Norouz under quarantine

On Feb. 19, the Iranian government reported its first two cases of the COVID-19 virus in the populous city of Qom. Now, on March 18, the number of cases has snowballed into over 17,000 and continues to grow everyday. 

The government has closed schools and universities and forewarns against all movements deemed non-essential. In homes across the nation, routines have shifted.

Almost a month into the outbreak, Iranians are dealing with their new normal.

Friday, March 20, was Norouz—the celebration of the Iranian New Year. Marked by the spring equinox, this event includes Chaharshanbe Suri (Festive Wednesday), Norouz (New Year), and Sizdah Be-dar (Day of Nature). 

Every year families celebrate through get-togethers, parties, and vacations. Families
prepare their haft-seen table (table of seven S’s) and cook sabzi-polo ba mahi (herb rice and fish) and reshteh polo (noodle rice). Shoppers fill markets and shopping centers, and people celebrate the arrival of spring in the brightly lit streets.  

This year, everything is unfamiliar and a little quieter.  

 

Mana Mostajer Haghighi 

It’s been 10 days since Mana Mostajer Haghighi last went outside. Stuck in her apartment in western Tehran, she opts to stay home unless she needs to go out. 

“It’s a hard process to leave the house, come back, wash all my clothes and clean everything,” Haghighi said.

In her last semester at university, Haghighi was working on her final project with her professor. With the arrival of COVID-19 and the closure of universities, it’s been weeks since she’s seen him.

“I can’t meet with my professor and ask him questions, so it’s been hard,” Haghighi said. “I have some laboratories as well, and we need 10 sessions, so we can pass the course and graduate.”

“We definitely can’t do these sessions online, and I need to do them before I get my degree, so it all depends on what the university does,” she added. 

Haghighi is finishing her bachelor’s degree in computer science and hopes to pursue animation for her masters. 

Even though schools have been cancelled, online classes still take up most of Haghighi’s time. These courses are either live streams or videos the teacher records and sends over. 

“The videos are more productive since I can manage them myself,” Haghighi said. “I can watch them when it’s midnight and everything is quiet.”

Haghighi lives with her parents and little sister. They’ve been the people she has seen the most in the past couple of weeks. 

“My sister and I have always been at home at the same time, so it’s not too different, but I’ve been seeing my parents more,” she said. “We haven’t seen my uncle in a month, but we used to see each other every week.”

Though family interactions have decreased, Haghighi’s found more time for her friends. 

“In these quarantine days, friendships become closer,” Haghighi said. “We weren’t able to talk much before because we were all occupied by studies and being in classes, but these days we all have more time. We talk through Skype—it’s much friendlier.” 

Haghighi spends the remainder of her free time doing a variety of things within the confines of her apartment.

“I’ve been reading about art history, as there are no courses for that in university,” she said. “I’ve been watching movies, cooking, and baking cakes.” 

“I’m so bored,” Haghighi added.

As her plans to visit the north of Iran for Norouz have been cancelled, she doesn’t have much in mind for the holidays except for the routine traditions.

“There are some traditions Persians keep every year like eating sabzi-polo ba mahi–it’s like our Thanksgiving turkey. We’re still doing that,” Haghighi said.

“For our Haft-Seen-Table, we made the Sabze ourselves this year, and everything else we’ll do in five days when it’s closer to Norouz,” she added.

Though Iran’s situation remains uncertain, Haghighi has one piece of advice to give other countries.

“The most important thing is to avoid panicking. During the first days, we all panicked a lot, and it was not good for anyone,” she said.

“We kept thinking we were going to get the virus, and it wasn’t good for our health.”

 

Parvaneh Hojjat 

For Parvaneh Hojjat, a nutritionist who spends most of her time outside the house, life has shifted radically since Feb. 22. She spends most of the days in her central Tehran apartment with her two children Baran and Reza.

“I no longer go to the gym, music lessons, or meetings,” Hojjat said. “If I do go out, it’s only to buy groceries.” 

A typical day in Hojjat’s house doesn’t often require grocery shopping. It usually involves helping her kids with their online classes or scanning through social media. 

“My daughter’s been doing her classes through WhatsApp,” Hojjat explained. “The teachers send videos and lessons in the group chat. I take a photo of the work she does and send it to her teacher.”

Reza, her son, is in high school and often works on the computer. Her daughter, Baran, spends the day shuffling between homework, cartoons, crafts, and playing Monopoly with her family. 

Monopoly has become a staple of their time dealing with the virus. When there is nothing else to do, family games or Zumba on the Xbox are things that take up their evenings. 

“You’re stuck at home all day, and by the end of it, your muscles feel so stiff that the only thing you need is to move freely,” Hojjat said.

Outside, Tehran’s winter is fading away and Norouz is quickly approaching. This year, Hojjat said, it arrived quietly. 

“We’ve been looking forward to this day for so long,” Hojjat said. “The kids love buying gifts for everyone.”

Like Haghighi, Hojjat also had travel plans that got cancelled.

“We were planning to go to the north for a bit—my sister has a cottage up there,” Hojjat said. “Afterwards, we were going to go to Kish, out on the Persian Gulf.” 

“We had so many plans, and we had to cancel all of them,” she added.

In Tehran, most public places are closed. Several shopping malls across the city are still operational, but crowds have shrunk. Though the government has yet to ban travelling, police guard the borders of several provinces and turn people away. 

But, there are always exceptions.

“Some people don’t believe it, or maybe they do and don’t care, but either way, they don’t respect the precautions everyone has to take,” Hojjat said.

“As soon as the schools let out here, so many families drove to the northern provinces,” she added. “The healthcare in these places isn’t as extensive as it is in Tehran, and everything got out of hand.”

“Even here in Tehran, there are still some people who are shopping for Norouz,” Hojjat said. “There’s a discount supermarket, and the other day there were so many people that the police had to shut it down.”

Even with the spread of COVID-19 across Iran, Hojjat hasn’t completely changed her way of life. 

Each Friday, she and her family visit her parents and sister, who live across town. The rest of her uncles, aunts, and cousins have kept their distance from each other, but Hojjat said her parents and her kids must see each other.

“We agreed that the negative energy that comes from isolation is a greater risk than the possible exposure,” she said. “Seeing each other is a necessity for both my parents and for Baran and Reza. Whatever happens, that’s on God.”

According to Hojjat, positive energy is a remedy.  

“We’re all pointing fingers at each other as to how the virus started. Everyone feels anxious, and this brings down our overall defence system and health,” she said. 

“If we keep playing this blame game, we’re never going to get well.”

With Norouz coming up, Hojjat said now is a good time to be positive and mix traditional family dinners, like the one she and her family will be attending at her mother’s house, with some new plans.

“Maybe the next day we’ll go out and buy chips and juice, wash them with soap, and go for a picnic,” Hojjat said. “There’s a lot of quiet parks, and we could go and stare at the sky while taking in the fresh air.”

“We’ll probably also play Monopoly,” she added.

 

Zohreh Khoshlessan

When COVID-19 arrived in Iran, it didn’t directly affect Zohreh Khoshlessan.

“Not much has changed for me. I used to go on one or two strolls a week, so I’ve been skipping out on that, but that’s it,” Khoshlessan said. “I still sew and cook, and whatever extra time I have, I fill it with watching movies and going on social media.” 

Zohreh is a homemaker based in Hamedan, who lives with her husband, Hamid, and daughter, Minou. She’s been trying to look on the bright side of staying at home. 

“Before the virus, many people had personal projects that they’d wanted to work on, but they chose to go outside instead,” she said. “Now, it has forced everyone to stay home. People are putting off procrastination and doing what they’ve wanted to do.”

Khoshlessan said her biggest concern is her son, Mohammed, who lives alone in Tehran—the nation’s capital which has been hit hardest by the virus.

“Mohamed lives completely alone, which is good, but he still goes to and from work every day,” Khoshlessan said, adding the metro is still pretty full these days. 

“Last time he visited us, he bought a bunch of weights and exercise cords and took them to Tehran with him,” she said. “Ever since the gyms closed, he’s been bored. ”

While at home, Khoshlessan and her husband have tried to stay productive.

“We’ve completely rearranged the house and got a head start on spring cleaning,” she said. “Hamid is much more used to going out than I am, so it’s harder on him. He’s been spending a lot of time texting friends and family.”  

Hamid works throughout the day and returns straight home. One of his greatest hobbies used to be going to the market and looking for electronic knickknacks. Now, he spends his time in his workshop building and repairing things. 

Hamid does all of the grocery shopping as well. This routine part of everyday life has become much more complicated since the arrival of COVID-19. 

“Hamid wears gloves when he goes out, and when he returns, we either sanitize or throw them out. He doesn’t wear a mask to go to the grocery store, as it’s not too crowded,” Khoshlessan said of the safety precautions her husband has undertaken. 

Iranian vendors are also taking precautions.

“Before the virus, fruits would remain unwashed until someone took them home,” Khoshlessan said. “Now, the workers sanitize everything constantly—even if one person touches a fruit, a vendor will clean it.”

Constant sanitation is the new norm.

“At home, we immediately throw out the bags and wash the fruits one by one using dish soap and water,” Khoshlessan said.

In Tehran, the smell of chlorine and Witex regularly greet Mohamed when he enters any bus or public place. 

Over Norouz, Khoshlessan said Mohamed hopes to come back home, but because of the virus, things are a little uncertain. 

“Our original plans for New Years were that my son was going to visit, and as of right now, he’s still going to visit. They’ve been telling people not to travel, but now they say they’re finally going to ban it,” she said. 

“I really can’t say if it’s true. I think they’ll let my son come back since this is his home.”

Other than her son’s visit, Khoshlessan doesn’t have much planned for the holidays. She and her daughter Minou have been catching up on the special programming on TV. Specifically, watching a show called Paytakht, which occurs every year for Norouz. 

“There’s a lot of comedic programming on TV these days to increase positivity,” Khoshlessan said. “The government’s been giving out a lot of inexpensive Wi-Fi as well to keep people busy—there are now online libraries and even online festivals.”

Though Khoshlessan is always on social media or watching TV, she doesn’t like to read too much about the pandemic. She said she knows cases are rising, but there’s nothing she can do. 

“It’s on a day-to-day basis, we really can’t say what tomorrow brings, and that’s disheartening,” she said. “You have to stay optimistic that people will listen and stay home.” 

“You have to hope that warmer weather will arrive, everyone’s efforts will pay off, and the rise of the virus will stop.”

 

Parts of this article have been translated by the author from Farsi to English.