With one of those nephews, Mahmoody learned later, Moody plotted to take his wife and daughter back to his roots forever. Holes in the floor for toilets and a water hose for paper. No furniture in the best of homes, just a piece of plastic to sit on, or a blanket to sleep on with the women still in their clothes. Grown people eating with their fists and the food dribbling back in the plates. Roaches running everywhere. Mostly, though, she was depressed by women shrouded in black like Grim Reapers in the oppressive heat, clutching their garments chadors at their chins with one hand, clumsily trying to do their work with the other, always fearing that the police might stop them for failing to hide themselves well enough.
Some men were more violent than others, but it was all the same. A woman has no rights in Iran, even if she is an American citizen, Mahmoody said she learned upon appealing to an official at the U. Interest Section of the Swiss Embassy. In Iran she belonged to Moody. And so did Mahtob. That could distract him because he knew Mahtob was afraid of going to the bathroom alone. And she learned to stick her fingers down her throat to provoke retching, another trick to distract her dad from his rage against her mother.
During the frightening escape, arranged secretly through a man they met in a Tehran market, she remembers periods of intense hunger. Hiding in a barn in the mountains, she remembers being given sunflower seeds. To this day, they have never disclosed the identities of who helped them escape from Iran. Driven to the border by a series of smugglers, they were led on foot by another man across the mountains to Turkey, and finally the U. Mahtob and her mother are devout members of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
Nurturing teachers she had at Salem Lutheran School in Owosso and at the Michigan Lutheran Seminary boarding high school in Saginaw figure prominently in the book, and she credits them with helping her heal. Later, she graduated from Michigan State University. She has worked in nonclinical roles in Michigan, until the chronic disease lupus forced her to take time off from work.
Mother and daughter took precautions, but Mahtob says she has lived a normal life. Known as Amanda Mandy Smith in elementary school, by high school, Mahtob reclaimed her Iranian birth name, which means moonlight.
Over the years, her mother would pull out photo albums of happy family times, so Mahtob would remember another side to her father, rather than the man who became obsessed with anti-American sentiments. Mahtob and Betty Mahmoody. About the Author: Rachel Carter. Rachel Carter grew up surrounded by trees and snow and mountains. She is the author of the So Close to You series with Harperteen. These days you can find her working on her next novel in the woods of Vermont.
Related Posts. November 11th, 0 Comments. November 10th, 0 Comments. November 9th, 0 Comments. November 8th, 0 Comments. Cindy Willis April 24, at pm - Reply. Guadalupe Calderon June 5, at am - Reply. I can watch this movie over and over, your mom was so brave and never gave up and held per faith.
Lois DiGiacomo June 8, at am - Reply. Did you ever see your father or have any contact with him or did he ever try to see you? Heidi September 14, at pm - Reply. Carlie Madden March 26, at am - Reply. Christine April 27, at am - Reply. Rebelo June 10, at pm - Reply. Jeannine Greene March 20, at pm - Reply. Christine Bazemore September 6, at am - Reply. Ms Mahmoody said she does not think it was religion that 'took' her father away from her, but rather that he was caught up in a movement that saw American society and culture as immoral and corrupt.
She said despite having already undergone such a traumatic experience in her life and then having this diagnosis handed to her, she did not ever think 'why me? None of her doctors thought that she would survive and in the end it was only because of an experimental treatment that she survived. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.
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