Adventures of Mr.Behi

The Fake

President Ahmadinejad performed yet another miracle: He selected someone as  interior minister who claimed to have a Ph.D. degree in law from The University of Oxford! When questions rose on the authenticity of the degree, the guy outraged, threatened the media and produced this to shut them up. A degree so suspicious that is feared to be faked, with grammar mistakes and with names signing it who are not even member of the Faculty of Law!
Iranian blogsphere is now full of articles quoting the response from The University of Oxford, confirming that no degree has ever been given to the guy. Such an outrageous act from somone who is supposed to bring law and order and protect the votes of people in elections! If Ahmadinejad wants to fake the next election, he'd better to employ someone who does it less obviously. What a shame!

The City of Peace and Justice

Maybe it is the work of the little peace dove of my blog that we ended up in The Hague, city of peace, justice and security. Everyday that I go to work, I witness press vans and TV cameras lined up -or I would better say camped- in front of the UN detention center, waiting to sweep any news about the new prisoner, Radovan Karadzic. It is at least a good thing that there is a place in the world for war criminals to end up! but the hope remains that the ideology behind such genocides would also be imprisoned, something that is proven wrong over and over through the course of history.

I remember the Bosnia ethnic war vividly. Inside Iran, the government was passionately acting for the Muslim side. TV was full of documentaries about the war and as we heard, the Iranian revolutionary guard was actually involved in supplying aids. The government just ignored to cover the fact that Russia was backing the other side of the war. Perhaps as Iran is the enemy of the US, Russia should be kept happy! Politicians have indeed an unfair/biased account of world conflicts which is very irritating.

Apart from a little bottle-neck in traffic made by the news vans, it is good to see the international criminal court doing its job. Although there would be no news crew if it had not been a genocide to trial someone for. One could feel much better then but for now, it is good that the bus passes through natural woods after the prison for some peace.

Tripoli to The Hague via Tehran

It is a couple of days now since we finally arrived to The Hague in The Netherlands after a short stay in Iran. We went through an overwhelming amount of work and extremely busy planning to get over the two movements back to back and it is not over at all. Almost one and a half years living in Tripoli is now only a memory with all the sweet and swore moments and we are very happy for the change we unleashed in our lives, both the time when we went there and now that we left it.

It was nice to get back to Tehran after a couple of months. The lively city as we always knew it, was and still is experiencing a new level of heat this summer. We were there to watch the pictures of the new Iranian missile test filling the front page in all the news stands. The nuclear issue, although brings new waves of fear and rays of hope every now and then, it feels as if it is becoming like so many slogans the system has been broadcasting for years, so much heard. Like the background noise of Tehran highways.

I had some fun this time with the Iranian customs: We had like 200 kgs of stuff that we shipped by air from Libya. One day I went with the shipping agent to clear the goods and bring them home. The airport customs was the circus of financial corruption and perhaps the most corruption I had ever seen all in one place. The shipping agent already knew his way and I could see him slipping money to: The front gate keeper, the second gate keeper, the third gate keeper, the worker who opened the box, the agent who checked the box, the lifter driver who lifted the box, the truck driver who carried the box, the shipment supervisor who certified the box, the agent who released the box and then again on the way out, the third gate keeper, the second gate keeper and the first gate keeper! 

Those of you who know me from this blog for a while must have read so many stories of mine applying for visas. As if there is no way for me to get one without a little clinch. Our visas to the Netherlands were already issued when we got to Iran but we had to wait for another two weeks to get the stickers. On the due date and after waiting in line for like 8 hours, I discovered that I was given a nine days visa instead of a 90 days! That resulted in another day of 8 hours waiting to get it corrected. It kept us in anxiety till the last working day before the flight.

Now we are in The Hague. I have already started in my new job and in the past couple of days, we had the paper work with the immigration. We are living in a temporary place in Scheveningen which is a very neat district near the beach. Our search for a place to rent has started but not with much luck yet. The city has so many good things to like. It is very well maintained with a great public transport working round the clock. Bikes are so widespread and we can not wait to get ours. Let's see first when we can get our place to say.

Big News

We are moving to The Netherlands. I am changing company after wonderful five years in Iran and Libya and joining another one in The Hague. I think this now explains my very silent one-day trip to the city a while ago. My visit to The Hague came after a few phone conversations with my future company. It all looked very well and made me curious to visit their office. I should admit that the whole idea of leaving my current employer seemed a little awkward to start with. It is certainly looks like deviation from well worn path by many bystanders. I have also been so soaked into the organizational culture and feel so much like a domestic residence with my current company...after all everyone is concerned of change. But it came to me very strongly, the conclusion that I am also very passionate in storming out of my comfort zone and perhaps it was the reason for all that happened to me in the past five years with good outcomes in my career. So the big decision was made!

From Amsterdam to The Hague, I had a nice train ride with my eyes open to see things. What I could see was a classic image of The Netherlands: Grasslands stretching to the Horizon with water canals dividing them, deep roaring gray clouds in the sky stitched to green of the flat land. I managed to see one windmill to complete the image. By the edge of a farm with its barnyard animals calmly grazing and the farmer with his boat by the canal. His shoes though, were not made of woods :)

I did not get time to discover The Hague but I indeed liked what I saw. With Mrs.Behi though, we have been digging the web for information and found out a lot about things in our future city. We know for example that buying two reliable bicycles will be among the first to be done :) This is the country of bikes!

Time is now very short for us to pack and go to Iran, get our visas to the Netherlands and fly over. A lot of logistics to take care of and lots of good byes to give.

Memories of India

Recently my boss made a plan for me to go to India for a week to teach a course that finally got canceled and didn't happen. However, it brought back all memories from fall of 2003 when I spent around six weeks in India for my first competency training. It was only a few month after joining my current company. India was an unforgettable adventure in all levels. I need to squeeze my brain and remember.

I was with two other colleagues from Iran joining a diversity of others, mostly from east Asia. Arriving to New Delhi, we had a taxi waiting for us from the Hotel that took us through the most bizarre street of the entire stay. It was a crowded mingle of all barnyard animals, people with all shapes and faces and simple shops selling nearly everything. The five star hotel that hosted us, was located in the south western skirt of the town, kind of in the middle of nothing. It was very comfortable but very far from anywhere, leaving us with few options for pass time after full days of class room sessions.
India is so famous for its contrasting scenes and the way rich and poor are mixed. Each morning, we had a taxi taking us to our company office, heading out from the fabulous hotel, we used to ride along this road towards the town, watching primitive rows of tents that were home to people and of course the famous man who was showering every morning in a water barrel by the road.... read the rest below...

Dance with the sand

Tripoli weather  is very notorious during first half of spring for its unpredicted behavior and for the dust. Any wind coming from south or west, blows sand upon us. Yesterday I was going to the parking to drive home, the western winds were coming strong. I stood there and looked at waves of sand hovering on the surface of the paved road, a mysterious fractal pattern....if I was believing in these things I would have said like ghosts running around. Then I would wonder how the wind could happily do the cha cha with the palm trees, chase the sand to where it destined and at the same time spare time to make me miserable by blowing dust in my eyes :)

Flight to The Flat Land

It has been utterly quiet in this blog but so much noise is going on in my life. It turned out that the noise  has made my mind so confusingly plain and distracted. I just crossed the first phase and will see how things will roll out.

During this period, I had an extremely short visit to the flat land! where windmills, canals and farms fill the horizon. I went to the Netherlands for something a little longer than a single day.

Flying from Tripoli to Amsterdam was not that long. I flew KLM and was impressed with the way that flight was handled. It was the first flight I have been to in which the crew exclusively and personally trained the passengers who were sitting by the emergency exits on how to operate the door rather than just referring them to the "safety sheet in front of you". They also handed an infant life jacket to anyone with a baby rather than just announcing "life jacket for infants are available in the plane" :) There was no TV but it was for sure better than Alitalia that shows fashion shows and cheap magic trick circuses on the TV over and over. No wonder they had to be sold off!
I had a Libyan couple beside me who were heading to the states for their studies. Soon after the flight, the guy started to act impatient...delayed smoke...he kept asking for glasses of water one after another till the stewardess finally guessed what was going on. He was not at all impressed when she told him that Amsterdam airport is a non-smoking airport....he was on to a couple of hours of transit before an even longer non-smoking flight to the US mid-west!

New Year

It is officially the new Persian year now. I have taken today off and with Mrs.Behi we are celebrating together.  The year we passed, was a remarkable year for us! full of adventures! We got to see many different places, met lots of new people and enjoyed it. Had a new phase in our lives settling in a new country and we made through it well. It was a great year at work too.

The year ahead will also be very unexpected. Some new plans in the list...Some of those can completely revolve our lives and our place in the world... many new adventures for sure. Hope to look back next year this time and say...it was a wonderful year...the first year of the forth decade of my life :) Happy new year.

Cleaning Friday

The last weekend before Iranian new year and we are trying to put ourselves in new year atmosphere. Election is on inside Iran and I am sure I could see people shopping and I could go out and buy stuff for our "haft-seen" collection if I was there (look at the one we had once in our apartment in Tehran). Outside where we are in a place where there is no significant number of Iranians, instead of getting a ready to use green plate, we had to grow the seeds ourselves. After trying a couple of different types of seeds in the market, Mrs.Behi has been so passionately watching and caring for the seeds to grow and there are some signs of growth (see her wishing for the best). Read more about Iranian new year

One of the most important customs is the cleanup that we Iranians do every year before the new year arrives. Many in Iran are probably finished doing that or are doing this now. Likewise, the Islamic system of Iran has apparently done some significant cleanup in the list of parliamentary candidates and like all previous elections, many were disqualified. This is not something new in the system so I shall stop talking loud about the limitations and lack of freedom in Iran. Like all previous rounds of elections, this one is far from perfect and for sure there is no chance is given to people to elect someone against the system. Yet, at least there is an election and because parliament seats are dedicated to states and counties, down to districts and small cities, there is a chance of having at least a bunch who are critiques of current government slogans especially some who can question the government in what it claims in reaching for people in remote areas and its populist propaganda. There is little choice here and people shall choose between a complete pro-ahmadinejad parliament and a little less complete pro-ahmadinejad parliament with a reformist fraction. In the last presidential election many did not vote for reformists and pragmatists with the argument that  "Anyway! there are all the same and with the leader on top, it will not make any difference"...I had a lard time convincing those people that leaving the field will just make it easier for the opponent to score...and they did...

New year is here and there will be many days of holidays...people will be busy with their new year affairs and the hard-line party has already done a good cleanup to make the next parliament suited to its purpose. That is supposed to be the house of the people...they might have cleaned it up with an odorous sweep but shall we let them to re-decorate it as well with the owners of the house watching them stand still? Physics tell us that with doing nothing, no mechanical work will be done...and to be honest, at least there are elections...do we like it better to be like a sheikhdom or kingdom as some countries around us?
I shall get back to cleaning...   

The Dutch that I know

[seems that I am keeping on breaking my record for putting big gaps between my posts. Nothing intentional.. for the record to remember my life in future I should note that it has been a rather stressful and restless period of my life..stress is not new but I would say that I have been rather restless more than often]

but after all this...

For a particular reason, I had my attention attracted to Netherlands during the past weeks and I got curious to know more than just the flowers, the sea dams and the international court. The land of the free as they may say so, appeared to have irregular and non-homogeneous details and maybe that is about the cheese :)

I know a couple of Dutch guys who live in Tripoli. I have known particularly one of them since a year ago when I started here and he soon appeared to be one of the greatest friends. The charming and amiable person with a constant smile on his face who always flattered me with all his kind gestures. I still could not make my peace with the language though as it sounds very far from the sounds that my ears can relate to. You always hear that Northern Europeans are strict and straight with low flexibility and less amiable character compared to other nations. Well, all the Dutch, Norwegians and Swedish fellows that I know are among the most fun people I ever known.

Browsing the news, I found the story about this Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a far right wing nationalist who they say has made a bad movie about the Quran. I searched him on YouTube and found a couple of his videos especially his interview with Fox News and to me he looked like just a blond version of Taliban who shaves. Taliban says there is no moderate Islam, extreme Islam is the right Islam and Wilders says exactly the same. Seems that the trap of dogma is not only in the religious schools of the Middle-East. Grown up in Iran and living now in Libya and despite the fact that I don't really connect with any aspects of any sort of religion as a whole, I should say that I have seen many moderate Muslims indeed. I have no idea why this guy wants to air such a movie. Does he think he discovered something really new there? I am sure he can find more bitter remain of bad religion in dark halls of Medieval castles in his own neighborhood.

I know that to many Muslims, Quran is special because it encourages thinking and learning the world and fights dogma in some aspects. To me, there are many detailed instructions there that do not make any sense after these years to so many people when it comes to what to wear and what to eat. Many moderate Muslims that I know consider the book as sort of a big picture and follow their everyday logic in life based on their common sense. Extreme Muslims on the other hand tend to focus on verses and paragraphs and they are indeed those who think of themselves as the true followers of the book. Same as in other religions...we still need to convince many religious people of the west that Earth is older than a couple of thousand years and evolution indeed happened.

I do not understand the aim of Wilders on this..if he wants to fight the extremism then he should stop being one and not to provoke people who are so into their own dogma already. Everyone laughed at Ahmadinejad when he said "there are no homosexuals in Iran" how about "there is no moderate Islam" of Geert Wilders?

And to the moderate Muslims, if you believe you really exist on the contrary of our Dutch politician, try to be like one and make another movie to respond. Make many movies and write many books. Condemnation ,demonstration and death threats don't go anywhere.

Just to finish, It was sad to see people were worried about reaction of Iranians to the movie...see this video a fun report from the blog of a Dutch in Iran.

Time and Deadline

I have collected the entire set of this podcast (The Manager Tools) finally after listening to their new episodes here and there but now I bought this FM transmitter for the ipod and can listen to things in the car so decided I would rather start listening to the whole collection. Not that I am a manager and I am not even close and I honestly don't want to be any close but this show is a good one no matter what your position is...(BTW, the ipod transmitter, it is fun but damn it all this mobile phone noise you get as you drive! they should put an ipod stand in the cars from now on, right?)

Distracted...the very first show of the series is recorded back in 2006 and is about time management. It has this exercise to help you find your priorities and fill your calendar with them before it gets filled with rubbish. Truth be told, it happens very often.  Starting the exercise, I became a little more cautious or lets say aware of the passage of time during working hours...normally I get to work and after finishing the morning e-mail part and a couple of phone discussions, boom it is 1100 hours.

By the book, one should do things by schedule to prevent staying up all night to finish a presentation or working late for a report or working from home in the weekend. Maybe many other people are like that but I get absolutely and fabulously efficient just before the deadlines. I stay amazed how fast I get things done just before they are due or when they are a little over due. The next day when I am a little relaxed I just freeze finding out which next task is the best to start and that will be the last relax day at work again before another storm kicks in. I keep telling myself that this is all right...boss is happy metrics are up (they were in 2007. so far the first two months of this year were kind of barren).
Compared to many others, I might say I am damn organized (I never say that to people..this post is just my mirror talk :) Let me tell you: digital calendar and task list from outlook always up to date with deadlines sync with my on-line calendar and PDA for other people to know where and when I would be available. Excel sheets and mindmaps of tasks and priorities...Just a little more focus would do...

Something funny to confess: Since high school I have been known as the guy with the big bag..this continued in my university times and in all through career years. I could not just pass two hours in the library reading only two text books and call it the day...and now, the 4 Kg laptop and accessories+ papers and books as usual and you see me jumping from one to another at work. People see me in the lift and say: Hey are you traveling today? or, oh straight from the airport! where have you been? :)

Finishing the 30th....

I have something else to celebrate valentines day for and that is my birthday. I finished my 30th year  this year with a little birthday surprise from Mrs.Behi. I could not believe that she had all those planned since our time in Barcelona in January. As usual, a beautiful setup of candles, card with nice words and the birthday gift. What surprised me most was the home-made cake in front of me, knowing that it was indeed the first time she tried making one. Our little celebration continued with both of us bursting into laughter when she started telling me the story of the cake :) Read her story here.

We had already bought our new means of fun the day before. Two new bicycles! It was almost sunset when we left our place for a relaxing ride along Tripoli port, a place that is yet to be discovered although we drive by it every day. Wide and nicely paved, it is a perfect place for jugging, running and biking or even for a relaxing walk, resting on numerous benches here and there. Valentines day, calm of the sea, nice breeze and the chill of late evening invited many Libyan couples to the safe haven of the port side. Hiding behind the bridge, swirling around street lamps or just face to face with hand crawling in the back on the benches, boys and girls were celebrating the romantic night as we passed them cycling and we all had a smile on our faces.