought nan right out of the oven at an interesting bakery.  We watched them put it in with long shovels into the furnace and then when it comes out they throw it down on the hearth to dust off the ashes, then set it up on a rack.  Everyone buys and carries it off.  The cities all look alike.  Suburbs of high walled houses, trees showing over the walls, clear water running in the ditches on the road sides.  There are wide roads, lovely squares with cypress trees, gardens, fountains, shops all around the square.  We met a young student who spoke good English who showed us around.  We went to the post office and sent telegrams that we were delayed.  Looked at an old mosque our guide wanted us to see.  He wanted us to come to his home but we went on.  We stocked up, watermelon, tomatoes, bread, Cokes and gas.

                Out of town a way a stone flipped up and cut the tire and we had a blow-out.  We changed it and get in to Rafsangan around 3 or 4 p.m.  Tried to buy a tire.  It would have cleaned us out of Irani money so we stayed till the bank opened.  It was hot in the car, a crowd formed staring at us, and we felt awful.  We parked outside the bank, there was a flower garden inside.  Got out of town finally and found a lovely cool canal to camp, three lined, cold and swift.  There was a wind and semi-dust storm blowing.  There were people at the road and they offered to let us stay in their house and asked for medicines.  They were gracious and kind.  Apparently all the buses and trucks stop here for water.

June 14, 1963

                Off at 7 a.m.  About 10 a.m. we came to an old fort on both sides of the road.  It looked really ancient.  We found a big, round well full of brittle green weeds, water clear as crystal but salty.  We sat and drank our tea and cookies and went on refreshed.  The scenery is all the same, sand and stones with bare colorful mountains on the horizon and corrugated road.

                Came into Yezd at noon.  We went into a restaurant into the back room and ordered rice, anan, kebabs and orange soda.  We saw the men drinking liquor in small glassed.  The we ordered tea and found out that it was hot tea in fragile, little glasses, served with a lump of sugar which you dip in the tea and suck. 

                We went on.  About twenty miles out of Yezd the car began acting up.  Stopped at an open room like a mosque and Daddy cleaned the air filter.  An old man sleeping on a lovely old rung woke up and offered us a seat on it, hospitable and kindly.

                At 6 p.m. the car stopped dead.  Everything seemed to have shaken loose; the oil cap had fallen off.  A truck driver stopped and looked at the engine with dad.  He said motor “thaman,” electrical system – or something “not thaman.”  Daddy flagged down a Volkswagen of men going into Nain.  We all sat in the van, in the dark, scared stiff and ate a supper of dry bread, canned deviled ham, apricots and condensed milk.  We put the lantern in the back window and Johnny and Bobby went to sleep.  Patty and I were wide awake.  At 9:10 p.m. daddy came back with a curly haired little mechanic in a Jeep with a driver.  Everything in the engine was loose.  They fiddled with it and the mechanic coaxed it into starting and we drove into town.  Daddy had bought us a big sack of nougat which we ate for countries to come.

                We got into the town about midnight, terribly sleepy and tired.  A restaurant owner cleared out his back room with lovely Persian carpets on the floor where we spread out and went to sleep.

June 15, 1963

                I forgot to say we saw several Persian cats wandering the streets as we drove in the night before.  Nice long haired ones.  We woke up to find ourselves in sort of a bus station.  Busses were parked in back.  The yard was filthy and the bathroom behind was unspeakable.  Mother would not let us use it.  “Curly” and his assistant showed up and worked on the van while we breakfasted on yogurt and cleaned the car, inside and out.  We took everything out, swept out the dust and tidied up the load in back and on top.   By then we had put the van back together and the mechanics paid, about $10 for everything.  We were out of Nain by 9 a.m.

                The road lay up over a mountain ridge, 2,000 feet or higher.  We went up to 7,000 feet valley between 8,000 foot peaks, past pretty little villages, wheat field and stone fences.  Pretty and picturesque.  Coming down into the plain again we went past a lot of heavy construction machinery, roads being constructed, very dusty.  We found an irrigation ditch and washed up as best we could outside Isfahan.  

                The town of Isfahan was fabulous; a big city set in garden fields, tree-lined streets, a garden paradise.  We drove into the downtown square, founds, ringed by flower beds, a road circling the square and surrounded by old blue domed mosques, colonnaded buildings and other beautiful old buildings.  We found a restaurant right off the square.  They would not let us in but motioned us to go across the street.  There we were shown into an upper room and food was brought to us – rice, nan, kebabs, yogurt, and water cress.  It was hard to communicate at all but they served what they should we should have.  Such interesting shops.  Lots of tourist curios.  I spotted a shoe store.  Lots of modern shops too.

                Julfa is across the river from the main city.  We got across to it and drove up and down for two hours asking for the address we had and using the little map we had which was wrong.  Met a Geman and others who spoke English.  We had given up till we found the German man and he got us on the right track.  Just as we turned in a little lane with high walls and big doors.  Mrs. T. came out  and mom recognized her immediately as Sarkies’[1] mother.  We piled out of the van joyfully.  Just them one of the tires went flat, our only flat of the whole trip.

                The house was so interesting. You enter through the big door and into a courtyard.  It had several fruit trees, cherries ripening, other fruit too.  Flagstones on most of the courtyard around the trees.  Small rooms to left and right of the entrance and then her rooms, up a flight of 12 or 15 steps.  There  was a balcony with a railing, and a dining and living room with her bedroom behind.  The kitchen was just a small boarded space.  There were lovely, colorful Persian rugs, fine heavy lace curtains.  The nice furniture was immaculate and polished.  We were welcome by lots of family members.  An uncle and his youngish wife, a girl cousin, and a young man cousin, Caro, a real doll.  He spoke fluent English and was the curator of the Julfa cathedral and Armenian museum. 

                Caro took us to the cathedral and we met the old Metropolitan who could speak some Hindi, saw many papers, old Bibles, costumes and weapons.  We were given tea every time we turned around.  Back to the house for more tea, cherries, cucumbers peeled on a fork and delicious lemon pound cake.  We were never given an opportunity to more than wash faces and hands in full view of the family the balcony.  There was no bathroom, just a little open latrine in the end of the courtyard.

                After a bit Uncle Minas took us out again to see the sights.  We went to the square and to a park with a hall where the old shahs used to old audiences.  It was beautiful, all marble with huge wooden pillars.  Paintings with gold lead inside like we had seen in the cathedral which was covered with paintings right to the roof.  The garden here was full of roses and green grass with reflecting pools.  One pavilion had twenty pillars and is called the Pavilion of Forty Pillars because of the reflecting pool in front of it.  We were taken out to the edge of town to see a little mosque with a shaking pillar.  It was pretty ramshackle.

                Back for more tea and we sat and visited with the relatives till time to eat dinner (9:30 pm).  Lucy and her husband and daughter were with us.  Lucy is Sarkies’ sister.  She has two sons in California, one studying pharmacy.  Also there was Uncle Minas with his wife and son.  The niece spoke English and had a lovely beehive hairstyle. Dinner consisted of nan, rice, roast meat, roasted potatoes, salad, and stewed, mixed fruit for dessert.  We were a big crowd around the table.  There was lovely china and silver.  Mrs. Toomikian had bedding for us – snowy sheets, heavy quilts all covered with white sheets and pinned in, big thick pillows and heavy mattresses.  The beds were laid out on the Persian carpet. 

                The lower rooms were all rented out and the renters came in quietly and left their shoes at the door to their room.  Each had a water jug nearby.  The well was under the corner of the living room.   Cool water was brought up in a sort of basin.

---

[1] Sarkies Tommikian was a student of my grandfather, Mason Vaugh, at the Agricultural Institute in Allahabad and still lived in India.

Whitcomb's Overland Trip continued - June 9-11, 1963

June 9, 1963

We drove down, down, down through high picturesque mountains till Johnny felt sick; very rocky and barren.  It was a long way still to Quetta.  We watched a mountain railway winding in and out, through tunnels, near the road.  Before Quetta we came down into a vast barren plain and could see everything spread out, signs of civilization again.

We got to Quetta about 11:00 a.m., right in the middle of church so we drove around the town a few minutes to pass the time.  We got some supplies in the bazaar.  Then we drove back to the mission compound and were warmly greeted by the Rockies.  They gave us a good lunch ad we bathed, washed clothes by hand and washed the car. 

We told the Rockies about our cold night up on the pass and they checked the newspaper and found out for us that it had been 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Muzzafagarh the day before (where we had been on June 7^th).

We were in the Maring’s house (another Methodist missionary family) and it was very pleasant.  We slept out under a grape arbor, in the yard, that night.  There was a plum, apple and a peach tree in the yard.  It was lovely to have lots of water to get clean.  We went downtown and got a big can to carry water, some vegetables and better rice, medicines, and bread.  We had a lovely refreshing dinner and were glad to get to bed.

June 10, 1963

                We were off at 8:30 a.m. or so.  We made a last stop for a few things in the bazaar and set off on the road.  This was the real jumping off place.  After this was the unknown and pretty deserted country.  We stopped at two road signs and got pictures, London 5,878 miles to go.  Mother got her first driving lesson and didn’t do too badly but the road went up over a little mountain so she had to quit.

The Mileage to London

                We passed a Landrover full of European kids and they waved but we did not stop.  It was another blistering hot day.  About 10 or 11 we came to the real desert.  It was about 4,000 feet elevation.  The road wound past black, tortured looking, bare rock, clumps of green desert bushes, drifts and ripples of sand.  No shade or relief anywhere.

                For lunch we stopped under a four foot square bus stop shelter which we shared with a waiting passenger.  The sun would just burn you up in no time.  About 2:00 p.m. we drove into another little dust storm.  Everything was barren and depressing.  The road, however, was very good black top.

                About 4:00 p.m. we came into Dalbandin, our target for the night.  The houses were scattered and half covered with sand dunes.  We bought gas, found a tap near the military outpost so we could wash, and decided to drive on.  It was too hot to stop.  The road ahead was even more gruesome.  It was a moonscape with miles and miles of black gravel covering acres of sand and not one blade of grass or one breath of life visible.  Probably the most horrible place I have ever seen or will ever see again.        

                There was almost one hundred miles of this landscape and the road was only gravel now, the black top gone, very washboard in spots.  About every fifteen miles we would pass a little square fort, few signs of life around them till unset when we found that there were people inside them.

                We passed several road crews raking the gravel on the road and they waved as we passed.  Once in a while we passed a man walking off into the distance across the desert.  Where could he be going?  We saw a few camels grazing on who knows what, black gravel?

                About 5 or 5:30 p.m. we got to Nok Kundi, the customs barrier between Pakistan and Iran.  We stopped and give in our passports and permits for processing.  Found a place that sold a very poor version of Coke.  There were several other foreigners, a young couple on a motorcycle, etc.  We set up camp in the rest house for the night.  No one was there when we arrived.  Only brackish water for bathing.  It was fearfully hot.

                We cooked super on the porch, set up our beds and tried to sleep.  Soon others came.  Daddy was invited for a “drink” with an officer who said he knew a lot of missionaries in Lahore, but daddy preferred to sleep.  A party of two in a Volkswagen arrived in the middle of the night – having driven 600 miles across Iran.  The man was an engineer returning from duty in Congo.  His wife looked tired.

….

June 11, 1963

                We got up and away early.  The road got worse and worse for the last one hundred miles more desert.  We could see the railway coming along with us.  At last in the middle of the desert with Grand Canyon type mountains on one side and a huge water-course, dry as a bone, there was sign “Pakistan ends – Goodbye!”  Immediately the road signs and all the markers stopped and the road disintegrated into a track.  At the other side of the big, dry river bed [wadi] we came into a little town, Mirjevah, Iran.

                We were flagged down by the police and asked to show our papers.  The train had just pulled in and the railway gate was down there so we sat and bathed our faces and hands in the pool out front while Daddy talked to the police.  The people only spoke Farsi.  We drove around the deserted looking streets and bought some gas from a big oil barrel; time to push on to Zahidan.  We drove through the heat, stopped at a little caravan serai for lunch and were surprised by how cool it was inside.  Dust storm all afternoon and so hot.

                As we came into Zahidan there was a policeman flagging us down.  We had not gone through customs in Mirjevah.  He wanted us to go back 60 miles.  Finally we got that straightened out [daddy paid?].  Got some good tasting water finally in the customs yard and we could hardly wait to let the Halazone act to take a drink.  We needed to cash a check but the banks were all closed over the long noon hour so they sent us to the airport.  We found the way there and some army men led us to the barracks.  They gave us a drink in their mess hall.  The boys all eyes us like they hadn’t seen American girls for a long time [ever?].  The major could cash our check for $50.  They were cute guys.  We could see planes taking off and landing.  Bobby loved it.

                We stopped to camp for the night another few miles on behind a sand dune.  We were up in very rolling hills about 6,000 feet.  It was hot at sunset but cool to sleep under the stars and waning moon.  We could hear trucks rolling by all night.

June 12, 1963

                We got up at 4 a.m. and started off because this was supposed to be the DAY, the very worst day of all.  We were in the Afghan Pass and finally about 6 a.m., after sun up, we climbed up into steep hills and crossed the ridge.  We started down steeply, stopped in a dry stream for breakfast of tea, hard boiled eggs and bread.  The mountains were quite high, 7,000 feet, and very pretty with all sorts of different colored strata.  The pass was just a narrow gorge.

                We came down into the real desert, crossing the Dast-i-lut Salt Lake, and thought it would be bad.  It was not as desolate as the end of Baluchaisthan had been, rolling sand dunes, stony patches, some reeds and shrubs.  We kept watching for towers, fort ruins, etc., marked on the map and saw some old ruins.  Then we came to the desert light house, stopped and got a picture.  We climbed to the top and Johnny counted the steps.  Soon we were passing little settlements, oases?   With palm trees, irrigation ditches, some very pretty red stone pillar formations.  [I drove about fifty miles here.]  And so into Bam by noon , very good time and the worst was supposedly past.

                We looked for a restaurant and a hotel so we could have a rest.  Found a Brazilian who had an Iranian wife and three daughters in Teheran, who had lived and worked in or with Americans so he had a U.S. accent.  He helped us find a place to stay, upstairs in a little hotel and helped us order nan and sheesh kabobs, Cokes, which we took upstairs to our room to eat.  Mom began to wash clothes and we all bathed in the bathroom until the hotel people got it across to us with sign language that our bathing was melting the walls downstairs.  It was wickedly hot in that upstairs room.  At 4 p.m. we couldn’t stand it anymore so loaded up the van and left.  Daddy bathed in a cold, swift irrigation stream outside of town and we drove one.  We stopped for the night in a lovely little valley, sand and prickly bushes, some camels grazing nearby.  We got a good sleep.  There were mosquitoes but it was cool.

               

We Are What We Read?

Someone famously said that you are what you eat – but by the same token,  are we what we read?  On my continuing journey to become American and understand who I am in the final analysis I began thinking this week of what books I’ve read through my lifetime.  There are many, of course, that I do not remember but many that somehow marked my progress through life.

                Early memories of reading involve the two children’s book series that my mother bought and took to India with us when I was a baby.  The first was My Book House which progressed from a book of nursery rhymes to the more advanced ones that had condensed versions of Dante’s Inferno, Pilgrim’s Progress and various other Western classics.  It was a beautiful series – in color – it ranged from a pale green, through blues, to darker greens.  The other series was the Childcraft series  and were also arranged progressively in reading level.  I loved those books – had them read to me, and then as I became the oldest sibling to 3 younger ones, I read to them.  We had nothing else to do in the evening except listen to Radio Ceylon when the short wave radio could pick up the signal.  We read every night.

                When I began reading chapter books for myself I was in boarding school.  In third grade my friend Mary and I would sneak a book to the mandatory playground time and hide behind one of the gymnasium walls and take turns reading to each other.   I don’t remember any of those titles but they were mostly morality stories about little children – The Little Match Girl is the only title I can recall. 

                By middle school I was reading books after lights-out in boarding.  In 8^th grade I discovered James Bond and somehow managed to read all 7 of them, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia with Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger.   I must have borrowed them from someone as I am sure they were not in the school library.  I also didn’t have any appreciable amount of spending money and was only allowed into the bazaar on special occasions.  After lights out I would pull the quilt up over my head, turn on my flashlight and enter the exciting, sophisticated, daring life of 007.  He was indescribably sexy and appealing and I had many pleasurable hours immersed in the fantasies.  I learned about what daring women wore, how they did their hair and make-up, and that caviar and lobster were delicacies.

                The pattern of reading everything I could find by one author was something I continued with in high school.  I discovered Richard Halliburton’s travel books and read all that were in the library although I don’t remember anything about them now.  I read On The Beach by Nevile Shute and was equally entranced with A Town Like Alice. 

There were not many books in our home  - two bookcases that I remember.  They were mostly reference books for my mother’s lab and chemistry work and things like the Merck Manual for my dad’s agricultural work.  One book that I must have read more than once was Marjorie Moringstar by Herman Wouk and was my introduction to people who were Jewish .   Another one that I remember was Girl of the Limberlost – the plot of which I have no recollection and was glad to see that Wikipedia at least had a summary. 

Reading Gone with the Wind as well as Uncle Tom’s Cabin also were memorable .  I got into my bed in our home in the mountains, covered with at least two heavy quilts and read into the night to finish Gone with the Wind.  When the Peace Corps volunteers began to arrive in India in the mid-60’s I read at least two of the books from their required reading libraries – the MalayanTrilogy and The Ugly American.   About the same time I read Mitchner’s Hawaii and still have great misgivings about the treatment of native people in Hawaii.  These books began to shape my values and point me in the direction that I have gone since then.

                Hearing a report one morning this week on the radio about how closely Ayn Rand’s philosophy is aligned with some of the Republican candidates I was more than a little startled.  I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.  I recall being impressed with her sweeping stories full of sex and grand gestures but as I realized on hearing the news stories I have completely turned her philosophy around in my mind – I was sure she was a socialist and true to her communist past.   Again – I am not sure how I could have gotten my hands on her books but I did.

The books we were required to read at school were not unlike what was required in American schools because our curriculum was American and accredited by a U.S. accreditation board.  The books we read as juniors in a class led by a newly graduated Barnard student, Miss Selby, were  Camus’s The Fall, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and two books of poetry by T.S. Elliott.  She had never taught before and we did a line-by-line analysis of each book, etching them forever into my memory.   I read The Tale of Two Cities on the long drive from India to London in the summer of 1963.  My father thinks he remembers that I was reading comic books in the back seat but he is, uncharacteristically wrong, as by then I had a distinct prejudice against anything I thought was not “intellectual.” 

One book required for school was nearly my undoing – a biography of Hitler, by Bullock.  Titled Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, it is still regarded as a definitive work.  It is, however, 458 pages long and we were to have read it over the 3-month winter vacation.  I found it such heavy going that my mother resorted to reading it aloud to me in an attempt to get it finished.  I remember little about the book but I do remember the panic the day before the exam that covered it when I went off into the woods and found a quiet spot under the trees to try and finish it. 

Our class had rejected the mandatory daily devotions at school and in their place we had negotiated with the chaplain that we be allowed to read from Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings – we felt victoriously self-righteous, grown up and intellectual when we were granted that privilege.  

What do I read today?  My bookcases are filled with books written by Indian authors, writing in English about India.  I am currently reading Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, and on my Facebook page I list Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Mistry’s A Fine Balance as two of my favorite novels.   In spite of my experience with the biography of Hitler, I find it increasingly is a favorite form of literature.  An extraordinary one that I read last year is Memoirs of a Rebel Princess by Abida Sultaan. 

I am American.  My passport says I am.  But I read about India because that is where my heart goes, where my memories lie and the writers touch the things that matter to me.  In the end a mixture of all that I have lived and read.

Farewell Cookie.

      

            We drove to Newton, Kansas last week to attend Cookie’s funeral.  We have known Cookie and David Weibe since 1997 when we went to India to work at Woodstock School.  She was the staff “buddy” assigned to us to help us get settled into the community.  It was a memorable Saturday when we piled into Bunty’s little Ambassador taxi for the drive to down the mountain to Dehradun and Paltan Bazaar.  Woodstock and India were home to me because I had grown up there but returning as an adult proved to be an important experience in which I grew and deepened my relationship with India and the understanding of myself. 

            Cookie was assigned to work with the journalism students in producing the school yearbook that year, The Whispering Pine, which brought her and the students to the Alumni /Development Office to search for interesting bits of history and photographs for their project.  It was the 50^th year of India’s independence and they titled their annual “Jai Hind” – hurrah India.  All in black and white it was a masterful piece.   I was struck by Cookie’s energy and dedication to the task.

            We did not have much contact with Cookie and David again for over a decade.  They returned to Newton, their home, and both pursued graduate degrees in preparation for returning to Woodstock at some future date.  In 2000 we also returned to the U.S. but in 2007 I was offered the opportunity to direct a study abroad program in Delhi for American students.  The Weibe’s also returned in 2009 to take up positions at Woodstock.  But within the first year Cookie realized she was seriously ill and contacted me in Delhi to help find an oncologist who could see her.  They stayed with us for five weeks during which time the diagnosis came -  advanced ovarian cancer with possible secondary uterine cancer.  The medical care available in Delhi was surprisingly sophisticated and she and David felt they were getting accurate and state-of-the-art-treatment.  However, once they saw how serious her situation was they chose to return to the U.S. to be closer to their family and other friends and the support system in their Mennonite church.

            Before Cookie left Woodstock she wrote a piece entitled, “You Might Not Have to Die,” which was her treatise on life and death.  The title comes from her great love for hiking in the Himalayas and her analysis of what an accident in the mountains could mean – in her words:

When hiking in the Himalayas in the 90′s, I categorized the drop-offs at the edge of the trail according to the probable end result:

• They might not have to carry you (i.e., you might not even get injured).
• You might not have to die (your injuries might not be fatal)
• They might not find you (self-explanatory) 

She went on to write eloquently and lovingly of her goals and philosophy of life and death.  She listed her positions:

1.      God will not allow anything to happen to me that will not further his kingdom.

2.       It’s Okay to die.

3.      A long life and a full life are not necessarily the same thing.

4.      My life isn’t any shorter today than it was yesterday (before possible dread disease)

5.      My goal is to empower my loved ones to move on.

       In the next fifteen months Cookie wrote a blog about what was happening in her life.  She was candid, funny, poignant and philosophical.  Hundreds of people around the world followed her blog.  She chronicled her experiences with the health care system, with no insurance, with the results of “Obama Care” which she credited with allowing her to stay alive and receive treatment for as long as she did.  She explored the genetic reasons that might have led to her unusually severe disease.  She repeatedly listed the things she wanted people to pray for … lessons in talking to God.   She sent good news and bad news and through it all was graceful and clear.

In May she wrote:

My prognosis is very bad.

·         Pray for a miracle – it may take a miracle to meet that first grandchild in the first week of August.

·         Pray for pain management to work in order to make the best possible use of the time I have left.

·         Praise God for all the blessings, yes blessings that we are receiving in the midst of this “horrible” experience.

      She did meet that grandchild, a grandson named Cassius.  She was lucid until the end, blogging and Tweeting up until three weeks before her death.  She went quietly with a smile and thumbs-up sign to her beloved David.  She was ready.  No one had to carry her out, she went willingly into eternity leaving us behind to marvel at her fortitude and determination.

     

      We drove through torrents of rain and wind to reach her service in Newton.  It is 721 miles from Evanston to Newton, across Illinois and Iowa to Des Moines, south through Missouri to Kansas City, and off onto a wide, well maintained state road toward Wichita.  The morning of the service was clear and crisp.  The prairie is rolling with outcroppings of white sand stone, dozens of hawks lined the highway, facing white breasted into the morning sun.  Like sentinels leading us.  

She had selected 24 hymns for her funeral.  David pared the list to 7.  The plain pine casket was open.  She looked serene.  The singing was glorious – many part harmonies in the Mennonite church that knows how to sing and how to stand by to aid whomever is in need. We are sorrowful but so much richer for having had Cookie in our lives.   The bell in the tower tolled 57 times, one for each year of her life, while they carried the casket to the hearse.    

    Farewell Cookie – although it seems unnecessary to say because I know you are doing just that - Rest in Peace.