Travel note in Persia 20 A shepherd boy

Travel note in Persia 20, A shepherd boy

In the afternoon, the uncle brought us by his jeep to a village in the heart of the mountain. I was looking forward to visiting there. I got surprised the jeep was made in 1962 in the same year my husband was born.

Although he has no relatives nor acquaintances in that village, he was going to show us around because I asked.

Should I call here wilderness or prairie? We passed through the large plain by the jeep seeing only mountains in the distance. The road has narrow one lane not paved.

By the road side, sheeps were having grass. There was an about 10 year old shepherd boy with a long cane sitting down at the edge of the flock.

Although I felt pitiful that such a small child was working, it seemed to be common in a village. Village people have their own lives.

He had a donkey with him. The uncle parked the jeep and asked him to ride the donkey. The boy bowed his head in assent without saying anything.

I enjoyed riding the donkey and turned by the uncle's grandson who was coming together. It was a small donkey with hollow eyes.

Despite my first experience of riding a donkey, I could do it well. The donkey walked slowly maybe for me. The shepherd boy was gazing at me as a stranger.

When we were leaving, my husband tried to give him the tip. But the uncle stopped it because the boy would be scolded by his mother at his home. We expressed thanks repeatedly.

A small village

After we drove for about thirty minutes, we found a small village in the opposite side of the valley from the road. The uncle stopped the jeep for a while and we watched how the village was like. There were many houses with mud walls.

The mountain stream was flowing in the bottom of the valley. The colorful carpets and the textiles of the wool yarn called Gilim were dried in the slope getting down the valley. Those were washed in the river by hand and taken on the slope in the side of the river.

As far as I saw a lot of carpets dried on the slope, carpet weaving would be the main industries of this village.

I saw a woman of the traditional cloths which were seen also in Sarien with a wash tub and many cloths getting down the slope.

A small girl who would be her daughter followed the woman. The woman started washing cloths in the river.

I saw the electric wires in the village but they seemed not to have water servise. The river water was used as washing cloths and any other things.

Then an old man and a child who rode on the donkey got down the slope. The man who wore a cloth like a turban around the head was making the donkey walk aslant the slope slowly.

It seemed to be one page of a picture-book completely.

Bench?

The roads in this village were narrow and had many steep inclines. When the jeep was running I thought the jeep would reverse on its back. The uncle stopped the jeep and we walked for a while in the village.

It was doubtful whether a Japanese or a foreigner had set foot there. The houses were made by mud or dirt so it was the dry ocher color wherever I saw.

There was a stand like a bench made from wood in the roadside.

"What do you think this is ?"

My husband and the uncle asked me jokingly. I thought who would sit on here with no traffic.

"It is a bench."

They laughed laudly.

"You should not have know this. This is a stand for placing a dead body and wiping the body before burial."

My husband explaind like this. I thought that death was familiar.