 She's currently working with the Janice Foundation and she's been very instrumental in directing the Mending Nations series of programs that have been going on around the Bay Area. So I turn the program now over to Sue Richter. Thank you. Thank you, Daphne. And I'd like to give you a special thank you for organizing this event tonight. And I'd also like to just thank Josette personally with Borders for being the bookseller this evening and selling wonderful books from around the world. I'm the founder of Mending Nations and I wanted to just briefly talk about how Mending Nations started. It started several years ago after I met Lely Bacchar-Vandillian and we've had many, many discussions about Iran in the Baccharian tribes. And quite frankly, I didn't know much about the Baccharian tribes before I met Lely. What I knew about Iran was what I'd read in the newspapers or seen on the television. And it was obviously more slanted toward the political side. So after many years of speaking with Lely, I've learned quite a bit about the Baccharian tribes. I've learned that they're the oldest continuous migrating tribe on the face of the world over 5,000 years. And I've learned about their migrations up and down the Zagros Mountains. I've heard about places like Chahar Mahal and Isfahan and had many, many cups of chai tea. Later I met Luba Brezhnev and Miriam Chavez. And again, I didn't know a whole lot about Cuba and I knew some about Russia, but not a lot. And after speaking with them for quite a few months, I learned much more about Cuba and Russia. I learned about the great cafe societies in Cuba. I learned about the great family traditions that are still carried out today. And in Russia, I learned about the great spirit of the people. Even though they've been through many difficult times, their spirit is incredibly strong. So what happened with me personally is I noticed that my heart and my spirit really shifted towards Iran and Cuba and Russia. And I went from a spirit of caution to one of passion for the people and the traditions and the cultures of these countries. So we all sat around at dinner one night and decided that we needed to have a Mending Nations program to educate people and through great literature. So with that, I'd like to start with Miriam and ask Miriam. You were born in Cuba and then you came to America with your parents. And perhaps you could discuss what happened, what were the circumstances that were around that. I was born in Cuba and in 1959, my sister was born, but my father, instead of in the hospital with my mother, he was in the Sierra Maestra Mountains with Fidel Castro. He was a revolutionary and as you know, Batista was the dictator at the time. And Fidel Castro had a lot of support of the whole country. There are revolutionaries in the mountains. They came down from the mountains and took over Havana and the government. And Batista left in New Year's Eve and left with a couple of his family and friends and left the country. So my father was very, very involved in changing the beginning of the government. He didn't ever take part in the government of Fidel Castro because he was a journalist and a newspaper man. And he started, he had a radio show and a couple of months after Fidel Castro took over, they started curtailing his radio show and he couldn't say this and he couldn't say that. Then Fidel Castro aligned himself, as you know, with the Soviet Union. And my father in the middle of the night with 12 other people that were in the Sierra Maestra Mountains with him left in a small boat and ended up in McAllen, Texas in an immigration detention center. My mother and my sister and myself were left in Cuba and Fidel Castro signed permission for us to be able to leave. We went to Mexico City and we ended up in Miami, met my father after the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Miami at that time was a very, very strange place because there were a lot of people from the Batista regime, they were there, and then all these new people from the, that were responsible for putting Castro in power were there also. So there's a lot of conflict and commotion going on. My father started a radio show in the garage of our house and we had to be really, really quiet at six o'clock in the afternoon because my father would tape this radio show, which was all political and had to do with Batista and what was happening and with Castro and all throughout my life. He always wanted to reestablish relationships with Cuba because he also, he always thought that through communication you were going to get more done than through embargoes and hate and different things that went on during the time in Miami. So during all, all throughout my life I always was taught that through communication and exchange a lot more will get accomplished. Now your full name is Miriam Lesnick Chavez and so you married into the Chavez family. Caesar Chavez is your father-in-law and many of us know him as the deceased labor leader but many of us don't know him as a human being. Do you have a personal story about Caesar? I met my husband in 1980 when I worked for the Kennedy campaign. Edward Kennedy was running for president and I had just graduated from Columbia University graduate school of international affairs and I had, I was called to work in Senator Edward Kennedy's Senate office and then he started, he began his Kennedy campaign to run for president and I switched over and my husband came from California and he was the Latino at that time who was Hispanic coordinator, that's what we would call his Latino Hispanic coordinator at the time for the whole country and I met him there and after a couple of months of getting to know my husband I realized that we had very similar upbringing and they always, always the same thing, always very unpopular. My father and Caesar always had unpopular views with the majority of the people and he was always, but they never, never wavered and they always had the same, ideas and never, never switched up no matter how hard everything really got. My husband always tells this great story about his father that I've read everything, probably has been published on Caesar and all his biographies and I haven't read this little story which is very telling of how Caesar is and was and because is because he's still with us and how he really raised his family and how, what kind of man he really was. It was during the height of his, of his fame and he was a threat to everyone. Big corporations didn't like him. He was saying things that, that no one wanted to hear. So the Johnson administration offered him to head the Peace Corps in Latin America and that was a job that a lot of people probably, I think Sergeant Shriver took that job a little later on. It was a very, very prestigious job but basically he knew that they were offering him this job so he could leave the country, not organize farm workers and stop making waves. So he sat the whole family down. The whole family lived in a house, no more, they were, my husband was one of eight. So they lived in a two bedroom house in Delano with one bathroom and in a very, very poor area and my mother-in-law was still working as a farm worker and coming home and cooking these huge meals for eight children and my father-in-law sat everyone down and said, I have been offered a job. They always had dinner at a certain time every night. I have been offered a job in Latin America and this job will take us, I think it was, Buenos Aires or Santiago, I'm not sure, but we've been offered this job, I've been offered this job but I really, I want to discuss it with the family. Now I have to tell you that this is organizing the Peace Corps and it's going to be a job where you're going to have to live in a big, huge house. Everybody's going to have their own room and your mother is going to be able to have somebody help her with the cooking and you're not going to have to make your own beds and not clean up. You're going to go to private schools and you're probably going to have a chauffeur because in Latin America we're probably going to have a chauffeur, yes, a chauffeur. And then also I think we're going to have a huge, the house I think we're told has a pool and it's going to be a great, great life. You're going to all learn how to speak perfect Spanish. They all spoke Spanish but this is going to be much better because you're going to speak Spanish all the time. Your grandmother can come with us. It's going to be a great life. So I want to take a vote and I want all of you to vote and really think and I don't want you to talk to your brothers or sisters, it's just going to be something that you're going to decide on your own. Now who would want to go to Latin America so I can organize the Peace Corps? But I have to tell you, before you vote, if we go we cannot organize farm workers and the farm workers won't have someone organizing them and I just like to, really you close your eyes and raise your hand. So everyone voted to stay except Bertie who was three years old and he says I want to go. So that's basically very telling because again the whole family, the whole United Farm Workers and the whole movement was basically a family effort and without all the family and all the people that helped wouldn't have gotten where it is today. Thank you for that great story. Well many of us know that there have been strained relationships between Cuba and America for decades but your parents just took a trip to Cuba and you go every year and perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what the atmosphere is like in Cuba today. I go every year like Sue said to Cuba. I take my children every year because like my father and Caesar always used to say that if you don't know who you are you don't know where you're going or where you're going to end up. So I take them to Cuba and I also take them to La Paz where my mother-in-law is to see how it's a union headquarters and to be with her cousins for a couple of weeks during the summer. My parents just came back, they go more often than I do and they just came back and they say every year it changes and it's much better. And this year when they just returned they said that there were a lot of Americans there and that's really unusual because three years ago there were no Americans and now in the last year there were a little bit more and this year there's a lot. But they said, my parents also said that they are not taking their children yet and I guess they're a little hesitant but I think next year you're going to see American children. You're going to see the more they go the more you see that it's a great place and it's a wonderful place to see and I think it's going to be really, really great. Every year it changes and it becomes a little bit better. Now you wrote a book too called Sacrifice and it's going to be published next year and so we'll come back to that and you can read a little bit about that in a moment. Thank you. Now we'll go to Luba Brezhnev who she is the niece of Leonid Brezhnev and also the author of The World I Left Behind. And my question for you Luba is why did you sacrifice everything you had in Russia to come to America and write The World I Left Behind? Thank you, it's a very good question. I'm often asked by Americans and also by Russians why was I leaving that was most dear to me my relatives, my friends, my job, my home and what was the reason for this kind of sacrifice and why did I have to choose to leave the hard life in a new country? At the end of 80s I was aware that Americans and Russians had an unique and great opportunity to establish a new civilized relationship and to know each other better and to become friends and I decided to come to America and to share with Americans who had an approximate idea about Russia and Russians my life experience, my knowledge to help Americans to understand events in former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, Russian knowledge of America and Americans and I'm talking about average people in general can be summed up in a few words like Donalds, Jeans and Monica Lewinsky and American knowledge of Russia and Russians is almost at the same level as Kremlin, Vodka and Garbachev so but I know that the Russians who know better Americans or have Americans friends or to leave or to work with Americans they say Americans are great guys they are hard workers and we have a lot to learn from them for example how to do business or how to be patient and tolerant and polite and Americans who live with Russians or work with Russians they say I've never seen warmer, kinder and more charming people than Russians that's what comes from knowledge of each other and when I came to America I didn't speak any English and I knew only two sentences my name is Lyuba and I love you and I was very lucky because there's two sentences I signed a contract with Random House in a few months and my editor very lovely gentleman we're still in touch, we're still friends he has been working in Random House for 47 years he told me Lyuba it's just you came to America and you said my name is Lyuba I love you and we signed a contract so here in this hall I have two friends my very close friends we are friends for 7 years Michael Morpher and Dale Berman when they made me 7 years ago I didn't speak English it was hard time so and for many years we were sure Americans and Russians that all our misfortunes came from Communism but now the Cold War has ended and the Communist Party doesn't exist anymore but we are still facing very serious problems not only ethnic and national problems but the problems between Russians and Americans unfortunately most of people live by the principle if I don't understand it I don't like it and I don't accept it and I decided to write my book which was published by Random House in 1995 and this is the book not about the politics or political situation or about my uncle this is the book about myself about my family about my people about my country about its soul and heart and this is the book a little bit about my uncle of course but it's not about Leonid Brezhnev as a politician but as a human being thank you so Luba you've told me many times about the great spirit of the Russian people and could you tell us a little story about the common people in Russia it's my pleasure because I like to talk about average Russians unfortunately in the recent years which have been very important for relationship between Americans and Russians most of the coverage of Russia presented to Americans has shown the most negative aspect of Russian life and there had practically nothing about Russian culture, Russian history Russian poetry, Russian literature but there has had plenty to see and read about Russian crime Russian corruption on mafia and this gives a terribly distorted portrait to Russians however Russia is the country of a very high spiritual culture currently as you know Russia is struggling trying to survive and to solve economic and social problems but her spirit is very strong and her faith is very strong people are going hungry but it's still very hard to get a ticket to play people have been lost the faith in the government but the churches are full and I would like to talk about average people for example about a little Russian seven year girl who lately walked about 100 miles with her parents to visit the holy grave of one of the most beloved saints of Russia or about Russian doctors who unpaid for months continue to treat and operate on patients or about Russian teachers who also unpaid for months continue to teach the children they are the true face of Russia thank you your uncle Leonor Brezhnev he taught you a very valuable lesson about life through borscht could you tell us that story yeah but before I'll go to the story it's a funny story I would like to read a very small piece of my book using glasses unfortunately when several days after the funeral of my uncle my father came to my home his blood pressure had shot up his eyes were still red his face was blushed I invited him to stay for supper he sat down on the bench in my kitchen and then without saying a word let his head on the table and began to sob I'm like a dog without his master he told me as he wiped his tears they lost the general secretary I lost a brother so millions of people in Russia in former Soviet Union lost Leonid Brezhnev as a general secretary I lost my uncle so my point is that he never was a general secretary to me he was just an uncle the person I loved the person who took care of me and the person who gave me a lot of lessons by the way this night I got a call from Moscow and I'm going to publish my book in Moscow it's coming out on October and the editor called me to Aluba just a recent poll in the former Soviet Union shown that your uncle Leonid Brezhnev was the best politician of this century and they call his period his heir as the golden socialism and when they ask the people the thousands of people for whom they will vote tomorrow the answer was for Leonid Brezhnev and I want to go to define his story when I was a teenager teen so my uncle loved very much borsh you know most of people in Russia they're crazy about borsh there are some people who eat borsh three times a day so my uncle belonged to this kind of people if there wasn't borsh he thought it's nothing to eat in the house so and when I was a teen I don't remember 13 or 14 years old I decided to please him and surprise him and I made a borsh for him and I forgot to put their beets but without beets it's no borsh you can just throw it in the garbage and my uncle said my dear never remember about main ingredients in your life and I remember this and I'm trying not to forget about main details in my life main things thank you thank you for that great story too and we'll come back to another reading from the world I left behind and now I'd like to move over to Laylee back to your Van Dillon she's an award winning poet and has a new novel out called Herum Letters and I have some questions for you as well the first is in many ways our nation is in a cultural revolution and how do you see your work and Mending Nations assisting that Mending thank you Sue it's a good question the concept of cultural revolution in Mending Nations my novel Herum Letters is basically based on the life of Dr. Abul Ghassan Bakhtiar who is from a 5,000 year old nomadic tribe living in the Zagros Mountains he's from a tiny village of Burujan and from this village he completed his education by the age of 10 he sat on a small carpet out under a tent and after he could read Arabic in the Quran his education was considered complete what he came to learn later when he befriended Shapur Bakhtiar's family Shapur Bakhtiar was the former prime minister of Iran and he was the prime minister in 1979 just at the time the Shah of Iran was leaving Iran he wanted to be sure the parliament had approved Shapur to be the next prime minister so he wouldn't leave the nation in anarchy Shapur was elected or nominated as prime minister and he was assassinated eight years ago in 1991 I had met him in 1989 back in Burujan village in the Zagros Mountains these two men were friends and they both believed in the concept of knowledge the concept that words can heal the importance of education consequently many of the Bakhtiaris who were shepherds who have flocks my grandfather for example before he came to America to become a physician he was a peddler of fruits until he was 40 years old realizing in his poverty that he would never amount to anything one of the BB Queens in the tribe took him to the capital Tehran where another Bakhtiar before Shapur it was actually Shapur's uncle was prime minister as well and eventually he met a Presbyterian missionary he was invited to America in 1919 after World War I and he came at 40 speaking little English went to Syracuse University then medical school at Syracuse and then he wanted to return in 1929 during our Great Depression with his wife as a career doctor to help the poor in needy they had no hospitals in Iran and if you were dying you were taken in a wheelbarrow to a Maris Hunay, a sick house so my grandfather and grandmother were the first physician and nurse in Iran and wiped out malaria they believed back to the concept of mending nations that what was critical to humans and civilizations to continue to understand each other was to become educated and so they believed in the healing power of words and myself as a journalist and a fiction author and my friends Luba and Miriam this is what we believe in reconciliation and hope through understanding and enriching our lives by learning about other cultures you visited Iran in 1997 and are there still sacred rites that are exercised there as tradition with the elders? it's a very important question and I think universally the concept of elders in Iran today I was there two years ago and every home I went to to eat a sofray a sofray is when you spread a big Persian rug well the Persian rugs are on every floor but then a tablecloth on the carpet so that 20-30 people can sit around that sofray and eat the concept of the elders when you come into a home there's an image of a grandfather and grandmother who may have passed away and the youth seek the elders for their wisdom this is how cultures are continued by passing on these stories of the elders and when I met Shapur in Paris this was again the same quest to return to one's roots to ask of the senior citizens the most serious questions about your life and in this case of course I asked him about the revolution about we had hoped to work together because I spoke French I have a master's degree in French literature and he speaks better French than English and my Farsi is improving but it's still not there so at any rate what I learned from Shapur and I can never forget it this is the kind of experience one has in Iran sitting with elders throughout the day and having Chahi he said Lely if you look into the eyes of democracy what you'll see is suffering it's a great price one must pay for democracy he also said I believe the human mind grows naturally toward democracy and Shapur had certainly had the life experience he had been imprisoned by the same Shah who actually put him back into power if you will or approved of his power so the concept of going to the elders was a ritual that I saw in poor families in the cities of Esfahan, Shiraz we went into the old kuche the old streets and talked with the nannies they are the old family wise women who have a thousand eyes and I write about them in harem letters your mother is an expatriate from Iran and your father is a retired navy officer this must have impressed upon you a great need to be a communicator and bridge east and west did your writing come from this? yes my father is Irish and my mother is Iranian so being Irish-Iranian there was an incredible amount of energy in our family and my father came from four generations of Irish sea captains from the United States Naval Academy there are McNair roads on the academy grounds there's a USS McNair there's a Fort McNair in Washington DC and yes indeed I observed as a child from a family of six I have five brothers and I observed for survival's sake I observed these two cultures my Iranian mother my Irish father they've been married 49 years tried to put these stories together and weave a life of cultural reconciliation and all my work is about reconciliation all my work is about the hope of understanding that two people can come to understand the mystery of life the mystery of another person's tribe or clan and indeed my mother had complete respect for this navy clan these Irish warriors if you will these seafaring captains and she adored it I must admit as the story goes my 17-year-old Persian mother at the time went with my 27-year-old father to Annapolis, Maryland the home of the United States Naval Academy where my grandfather Captain and Mrs. McNair were awaiting to see his new, shall we say, fiance and he had seven sisters with curly blonde Irish hair and extremely fair skin and when he arrived on his doorstep with a very exotic 17-year-old Persian woman it raised eyebrows I think they were speechless at any rate what I have seen in terms of reconciliation and what is possible between a man and a woman, a family life is respect between them there was a lot of times not understanding my father also loved Bakhtiari food the Bakhtiaris did not come for one night they came for months and years one day at breakfast my father's mother was from the Chief Justice John Marshall family and we have their formal dining room table and my father, they were about 20 at the breakfast table and my father said to this Iranian gentleman well, have you enjoyed your stay in America? and he said, oh yes, Mr. McNair this has been wonderful and he went on to ask him numerous questions and he said, well now how long have you been here? and he said for about a month and he said, and where have you been staying? and he said, well Mr. McNair, upstairs in your home and this is very typical and it's actually quite typical of my home today I welcome a lot of cultures in my home and I believe that the stories that I've written in harem letters reflect how hope can continue through sharing cultural stories thank you and we'll come back to reading from harem letters may I add some few words about many nations? sure, sure, thank you so as I already said that most of people are living by the principle if I don't understand, I don't love it and I don't accept it and the most destructive prejudices are those based on religion, ethnicity and nationality and I have been experienced of some of them when I was a young girl and I fell in love with a German man German military pilot my uncle who was the first person in the country he was a general secretary he said, aren't there any more Russian men? it wasn't necessary to fall in love with a German man and when later I married an Armenian guy so my mother in law accused her son of having half Russian children so I just and I remember that actually I was in the same way somehow because I give you an example when my ex-husband signed a contract with an Algerian university and we came to Algeria in 1978 I felt so isolated from this country and I was so miserable and I just had a negative feeling toward this country everything smelled different and didn't look like in Russia and my ex-husband said either you stay and try to understand this country and love these people and to be happy or you have to go back to Moscow and I didn't have any choice and I stayed and I did my best to understand this country I gained a lot of friends there and I loved them very much I was very happy and when the time to live came I cried Thank you Thank you for that story and now Maryam is going to read a passage from her soon to be released book Sacrifice and she's going to set up that whole scene for us Yes this is a I took a year off from law school and went to live in the Dominican Republic because I always thought that I was so I was very confused in the United States I thought I felt American one day and then maybe Latin American another day I just had to go somewhere I couldn't go to Cuba because at the time no one was going to Cuba so I went to live in the Dominican Republic where my grandfather had a house and I worked for a TV station this book idea came from my years living there and I think the chapter speaks for itself it's about an American woman that marries a Latin American woman living in the country a Dominican wife breakfast 8.30 Spanish doctora vals 10 o'clock dance Gustavo Télez 11 lunch 12.30 siesta 2 free time 3 to 5 riding Carol Choa 5.30 dinner 7.30 Tuesdays instead of riding gourmet cooking entertaining Monday instead of dance massage Tuesday instead of Spanish and dance manicure pedicure Sandy's days were planned by Esmeralda Lozano thought it was kind of his aunt to take the time and the days marched on the first year she saw only her teachers manicurist, hairdresser and the servants she was expected to dress in black dresses all of the paintings and the mirrors in the villa were covered with black cloth the Lafortes were in mourning and life would resume in one year Lozano was traveling more and Sandy spent much of her time alone lately he was leaving for two weeks at a time he returned his return was always full of fun and romance that kept her going and boxes from Valentino Escola de la Renta and Hermes Cristian Dior arrived via Flores almost every day that first year she found evening gowns and Italian silk dresses and alligator shoes with matching purses filled her closet every Saturday evening Lozano gave her a piece of jewelry to go with her new clothes some of the pieces had been his grandmothers and others he had sent from Harry Winston in New York and emerald necklaces and diamond ear clips filled her jewelry chest as Rala became excited every time Sandy received a new piece of jewelry she gave her suggestions Sandy should wear her hair pulled back with almost the most elaborate necklaces and ear clips it was more flattering to the face and showed off the stones diamonds were not to be worn in the daytime she suggested pearls after a few months of practice Sandy looked like a Dominican wife Sandy avoided Esmeralda when the subject was not clothes, hair or jewelry and tensions were high when they were in the same room one day they had a confrontation and Sandy knew it was just a matter of time it happened in the library and Esmeralda approached her from the back what are you doing in here Esmeralda stood by the door looking for a computer paper I want to print out a letter Sandy had already seen the stacks of money in the boxes and there must have been thousands of dollar bills next time ask Patricio this office should be locked there are no limits my husband died in here and I don't want you snooping around Esmeralda was not snooping Esmeralda turned around and left why would they have all this cash lying around next time she checked the office was locked when she asked Lozano he told her the money was to be deposited in Switzerland we always have to be prepared for the worst he said he did not elaborate and the time passed slowly I'm looking forward to the release of this book so we can read more thank you and now Luba is going to read a passage from the world I left behind about her uncle Leonor Brezhnev as the human being yeah, as you know or maybe you remember that my uncle organized the conspiracy against Khrushchev and he succeeded him in October 1964 actually it was very easy because at that time not only Politburo but the whole country was sick and tired of Nikita Khrushchev's experiments so and I would like to read a small piece about my uncle what happened after he became the general secretary once soon after Leonid had become first secretary he took a walk in the woods with my father because my father had played such a vital role in the revolt Leonid felt a special gratitude toward him so I took his side I don't know how long I'll leave I don't even think about it I only think about how we can do more for our people they have suffered greatly and deserve better our extreme poverty has always shocked me are Russians worse than Czechs or Germans they should eat their fill and sleep in comfort if you want them to work well was my uncle really concerned about the people's needs he really believed that he had been selected by fate to be their benefactor like any politician he needed to feel that his actions were justified he had often repeated the formula the people are not here to save us we are here to serve us we are here to serve the people but this idea faded and was forgotten as the years passed I have no intention of making excuses for him but it would be unfair to deny that he loved his country he did in his own way he wanted to make the Soviet Union more prosperous and more happy but he did not believe after a certain point at least in the triumph of socialism in Marxism-Leninist principles or in the possibility of communism it was the late 60s during another one of the frequent walks in the woods Yakov my father himself a party member I'm sorry asked his brother, general secretary of the communist party what do you think, Leonia? will communists ever come? Leonid laughed without mirth oh for heaven's sake, Yasha what are you talking about? all this stuff about communism is a tall tale for popular consumption after all we cannot leave the people with no faith the church was taken away desire was shot and something had to be substituted so let the people build communism my father came away from this conversation deeply disappointed I would like to read one more very short oh my gosh I'm struggling my book is like later my father later my father admitted that a few weeks before Leonid's death he had called him something he did rarely only when his wife was not around to know and said Yasha, I can feel that the end is near I'd like to be able to start everything again again from the beginning but my strength is gone I'm so tired I'm tired of living I answered Leonid and hung up when my father related this short conversation to me I sensed immediately that my uncle had been reaching out for understanding and forgiveness who besides his brother was left for him to confine in thank you very much I'm still struggling with my English I'm sorry it must have been extraordinary for Leonid Brezhnev on one hand yes because I'm kind of proud of being the niece of this guy because he was a really nice and kind person and very honest person very decent person and finally the Russian people realize it right now so starving to death right now and seeing the Russia falling apart but on the other side it wasn't easy because I always felt like a a goldfish in some bowl or whatever everybody could come to my life and everybody was curious about my private life about my business life about my friends, my children so it was a kind of heart so Lely your next question is that Mending Nations is about educating ourselves about different cultures and traditions and I believe that you're going to read a piece from Heron Letters is it The Bath House or The Bazaar? The Bath House Persia is an ancient land which like many in the Middle East or Near East is dusty and people are on foot and labor throughout the day what they look forward to at the end of the day is to go to the Hamam which is The Bath House and this is not just a ritual cleansing but it's also a time to socialize and a time to hear the politics of the day the news of the day and perhaps the matchmaker might be in the Hamam so there are a thousand eyes in the Hamam and this is a story of where the mother is going to take her four daughters the story is about four sisters and these four sisters are young and in Persia and they're going with their mother their mother is actually American and their Aunt Daisy has come from the United States to visit them but she sees everything and Persia is unclean and debatable so it begins a little bit with Aunt Daisy we drop Aunt Daisy off at home since she's not comfortable to go to the open Hamam Bath House which Mama loves I want Aunt Daisy taken to the Great Salt Desert forever the five of us continue our whirling day with the ritual cleansing on entering the dark Hamam Mama visibly relaxes Old Nanay-Parsia arranges our clothes and we disrobe and wrap and soft towels immediately inside the great cavernous Hamam five human washers approach us are they relics from the past we sit on the wet tiles the dripping steam falls from the tall glass dome down by our sides our hair is scrubbed with piquant vinegars for shine and oils and essences for scent we serve sweet juicy pomegranates kinses, barberries and mulberries while our feet are ground into smooth flesh with pumice rock the skin on our backs is shed for new skin with a rough scrub pad Mama is massaged as well and her body oiled with attire of roses as though preparing for her death after many hours of cleaning and polishing nibbling on honey tea and sweets and drinking a 3,000 year old lemonade recipe we are driven home for our afternoon nap Mama insists since we have a big occasion coming up we must rest a few days she's always preventing us from tiredness so we will be immune to the exposure of bacteria and viruses at the end of the story the four sisters find out that there was a matchmaker in the bazaar that day and the matchmaker will soon visit that family and one of the girls will have a marriage proposal and that's a very interesting story a marriage proposal she doesn't want I think Albert Einstein summed this whole Mending Nations theme up years and years ago he said life cannot long endure on the basis of a crude force understanding for our neighbors justice in our dealings willingness to help can give human society permanence and so what I'd like to do now is open the floor for questions but what we'll have to do is wait until Daphne can get to you with a microphone so that we can capture the question and people won't have to repeat again do we have any questions for Laylee Luba or Miriam everything is clear then I will ask a question and I will ask a question of Laylee you are from a revolutionary family and do you see yourself as a literary revolution yes I do see myself as a literary revolutionary the story I told about Shappor back to Yarr is a very personal family story he was on the front cover of Time magazine and he lost his life assassinated in Paris in a very brutal way and some people such as Shappor he said I was asked and called to come and help the people I had devoted my life and sacrificed had given my body as living sacrifice to our nation and to the poor and the needy in my particular case my type of sacrifice is really as an author to share the stories of people such as Shappor I share them in fiction the characters are fictionalized though it's based on the back tiari and what I've known of these people's incredible commitment their toughness their endurance in a very inhospitable indomitable part of the world the Zagros Mountains is taken for people like that to be on a path a quest, a journey for knowledge and understanding of other nations the Persians I grew up with in the tribe believe that we are all gateways to all other nations and in that case my writing is perhaps revolutionary in that it aspires and continues to hope and it refuses to be apathetic Do we have any questions? I visited the Soviet Union in 1962 and if there are not going to be any other questions I will give some information and then ask a question or if you want one quick question Could you give us a quick question? For which I am hardly prepared I cannot state a quick question that's not what I had in mind but I will make it much Thank you I was visiting a children's summer camp in Leningrad with a group of 20 people and the director came to us and we had an interpreter and then we had our opportunity to ask a question if we wanted to and I was the first my question was have you noticed that children are cruel to each other and if so what do you do to correct that so I would like to ask you what your answer is and then if I may I will give the answer that the director gave and then what happened afterwards you mean that you have information about the children, Russian children who are cruel toward each other that is the question I asked him because I had something maybe I missed something I don't remember that we were really cruel toward each other in the Soviet Union well I think children all over the world are cruel to each other they are selfish they are not more cruel than any other children and maybe it's better to talk about childhood about children at that time in the 60s and now this is the big difference it's better to talk about this what is the difference between the children of 1962 and the children of 1990 it's a big difference if you saw the children in the summer camp most of children were allowed to the summer camp I grew up in the summer camp for example it was a common case thousands and thousands of millions and we were very happy to go there because I remind in the 1960s I remember that one of my friend I was a student at that time and I remember that one of my friends he was French he came from Sorbonne University from Paris and he came first time he visited the first time the Soviet Union and he stayed there a few months and I asked him what is the most wonderful that you saw in the Soviet Union the most is the happy childhood we had the special our children always were to care of nobody was indifferent for our children we had the special pioneers palaces we had the special over classes groups the children could stand classes up to lessons in the spend time in the schools so it was a kind of they were to care now the children are polishing of new Russian shoes now the children are washing their cars now the children are selling newspapers on the streets now the children instead of going to the school they are selling their bodies because their parents don't know how to make money and they don't want to live in this messy country that's what is the big difference between children at 60s and children so it's too late to talk about unfortunately we're very short on our time but we can come back to that question in just a moment you don't want to hear what the director said and what happened I'd love to hear it we'll come right back to it in a moment but I do have another question about the children in Cuba and perhaps I agree with Luba because in Cuba they also have pioneer camps and the children are the country revolves around the children and they're very very special and I was in a school many schools that I visit and I take my children to and the children are as opposed to here in public school that a lot of the teachers don't get involved and all children are cruel to each other over there they really intervene so it's basically it's more of a softer touch and of course I'm generalizing but when I take my children to Cuba I also take them to ball parks and the children are so happy playing baseball without gloves and with a ball made of a big piece of cloth I don't tell my children look they're the best baseball players in the world and they don't need $150 bats and my children go yes okay and then of course they take that and say agree and then they come to the United States and they want the $150 bat what can I tell you thank you well unfortunately we do have to close and we'll come back to your question after we close the program Lely is going to be shown by Rumi who is from Iran and it's about reunification could you read that or recite it for us Rumi is a classic Persian poet and this piece from Rumi reminds us that it's never too late to begin again it's never too late to come together and it goes like this come, come, whoever you are wanderer, worshiper, lover despair still, if you've broken your vows even a thousand times still and yet come again thank you thank you so much, thank you for coming to Mending Nation