Babysitting Iranian Truck Driver

Before we left Iraq, we met Ahmed's family, helped them to wash their carpets, wrote on a piece of paper "Penjwin" in Arabic language and went to the highway, towards the border of Iran. A huge truck appeared few minutes later, on that big crossroad where we stood. A man with a sincere smile of a child invited us to his truck. He didn't speak much English, but the excitement on his face was showing that he would drive us anywhere. Before we crossed the border, he was worried that we didn't eat enough, and brought us his cheese, bread and other vegetables which he prepared for himself. Ilaria was emotionally shocked, and we got introduction to Iranian hospitality.

I have a habit, like many Serbians, to bring with me sausage for the road so I can eat it with bread. I realized later on, that my sausage didn't have a visa for Iraq, as it was made of a pork meat. However, crossing the border was easy, they didn't even open my bag and my sausage was an illegal immigrant. Anyway, this is not a story about the sausage...

Our driver was talking with a baby voice saying something like "nam-num-nam" and smiling to us all the time. I realized that he wanted to give us everything he had in the truck, to keep us happy so we can stay with him for longer time. He was too slow though, and we wanted to change him. There were many mountains in front of us, but before we reached them, he bribed us with some cucumbers and carrots he bought on a stop-by town. I tried to explain to him that we are in the rush, but his hands told me that he can go faster, and his face made a sad smile, making us feel guilty. Hours felt like days in his truck, but we accepted our destiny for that day, and felt like being babysitters of a truck driver.

Ilaria and our lonely truck driver

Eventually, that evening he needed to turn to the other road, and we ended up in Bokan, a small town where no foreign legs are walking around. We didn't know much about hitchhiking in Iran, but it didn't take us long to realize it was impossible doing it with a sign. People didn't understand what we were doing, and suddenly, we were surrounded by 20 of them, all talking at the same time. In all that crowd, there was even a man saying: "I am an English teacher. I can help you". Although, we didn't need their help, it was impossible to explain, and the crowd became larger. Some bikers stopped, causing the car drivers to stop as well as everybody went curious what's going on. We created traffic collapse, so police came to examine the situation, and since we were unable to explain the meaning of hitchhiking, we ended up in their station. Of course, the question "Are you married?" was the first one, so after they got a wrong answer, strange look on their faces appeared. They got confused pretty much by each answer we gave to their questions, as they still didn't understand the way of our travel. At the end, they put us on the bus, ordering the driver to bring us for free to our next stop, Urmia. Our host Hussein (who was also not married on surprise of a police), greeted us with "good morning" around 4am.