225BatonRouge.com - Blogs

Editor’s Note: Hessam Parzivand is a recent LSU grad who grew up in Acadiana, but is now traveling through the Middle East to meet long-lost cousins and discover the region of his ancestors.

I'm finally starting to feel a sense of the fact that I'm semi-permanently here. The thing that has made this transition so much easier to me is the huge number of family members who have offered me support and companionship. Like many Cajun families, my family seems like it could practically be an army of its own. I have counted that I have 53 first cousins. It’s very possible I'll see 1,000 members of my family on this trip.

Despite the fact that I stick out like a sore thumb in the typical clothes I would wear in Baton Rouge, some of my relatives have no clue who I am when they meet me. Then somebody says, you didn't recognize him, he is the son of Ali Muhammadah. I feel like a sort of ghost, someone who has no known substance to them other than a family tie. Suddenly, there is an instant rise in the amount of attention that is paid to me. I feel like at first I am only a name on the family tree to them, but by answering their questions, I somehow become a known entity who is much more.

This is comforting, but I have to still keep my guard up to some new cultural principles. One of the hardest things for me to deal with here are gender barriers. The rules of relations with the opposite sex are totally different. In most Middle Eastern homes, there are two separate living rooms, one for each gender. This allows the women to have their own room to be comfortable and out of their Islamic dress. I often forget that there is an invisible line into that living room to which I cannot enter without warning. My relatives understand my forgetfulness, but I am always disappointed in myself. I know the rules. I just forget I'm not home.