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December 21 2013

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Real People #21: We met this woman while visiting a Sufi center with a friend in Harar. It’s the first time I had ever seen a female Sufi and she told our guide if we wanted to watch the ceremony we had to chew khat, the region’s favorite, all natural stimulant.

December 19 2013

The Zoroastrian Revival

Posted on Nomad Stories by Danny

Walking on the rooftops from one of the many photogenic mosques

Walking on the rooftops from one of the many photogenic mosques

Ever since I had visited Baku in Azerbaijan, I had been dreaming about going to Yazd in Central Iran, to learn more about Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran and Azerbaijan before the advent of Islam, probably more than 8000 years old.  Nowadays a lot of higher educated Iranians claim to be Zoroastrian, mostly as an antidote to the strict Islamic rules.  The official amount of Zoroastrians is only about 25000 in Iran, mainly in Tehran and Yazd, the major city in the desert of central Iran where most of the shrines are.

The main Fire Temple in Yazd where the fire has been burning for over 1500 years

The main Fire Temple in Yazd where the fire has been burning for over 1500 years

Yazd is a mud brick city with a maze of little alleys and gorgeous mosques, surrounded by a vast desert. One thing I learned from a German guide, while visiting the fire temple in Yazd was that Zoroastrianism deeply influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When Cyrus The Great, the most important king in Iranian history, liberated the Jews from Babylon in the 6th century BC, he brought them to Persia. There they learned about Zoroastrianism and its concepts of heaven and hell, which they incorporated into Judaism. So if you really want to escape hell, you’d better opt for yet another belief system…

In the back the Towers of Silence, in front a water reservoir with badgirs or windtowers for cooling

In the back the Towers of Silence, in front a water reservoir with badgirs or windtowers for cooling

Nowadays the Jewish community in Iran is very small, mainly in Tehran and Esfahan, but they have been in the country for about 2500 years. We met a Jewish mother with her daughter while searching for a Zurkhaneh in Esfahan. She turned out to be the only person around having heard of this place, hidden in a basement behind a small door in a back alley.

Zurkhaneh is the ancient form of gymnastics, practiced for over 2000 years and through history influenced by Mithraism, Sufism and sacred masonry. In more recent centuries, it got adjusted to the Islamic framework. I had first heard on my second week in Iran while being in a teahouse in the center of Esfahan. My attention was drawn old photographs on the while picturing amazing looking strong men with moustaches. But nowadays young Iranians consider the Zurkhaneh old fashioned and the gorgeous men from before have died a long time ago. Their photographs have become collectors items for vintage lovers.

Inside the Zurkhaneh. Since the practitioners didn't show up, we had to take over.

Inside the Zurkhaneh. Since the practitioners didn’t show up, we had to take over.

This didn’t stop us from trying to find a place in one of the back alleys of Esfahan. Once arrived, it turned out that none of the practitioners showed up, so we had to become the performers. We clearly still needed a lot of practice. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a gym with life drumming sessions? Anyone? We got a second change to watch it a few days later in Yazd, but sadly enough the place got invaded by retired tourist groups from Russia and Germany, arriving late and leaving early like a hoard of buffaloes. Tourism for sure has a positive influence on the preservation of old traditions, but this had become a bit pathetic. I hope there comes a real revival of this.

The youtube video gives a good idea of the real thing, just skip the first 2 minutes of explanation.

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December 13 2013

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Real People# 20: This man is just returning from a morning service in one of the 11 churches, carved into rock about 800 years ago, in Lalibela, Ethiopia. He faithfully attends every day, as do many other locals and pilgrims.   

December 10 2013

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Real People #19: These two high school girls were on their way home for lunch in Harar. Their giggles at my questions brought the quiet street in the tranquil, walled town alive.

December 07 2013

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Real People #18: The “hyena man” feeds wild spotted hyenas every night at sundown in Harar, Ethiopia. His family started the tradition in the 60s to divert the hyenas’ attention from their livestock.

December 03 2013

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Real People #17: These women invited me to their home and showed me how to roast coffee beans before grinding them. Freshest coffee I’ve ever had. They were also into chewing khat, a plant that’s considered a stimulant and which most people in Harar chew for about two hours at lunch break (it takes a lot of chewing to achieve the desired effect).

December 01 2013

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Real People #16: I was looking for a modern art gallery in Addis Ababa but found this amazing artist’s workshop instead. He creates art pieces from scrap metal and other found materials and makes his own outfits, too. If that’s not impressive enough, he also runs an arts workshop for orphans.

November 30 2013

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Real People #15: The savvy businessman on the bicycle sold me his last bananas for a suspiciously high price at the morning market in Siwa, a desert oasis close to Libya, but I wasn’t in the mood for bargaining. At least he seemed to get a kick out of it. 

November 26 2013

One Night in Kampala

Interesting Ugandan beer ad but where are the women?

Interesting Ugandan beer ad but where are the women?

Perhaps this is not what you were imagining when you thought of Uganda’s capital.  Perhaps you didn’t even know what its name was, yet alone that it might have a thriving nightlife.  If you were like most people who have never visited Africa, you probably weren’t thinking about cities at all.  For some reason especially the Western media likes to keep its news and articles about Africa safely on conflicts, disease and poverty, and of course on wild life.  Nobody can think of Africa without lions and savannahs, right? All these exist of course, and I don’t mean to diminish their importance or severity in any way, but I find it curious that they seem to take up all there is to Africa in people’s imaginations.  After all, the Nobel Prize winning intellectuals like Kofi Annan and Wole Soyinka also come from this continent that many people automatically associate with huts with no electricity – and maybe with soccer thanks to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa – rather than with cities, culture, universities, and nightlife.

Kampala's music scene is thriving, including many aspiring hip hop artists.

Kampala’s music scene is thriving, including many aspiring hip hop artists.

Once we manage to exit the nightclub we feel the kind of demanding hunger hitting us that can only find you after a few too many beers.  Surprisingly enough we run into a boda driver, Amuli, who we both knew: he’s just been driving our group all around Western Uganda on our road trip just a few days before, including on a safari in the Murchison Falls National Park, where we saw, among many other animals, a lion. But now we were in the city and he was driving a boda, a motorcycle, which is the most common kind of a taxi in Uganda, and the easiest to get around in the traffic jams of Kampala.  We were all as excited to run into each other and he took us on a hunt for a night snack.  We wanted some barbequed meat, a ubiquitous snack that is easy to find even at 4.30AM, except that I really wanted liver, which complicated things. But I really liked and craved the Ugandan way of roasting cubes of liver on a stick, and besides, I was leaving Uganda the next day and wanted my last fix of it. Luckily Amuli seemed to know a place.

At a food stand, picking out favorite BBQ meats.

At a food stand, picking out favorite BBQ meats.

Once we arrived at the food stand, it must have been closer to 5AM.  We were checking the stand for its offerings but were also spotted by a bunch of revelers, who seemed to have a house party next to us.  They were shouting “muzungus, muzungus” and came to grab us to the party.  Once again we were a desired party addition.  “Muzungu” quite literally means a “foreigner,” but in practice, particularly a white foreigner.  If you’re white and traveling in Uganda, you’ll hear this term many times a day, but it’s more descriptive than derogative, so you won’t mind hearing it.  Here too, it caused more excitement than anything else: “Foreigners in this neighborhood at this hour! They should come to our party!” We were very tempted by the enthusiasm by which we were invited but had to turn the offer down, only because we still had not found our desired snack.  By the time we did, and came by the party house again, it had closed down.  In retrospect, as it was now probably about 5.30AM, this was just for the better.

The previous day, during a boda tour of Kampala.

The previous day, during a boda tour of Kampala.

The next day, as I was getting ready for my flight to Ethiopia, we were entertaining my friend’s wife with our stories from the previous night, as she had gone home much earlier.  Before it hit 4.30AM, we had run into other friends with whom we shared many laughs while drinking waragi, a Ugandan gin. Later we visited a reggae bar where an intoxicated Italian told me to visit the Rastafarian community in Ethiopia because they have the best marijuana in the world (apparently I was a complete loser if I didn’t) and who associated my name, Piia, with the sound that a gun makes when fired. Go figure. We had also had to pretend to be married so my friend wasn’t hijacked by an eager working girl, who claimed to be very very lonely, but was also visibly very very drunk. And in one club a woman got angry at me for taking her chair while ordering drinks but after I promptly gave it back to her, she insisted becoming my Facebook friend and I still receive messages from her.

Just another night in Kampala.

Besides using Western methods, Ugandans make home made beer out of one of the many types of bananas that grow there.

Besides using Western methods, Ugandans make home made beer out of one of the many types of bananas that grow there.

November 21 2013

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Real People #14: Mohamed worked as a waiter at my favorite restaurant in Siwa, an oasis in Egypt, close to the border with Libya. After having helped us find a driver, he joined me and two Danish girls on an impromptu trip through the desert. Obviously having a good time, he told me he needed a break from the very controlled life in Siwa. I remember him as a great belly dancer.

November 19 2013

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Real People #13: Hussein, the eldest son of the Bedouin family I was staying with, treated these mysterious structures, in a very remote place in the Sinai desert, as his own private playground. No-one knew who had built them and why, but he for sure was proud of them.

November 15 2013

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Real People #12: Ali had asked if anyone wanted to spend the night in the Sinai desert with a real Bedouin family. I was the only volunteer. For hours I sat around the campfire with this grandmother, connecting without words. The full moon made the desert even more surreal.

November 14 2013

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An Armenian tribute bearer carrying a metal vessel with griffin handles. Fifth century BC

November 13 2013

Not All Iranians Have Beards

Mosque in Kashan, a city at the edge of the desert

Mosque in Kashan, a city at the edge of the desert

‘Do you come downstairs with me? I want to shower you.’ I’m not awake enough to react when my host asks me this. It’s still the middle of the night. I don’t get the point of why he wants to shower at that hour but there I probably missed the chance for a new intercultural experience. It’s my 4th night in Iran, not the most popular destination in 2013, but the perfect choice for me: a lot of culture, stunning mountains, deserts, friendly people and unexpected questions. I’m sure many of you think of a country populated by women in black chadors and men with long beards, praying most of the time. Both do exist, but they are at times hard to find. And you’ll hear far more prayer calls in Turkey or the Arab World.

Waterpipes are ubiquitous in Iran

Waterpipes are ubiquitous in Iran

Iranians do their best to prove that they are very different from what the outside world assumes: Women invariably tend to throw their headscarves off whenever they have the chance, considering it a form of obligatory decoration. Most men shave their facial hair fanatically, so if you love bearded men, better go to Berlin. Many families distill wine and brew beer at home, but be prepared for the wine to taste different from what you expect. I had a few glasses of shiraz wine in Shiraz in the middle of the day. It was actually the best brandy I’ve ever tasted. So the grapes are still there, but unfortunately the knowledge for winemaking seems to be lost for now.

Lotfallah Mosque in Esfahan

Lotfallah Mosque in Esfahan

Another ubiquitous thing is Facebook, officially forbidden, but even the guy who ran ‘hole in the wall’ falafel place in a border town asked us to befriend him. The Iranians are rebellious by nature, always looking for new opportunities to practice freedom. The same goes for the gay scene in Iran. Some people made it sound like I would get hanged upon arrival at the airport. But it wasn’t all that bad. Several gay guys told the same thing: they are not a priority for the government. Many are visible with their face on online meeting forums. And they party as crazy as all other Iranians, behind closed doors of course. It’s quite different from the scene in Turkey, where we are able to organize a gay trip.

Posing with the car of a friend, I would love to drive it

Posing with the car of a friend, I would love to drive it

One of the most amazing moments of the trip was after we had decided to leave Esfahan. Esfahan is by most tourists considered the prettiest place in Iran, but the traffic in town can be nerve wrecking. After 6 hours of travelling east through the desert, we reached the place of ‘a friend of a friend’. Iranians are one of the most hospitable people on the planet and this family was no exception. To our surprise, he had planned that evening a party in the desert. You would think 20 people and a campfire, right? There were actually 600 people gathering on a salt lake, much further out in the desert. 15 buses in a circle to bock off the light, a great DJ, plenty of crazy, fun people… a complete explosion of positive vibes.

The party, of course with no recognisable faces

The party, of course with no recognizable faces

To make things better still, there was a campfire with people jumping over it. It’s a ritual dating back to pre-Islamic times, still widely practiced at Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. It’s a sort of cleansing ritual as far as I understood. Besides of that there were quite a few people performing their acrobatic skills in the midst of the crowds, it was such an expected happening for me.

The weirdest thing was that after two hours the gathering stopped abruptly and a few minutes later, it was all gone, leaving no trace in the desert. Interesting. And what was even harder to believe was that most of the people had travelled by bus for about 10 tot 12 hours to attend this. Several people told me they just want to feel free. And that’s a bit easier in the desert with no immediate control, while being at an awesome party.

Self portrait at the salt lake

Self portrait at the salt lake

More posing in the desert

Posing in the desert

November 11 2013

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Real People #11: Nubians, who don’t have their own country but live in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan, are known to be smart, peaceful and honest. Habibi and his friend were no exception: we spent a few lovely, lazy days on Habibi’s boat on the Nile, escaping the July heat. 

November 08 2013

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Real People #10: This pianist in Rick’s Cafe, Casablanca, claimed he never tires playing the famous song, but the many times I heard “play it again, Sam” in one night makes you wonder.

November 05 2013

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Real People #9: One of the first things you learn in Morocco is that tea is supposed to be poured into cups from as high as possible. Hassan makes no exception as he serves us tea at his aunt’s house in Zagora, after a lovely lunch at his uncle’s a few blocks away. Real Morroccan family way.

November 01 2013

Beyond Tacos and Burritos: Mexican Food Globally

I live in New York where we’re blessed with amazing food from all around the world: you can get Syrian falafel, the best sushi I’ve had outside Japan, Georgian kachapuri, Vietnamese pho, Chinese dim sum, you name it. Mexican food is no exception. Yet recently I had visitors from Finland, who were upset about the food in a great Mexican restaurant I sent them to, because a dish they had ordered had “a weird brown sauce” that they had never seen in the Finnish tex mex places. This sauce turned out to be mole with chocolate, which they didn’t like only because it was too authentic.

A fancy version of chile relleno, stuffed with seafood, in a high-end Oaxacan restaurant.

A fancy version of chile relleno, stuffed with seafood, in a high-end Oaxacan restaurant.

Mexican food’s popularity reaches far. Last January, when traveling in Uganda, we were looking for a late night dinner in a town called Masindi. After a long day of traveling on dusty roads, we were absolutely ravished. Luckily we found a dark, little corner restaurant with barely two lighting fixtures, ordered some Bells (a Ugandan beer), which were not exactly cold because there had been a problem with the fridge earlier that day, and took a look at the menu. Turned out that most things we wanted to order were not available as it was the end of the day, except for “fajitas,” which the waitress pronounced something like “fagitas.”

We were a bit skeptical but happy to get anything at all so we ordered fajitas in a corner eatery in a small town in the middle of Uganda. What came to our table was a good example of globalized food trends: we had tiny little dishes, as in an Indian thali tray, of chopped tomatoes, jalapeños, something that resembled sour cream, chopped onion, and ground beef with some Mexican spices. Instead of tortillas, we were given Indian chapati to wrap it all in. There was a hot sauce of sorts. The Indian influences were not a surprise as Uganda has a sizable Indian population, so the Indian food there is excellent and chapati is everywhere.  What was more surprising was how good it all tasted and oddly enough, it sort of even tasted like Mexican food. Or at least close enough to the international interpretations of it.

Danny is slightly excited about his Oaxacan mole dish.

Danny is slightly excited about his Oaxacan mole dish.

My favorite type of Mexican food is neither the Ugandan fajitas (as good as they tasted after a day on the road), nor the Nordic tex mex, or the Californian version of Mexican food a lot of my New York friends love, but the regional food of Oaxaca, Mexico. I guess I’m one of those, who agree that Oaxaca is Mexico’s culinary capital. And actually it is where the mole sauce my Finnish visitors didn’t like originates. I don’t mean to be a food snob here. Mexican food in all varieties tastes good. You just cannot go wrong with that mixture of tomatoes, onion, garlic, cumin, chili and fresh cilantro. And yet, these combinations taste better yet in some places than others.

Food stall heaven in Oaxaca.

Food stall heaven in Oaxaca: where some of the best food in town can be found.

Before I visited Oaxaca, I had been to Mexico City, and absolutely loved the food there already.  I’ll never forget the dirt-cheap, late night tacos al pastor (with pork and pineapple) or the pre-Hispanic pumpkin seed mousse that I dipped my tortilla chips in. But Oaxaca still made me go “vow” with the food.  First of all, there are the moles; they are rich and complex sauces that are based on different kinds of chilies, served over meat, and are made of a blend of up to 30 spices. While there can be hundreds of variations of them, Oaxaca is particularly known for seven: mole negro, colorado, amarillo, verde, chichilo, coloradito, and mancha manteles.

Bargaining for zucchini flowers at the market.

Bargaining for zucchini flowers at the market.

All of the Oaxacan moles have a distinct texture and taste based on a different mix of spices and herbs, as well as seeds, nuts, and of course chocolate in some of them. One day Danny and I were in Oaxaca, we took a cooking course that started with a trip to the market with the chef, followed by making stuffed zucchini flowers, our own tortillas and chicken in a mole verde, green mole.  I try and take a cooking course in each place I visit because it’s a fantastic way to learn about the local food culture. This course was no different.  Our chef was a little shy, but only until we got to the market where he got to his apparently favorite pastime: bargaining for the freshest ingredients.  We found all the stuff for our feast in one lively, covered market, and saw piles of cooked chapulines, spicy grasshoppers that Oaxacans eat as snacks and as fillings in for example tacos.

Danny trying his hands on making tortillas.

Danny trying his hands on making tortillas.

The actual cooking took place in a quiet, spacious, open-air courtyard, covered with trees.  As the chef explained the steps for each of our dish and gave us tasks, we were sipping beers and chatting: a perfect Oaxacan afternoon. Making tortillas turned out not to be all that easy as getting the thickness and shape just right is trickier than it seems.  The green mole was an amazing surprise.  The intense color comes from a variety of green ingredients: two kinds of green chilis, raw pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, lettuce and Swiss chard, and green tomatoes.  Add in onion and garlic, and of course heaps of fresh cilantro and parsley.  One of the best Mexican dishes I have ever had, and not easy to find in European tex mex places, or even in New York.

Our green mole, cooked in the courtyard.

Our green mole, cooked in the courtyard.

Oaxaca is definitely a foodie destination already because its inhabitants live to eat and it shows in the quality of the food: it’s all made with love. It has world-class high-end restaurants, several types of cooking courses from gourmet food to home cooking, excellent opportunities to taste pre-Hispanic dishes, and of course the ubiquitous and always tasty street food.  One of the best things to do in Oaxaca is to sit people watching at night around the Zocalo, the main square, sipping a drink and trying the delicacies from the food stalls.  The only problem is that you’ll not be able to taste all of Oaxaca has to offer in a week. After having visited Oaxaca, I have to admit it’s a little difficult to visit a Mexican restaurant anywhere else, but I try and not compare as these are matters of taste and what you’re used to.  An example of this is how Finnish people love pizza, but their own version of it.  So when I visited Italy the first time a long time ago, I thought Finnish pizza was better than the one I had in Rome. Secretly I might still think so.  But for Mexican food I’m a convert.

The chef himself showing how tortillas are made.

The chef himself showing how tortillas are made.

October 31 2013

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Real People #8: What seemed at first the worst place in the world to get a flat tire turned out not to be a problem. Hassan and Karim were used to crossing the Atlas mountains from Marrakech, where they studied, to Zagora, where they were from: they were as used to changing tires.

October 29 2013

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Real People #7: I know Morocco quite well, but it was a challenge to guide a group that included Moroccans from Belgium. This woman enjoyed the trip a lot, as the start of her sabbatical year. Picture taken on the way to an overnight camp in the desert.

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