sounds of duke

What does a doctorate student do on his free time while at Duke University, in the calm and green Durham, North Carolina, USA?

He appreciates nature, its greenness and sounds, plus the somewhat hidden cultural life.

Here it follows a series of short videos for you to get a taste of it:

1. The Choir at Duke Chapel

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2. French toasts with strawberries and Duke Chapel bells

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3. A whole family of crickets having fun on a rave party @ Duke

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4. Next day, birds relaxing after the rave party

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5. Duke Chapel’s organ (apologies for it being on the vertical — the rave was too wild)

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That’s it for now…

Hope you enjoyed it !

Cheers from the Blue Devil

the holy hamra of qom

Qom, pronounced in Persian as Ghom, is the largest center for Shi’a Islam scholarship in the world.

There, we can find a theological centre and the Holy Shrine (Hamra, in Persian) of Fatema Ma’sumah (or Mae’sume).

Most of my Iranian friends would not understand why I wanted to visit Qom. My explanation was simple: I wanted to see it, to get the feeling of the place, to understand a bit of the second most important holy place in Iran. We can’t deny that it influences the whole country.

Once I stepped out the bus, I took this taxi — although I wanted to take it darbast nemikhan (“I don’t want taxi” — meaning it would be a shared taxi, as it’s usual in the country), the driver of course charged me perhaps 10 times more than he would have charged a local.

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darbast nemikhan

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On the entrance of the Shrine I left my backpack, and the guys asked if I were Muslim — non-muslisms are not allowed to enter the holy shrine. I answered: “No, I’m not, but I’m not Catholic, nor Jewish, and what I can say is that I believe in God.” Then the doorkeeper replied: “why do you want to come here?”. I said that I have interest in learning about different religions and cultures; and then he allowed me to enter the Shrine.

As I have read, and also spoken to other travellers, only a few (non-muslims) manage to go inside. I was sincere with the doorkeeper, had long sleeves collared-shirt, and a shallow beard.

Once inside, I observed the architecture and people for quite a while. Then I was able to take some pictures, without being intrusive or disrespectful — some of them were also taking some pictures or even filming:

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golden shrine

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now the silver part

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The architecture is quite interesting:

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detail of the dome

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Inside the Shrine several Moullahs and religious people:

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moullah

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And women with their shades:

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women on their shades

cheesy movies on the road

I’m on the road, and with limited Internet access: so I’m posting a previously written piece that I wrote right before the Iranian election.

Please wait a couple of days for updates directly from my Iranian friends on the demonstrations etc.

Iran is a relatively vast country (1.6m Km²): Tehran, its capital, is some 460 Km distant to Esfahan, towards the south. By bus, the main means for transport, it takes around 7h, and it costs the incredible amount of USD$ 5.5.

Buses stop regularly on main points, like Qom (pronounced Ghom), the second most religious place in Iran, after Mashad.

Here you can see the “bus stop”, in the middle of the road:

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bus stop near Qom

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Buses are normally Volvos, and quite modern, I may say.

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volvo bus

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This first one I took even had Persian rugs for us to seat on: a real taste of Persia!!

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Persian rugs on our seats

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But here comes the drawback: during almost the entire journey, they keep a tremendously cheesy film going on. No need to say that we cannot choose not to watch it, or at least not to listen to it. Actually, it is quite LOUD !!!! Anoing …. But one must just relax, and dive into the culture… At least it’s quite different!

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cheesy movie -- and LOUD

iran: more blood plus shutting up iranians

After Neda was shot dead, her death video spread all around the world.

It is useless for the Iranian government to try to block it.

Technology is stronger, and develops fast.

The whole world is watching Iran.

It’s a matter of time: sooner or later Spring will come.

Meanwhile, read two very good articles by the Guardian: one on Neda’s family, and the other on the latest developments in Iran.

iran: excellent update by the economist

After a ligher post yesterday, please find an excellent update report by The Economist on the situation connected to the Iran election.

The article is titled: “High stakes – as Iran simmers what will become of the protest movement?“

colours of iran

After a week of reports from the field back in Iran, I will continue, slowly, making further posts on the original focus of this blog: trips, food, and photography.

We cannot ignore what’s happening there: as soon as I receive further news from my great Iranian friends I’ll post here.

Meanwhile, I’ll tell you about my impressions while I was in Iran, such a enchanting country, with one of the greatest hospitality in the world, with intelligent people — who are not necessarily happy with their Islamic government.

Iranian bazaars are colourful, vibrant, busy, and diverse.

We find vine leaves for sale — $ 3,000 toman, as they usually call it, or IRR$ 30,000 Rials, their official currency. This would be around USD$ 3. The amount of leaves? I haven’t learned yet how to read Persian, but only the Persian numbers. They stuff them with several ingredients: it’s called Dolmeh.

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vine leaves

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Although not frequently, we can also find some tea — here, some 14,000 toman, or IRR$ 140,000:

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tea

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And more:

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rose tea

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At the bird market, in Esfahan, we find artificially painted baby chicken, as well as beautiful birds.

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artificially coloured chicks

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beautiful birds

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And we also find delicious strawberries to add some more colours:

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strawberries

iran: militia torturing and breaking into people’s places

Today, 22 June, I received a message from an Iranian friend from Esfahan, central Iran.

She/he mentioned that the militia police is breaking into people’s places, torturing demonstrators, and disappearing with them

Besides that, the government is alleging that those killed are being supported by the outside world, which evidently is ridiculous

We all know that they are students, artists, professors, and regular Iranian people that can’t stand the oppression from their own government.

Read her/his report bellow

“As I told you we all are worried if our voices won’t be heard after paying so much for it…

Every day the situation becomes much worse. We are under pressure for becoming silent and stop protest in any way. There is no different for going outside or showing your dissatisfaction and protest through [the] Internet. Still most of websites are blocked and they use some Mosavi’s website to find Mosavi’s supporters and arrest them. At first they hacked the websites by arresting those who were working on it and then use it for finding supporters. How unfair method…

Yesterday I saw one my friends. She was crying and told me that they arrested her brother, and since yesterday it has been 2 days that he was lost and my friend and her family still had no sign of him.

She told that at first Basiji’s [the unofficial militia that support the current government] went to one of Moosavi’s supporters staff and then arrested everybody and after torturing them they asked them to say the name of other supporters. One of them was my friend’s brother’s friend and he said his name.

So, after 1 day the Basijis found my friend’s house. She told me it was afternoon that they heard the bell ring and the Basijis asked something and they opened the door. Suddenly 12 of them went inside the house. She said it was terrible when they went inside.

They started shouting, they started to break any glass in their house, the glasses of windows or decoration or everything. Her mother is sick and before had heart surgery and you can imagine how much dealing with such a situation was dangerous for her. So they arrested her brother without telling where they are taking him to. Today is the third day that they have no sign of him. They went everywhere they could guess Basijis might have taken their son to but still there is no sign of him…

The thing which is so ridiculous is that the government pretends that nothing special happened and it connects all this incidents to some special groups outside Iran who are against their Regime.

Once I have heard from our television News that our leader announced that those who are being killed outside are not ordinary people; they are just those rebellious who are being supported by Iran’s enemies outside…

That’s funny. As you know most of us are students or professors or artists… people from different parts of society. So, how intellectual rebellious we are…

Today for showing our protest we use different signs instead of having demonstration. For example, today from 5pm to 6 m Moosavi’s supporters use their car’s lights by making it light for one hour to show their protest in streets. And tomorrow we have a striking I all cities of Iran. None of Moosavi’s supporters will go to class or for his or her job and whatever… we use any way until we are heard.

Really hard for us to see our people being killed and we cannot do anything.

Just God can help us…“

iran: no more pictures — censorship being implemented

Today, 21 June, around 8PM Iran time, one of my friends wrote to me, saying that she/he won’t be able to take any further pictures of the demonstrations in Iran — she/he is the author of most of the pictures I posted in this blog.

The reason? Her/his camera was confiscated by the Iranian militia…

Censorship being implemented !!! No one in the West or anywhere should see what’s happening there…

She/he wrote to me:

“I guess there is no need to tell you about how bloody was yesterday…

Well, I finally could log in to some websites, but can’t take pictures or videos anymore (those bastards stole my camera)!

Yesterday friends of mine and I were on our way and taking some pictures when at the entrance of Kargar St. militia stopped the car, first took our cameras, then drew my friend out of the car because he’d worn black [indicating that he was protesting against the government, and was sensitive to the dead].

They searched the whole car and our bags. But I can say I’m lucky because they didn’t search my pockets and I had a black ribbon and a CHANGE singe.

We just stayed calm and they were kind of busy with other protesters, so that ended to hitting the car with their nightsticks and spraying the car in red.

What are the news in the other side of the world, please inspire me with good ones.“

What’s good here, on this side of the world? Is there any good news? I really don’t know what to answer…

iran: many killed today after khamenei speech

As predicted by all my Iranian friends, either from Tehran or from Esfahan, today, Saturday, 20 June, many were brutally killed by the government and by the Basiji militia force.

Watch some videos uploaded to YouTube of the terrible things that happened today in Iran — some of them are really strong, of people being shot dead. If you can’t stand blood or terrible images, don’t watch them. If you want to see with your own eyes the atrocities in Iran, not only watch them, but spread the word.

Strong video of a young woman being shot dead. (Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.)

This is the description of the crime scene, posted on Facebook: [the young woman] “was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a Basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.

The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gas used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.

Please let the world know.”

Another young man being killed.

A video of protests, with several gun shots on the background.

Yet another young man being shot dead.

A video of protesters at Shiraz University (900km south of Tehran).

iran: the supreme leader threatened people yesterday

I just got a message from another friend from Esfahan, central Iran, and he/she said:

“Today is gonna be big… the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] threatened the people yesterday while supporting [the current president] Ahmadinejad and denying any kinds of fraud in election… stay updated…“

Another friend from Tehran told me the same, that today, after silent demonstrations yesterday, would be bloody…

Let’s wait for further news.