Frustration

No one is working at Soltaniyeh. The funds from Tehran have stopped and there has been no progress since Persian New Year. I have been there everyday except yesterday (Thursday) and today (Friday). On Wednesday, I interviewed more craftspeople. They are in charge of the different areas: the tile making workshop, the tile installing workshop for the outside of the dome, the restoration of the interior wall, and the archeology. But they are doing nothing. Just little theory and research. The tile masters do nothing. They are very upset, and rightly so. I was very frustrated.





I met a couple from Greece who are traveling the Silk road to research practices of that time. I introduced them to the artists and ended up translating things for them for a few hours. They are from a university north of Athens. Since their driver was trying to cheat them, Mom and I took them back to Zanjan and we ended up having dinner together at this lovely place called Caravansarayeh Sangi. It's an old caravansara which has been turned to a restaurant serving traditional food with live traditional music. I was able to eat ashe reshteh and kashkeh bademjoon. Bread is made fresh in front of you. Yum. A good place to eat if you are a vegetarian. We went to Takhteh Soleymun with our new friends the next day. The place is beautiful. I'm going back to Soltaniyeh on Saturday when people come back from the weekend and will be working with the interior restorer who is a very nice young woman. She tells me she will be working with her "shagerds". Let's hope so.