Yazd: Wind Towers, Shrines, and Mud Brick Cities

Yazd
Our visit for the day was to the old city of Yazd, only part of what we hoped to see but had to cancel due to the accident. We have missed the towers of silence and the Zoroastrian fire temple, where they have kept the flame going now for over four hundred years. But we did see a magnificent mosque, simply named ‘the grand mosque,’ Jaame al Kabir, a home built of mud brick, the wind towers, and a school housing a shrine to its beloved teacher.

There we met a young Iranian woman photographer, complete with techno-looking backpack over her manteau, wandering through the old city. She had been grown up largely outside the country but was trying life here for a year, to see if she could stay, which she felt strongly called to do during these times. Another woman we met, in full chador, was an industrial engineering student at the university and had hoped to invite us to her home. She said she always looked for tourists to speak with and enjoyed their company very much. I don’t know if these two girls finally had the chance to meet each other after we left, but I think they would have enjoyed each other immensely.

The school and shrine we visited was closed to men for the day, and the five of us women decided to join the festivities. We left our shoes at the edge of the iwan, or portico, and put on the long white chadors. Some of us had help getting them right-side-up from the local women present. We entered behind the curtain, and a woman greeted us with nuts and raisins to eat during our visit. Inside, the shrine, which was the size of a large classroom and two stories tall, women were sitting wall to wall on the ground, and several women were standing grasping part of the shrine in the middle. This was part marble and part glass with a chrome lattice over it. Inside, it was lit with pictures of the great teacher and his tomb, and many flowers. There were places to slip some money into the shrine, as well as prayer requests or one’s troubles on a slip of paper. Some women are praying, one is chanting beautifully, and others are simply visiting with one another for the morning. Children and grandmothers and young women are all here. The women are glad we came, and are smiling and welcoming. There is a tea urn on the side and some of the women are passing around cups, but we know we only have a moment inside. So we look up to the grand carved ceiling, place our hands on the shrine and peer in, and exchange pleasantries on our way out as we did on the way in.

I mentioned that we saw a traditional mud-brick house. Sayyid actually knocked on the door of one such house, hoping that someone was home and knowing it would be presentable for company. A young man answered and welcomed us through a long tunnel into the main courtyard. It is set a few feet down from street level, which is by design to keep it cooler in summer and warmer in winter. A small pool takes the center of the court, and each room of the house opens onto it. The kitchen, including a small oven for baking bread, is in one corner with many large pots. It’s so nice inside I don’t really want to leave. The mud-brick houses are quite a sustainable way to live, providing natural insulation throughout the year, especially with the wind towers on top to keep the sand out but let the air in. However, people would like to live in more modern areas, with wider streets and space for garages, etc., so many of the homes in the old city are actually simply abandoned. I hope not forever, but I do understand the temptation of ‘suburban’ living as it affects us as well.

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We are having another beautiful desert sunset, this one muted to the west by a small sandstorm and smoke from nearby small homes and factories. There is still dry corn in the fields here, and the homes are especially small in this village, perhaps no more than a room. In the distance are more modern looking houses and cities and streetlights. We are still an hour from Esfahan, where we will sleep tonight, where we will visit at least a little after our delays, and hope to capture an ounce of the beauty for which it is so famous. Then on to the seminary city of Qom, and it is almost time to return home, to my own city and seminary and then onto my own home among the farms.