{"id":6632,"date":"2016-02-13T04:49:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-13T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/the-carpet-weaver-of-shiraz\/"},"modified":"2016-02-13T04:49:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-13T12:49:00","slug":"the-carpet-weaver-of-shiraz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/the-carpet-weaver-of-shiraz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Carpet Weaver Of Shiraz"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Steve Inskeep<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"Zarafshan,<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/strong> 3:24<\/strong><\/div>\n

Download<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Zarafshan, shown here with her 10-year-old son, earns money by weaving carpets. But it’s not enough to support her family of five children. Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

What does the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, as part of a nuclear deal, mean for one Iranian?<\/p>\n

We met a carpet weaver in the ancient city of Shiraz. She spends her days on the floor of a little room. Working swiftly by hand, she ties knots with little bits of wool \u2014 orange, green, white and two shades of red. Wool threads stretch across a steel frame like strings on a harp.<\/p>\n

Her clothes \u2014 loose, and flowing, and colorful \u2014 identify her as part of a traditional nomadic family. She might be in her 40s, though she said she didn’t know her age. She was born back when her family was still living in tents.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t bad in tents, she said. They used to move south toward the Persian Gulf in the winter.<\/p>\n

The name her family gave her, Zarafshan, means “spreader of gold.” And they made carpets: Her mother did, and her grandmother, and her grandmother before that. It’s a family tradition that Zarafshan has also passed down, saying her oldest daughter makes better carpets than she does.<\/p>\n

Even today, Zarafshan’s loom is of a kind that’s simple and easy to carry \u2014 though the family long ago settled outside Shiraz.<\/p>\n

We’d found her by following one street to a narrower street to a still narrower dead end, and finally to a little house, where her daughter-in-law was reading a book beside the gas stove.<\/p>\n

Zarafshan is divorced with five kids, not all of them grown. She said what she earns from making carpets isn’t enough to support her family.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Zarafshan<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Zarafshan comes from a family of carpet weavers, dating back to her great-grandmother. Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still, “What do I need a husband for?” she says with a laugh. But now that he’s gone, she is forced to supplement her income with help from her son-in law.<\/p>\n

This is true even though she employs her local craft as part of the global economy. Zarafshan works for a local businessman, who says he employs a total of 40 women to make carpets in their homes.<\/p>\n

He told us the carpets are sold in Germany. They were sold overseas even during economic sanctions, passing through third-party sellers. Iran is said to sell about two-thirds of its carpets abroad, exports worth about $330 million in 2014 alone.<\/p>\n

They can be sold more easily now, though it’s not clear what difference that will make to Zarafshan. I asked if she’d ever seen one of her carpets in someone else’s home.<\/p>\n

This is such an outlandish idea that she doesn’t understand the question at first.<\/p>\n

She finally says no. She hasn’t. She’s never even kept one of her carpets for her own home. She can’t afford her own handiwork. So she keeps a machine-made, red-and-yellow carpet, the kind you might see in any modest home in Iran.<\/p>\n

“Rich people can buy the carpets,” she says.<\/p>\n

And she goes on making them, working in this room whose only window opens to another room.<\/p>\n

She’s part of a very big world, though her world remains very, very small.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source:: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/2016\/02\/13\/466538150\/the-carpet-weaver-of-shiraz?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=business<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Zarafshan,<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/strong> 3:24<\/strong><\/div>\n

Download<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Zarafshan, shown here with her 10-year-old son, earns money by weaving carpets. But it’s not enough to support her family of five children. Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

What does the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, as part of a nuclear deal, mean for one Iranian?<\/p>\n

We met a carpet weaver in the ancient city of Shiraz. She spends her days on the floor of a little room. Working swiftly by hand, she ties knots with little bits of wool \u2014 orange, green, white and two shades of red. Wool threads stretch across a steel frame like strings on a harp.<\/p>\n

Her clothes \u2014 loose, and flowing, and colorful \u2014 identify her as part of a traditional nomadic family. She might be in her 40s, though she said she didn’t know her age. She was born back when her family was still living in tents.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t bad in tents, she said. They used to move south toward the Persian Gulf in the winter.<\/p>\n

The name her family gave her, Zarafshan, means “spreader of gold.” And they made carpets: Her mother did, and her grandmother, and her grandmother before that. It’s a family tradition that Zarafshan has also passed down, saying her oldest daughter makes better carpets than she does.<\/p>\n

Even today, Zarafshan’s loom is of a kind that’s simple and easy to carry \u2014 though the family long ago settled outside Shiraz.<\/p>\n

We’d found her by following one street to a narrower street to a still narrower dead end, and finally to a little house, where her daughter-in-law was reading a book beside the gas stove.<\/p>\n

Zarafshan is divorced with five kids, not all of them grown. She said what she earns from making carpets isn’t enough to support her family.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Zarafshan<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Zarafshan comes from a family of carpet weavers, dating back to her great-grandmother. Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Steve Inskeep\/NPR<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still, “What do I need a husband for?” she says with a laugh. But now that he’s gone, she is forced to supplement her income with help from her son-in law.<\/p>\n

This is true even though she employs her local craft as part of the global economy. Zarafshan works for a local businessman, who says he employs a total of 40 women to make carpets in their homes.<\/p>\n

He told us the carpets are sold in Germany. They were sold overseas even during economic sanctions, passing through third-party sellers. Iran is said to sell about two-thirds of its carpets abroad, exports worth about $330 million in 2014 alone.<\/p>\n

They can be sold more easily now, though it’s not clear what difference that will make to Zarafshan. I asked if she’d ever seen one of her carpets in someone else’s home.<\/p>\n

This is such an outlandish idea that she doesn’t understand the question at first.<\/p>\n

She finally says no. She hasn’t. She’s never even kept one of her carpets for her own home. She can’t afford her own handiwork. So she keeps a machine-made, red-and-yellow carpet, the kind you might see in any modest home in Iran.<\/p>\n

“Rich people can buy the carpets,” she says.<\/p>\n

And she goes on making them, working in this room whose only window opens to another room.<\/p>\n

She’s part of a very big world, though her world remains very, very small.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}