A journey shaped by conversations and everyday encounters
Before travelling to Iran in 2019, I realised how many impressions I carried without ever having been there. Ideas formed from a distance, without context. I tried not to give them too much weight, but they lingered in the back of my mind. Once we arrived, those ideas quickly loosened their grip.
On our first day in Tehran, people approached us with an openness that felt natural and unforced. Questions about where we came from, what we were doing, how long we were staying. At first I assumed they wanted to sell something, but they didn’t. It became clear that curiosity was simply part of the rhythm of the city.
In Isfahan, Naghsh-e Jahan Square showed that same rhythm in a different way. Families picnicked on the grass, children played, and people wandered slowly across the square. More than once someone stepped off their rug or bench to have a chat. One girl, about fifteen, spoke English like a native, learned from watching Disney. Her grandfather stood beside her, smiling with quiet pride.
The bazaars offered another layer of daily life. Narrow lanes filled with spices, tea, carpets, tools and clothes, moving at their own pace. One jeweller, Reza Raei, had closed his shop for the day but came back within half an hour after we called the number on his door. Another artisan painted miniatures on thin pieces of camel bone using a brush made from cat hair. He turned the back of his business card into a small portrait within seconds.
Outside the cities, the encounters with nomad families felt different but carried the same warmth. Their lives follow patterns shaped by seasons, livestock and long journeys: rhythms we can only partially understand. One of the women we met, Homa, had eleven children, some of whom had moved to the city. She laughed when I asked if she could imagine leaving this life herself. Her son Bahman had just returned from the mountains with the goats. When I asked her for a portrait, she disappeared into her tent and came back holding a gun, posing with a confidence that said more than words could.
Travelling through Iran made me notice how much of a country reveals itself through its people. Through small gestures, spontaneous conversations and simple exchanges of food and tea, stories or curiosity. These encounters stayed with me long after I left. Not because they resolved anything, but because they made the experience personal in ways I did not expect.
