Funny in Farsi: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Everyone in Firoozeh’s family has a “reputation,” which sticks with each family member for their entire life. For example, one of Firoozeh’s cousins defecated on the curtains as a little kid, and decades later, his mother still teases him about the incident. Firoozeh’s older brother, Farshid, has a better reputation: in kindergarten in Abadan, he was popular and charismatic. Forty years later, Farshid’s parents and cousins still ask his opinion about everything—they treat him like an oracle.

In 1976, when Firoozeh is eleven years old, she tells her parents that she wants to go to camp. Naturally, Farshid is consulted on the matter, and he finds an expensive camp eight hours away from Newport. Kazem takes Firoozeh to buy a sleeping bag and other things, even though he’s very thrifty. Kazem buys a sleeping bag that’s so enormous Firoozeh can barely carry it.

Months later, Kazem takes Firoozeh to the bus stop. Firoozeh is nervous about going to camp, but Kazem calms her by telling her about going to America years before. On the bus, everyone stares at Firoozeh’s sleeping bag. Someone tells her, “your nose points downward, so I figured that’s because you’re always looking at the ground,” and everyone laughs.

Firoozeh and the other children arrive at the camp. Firoozeh immediately dislikes the girls in her room, except for Mary, who’s so homesick that she cries all the time. Mary is at camp with her brother Willy, with whom she’s so close that she can barely stand to be separated from him. Everyone in camp teases Willy and Mary, and secretly Firoozeh is relieved, since it means that nobody teases her. She also decides not to bathe, since doing so involves getting naked in front of others, which she’s never done before. Instead of participating in the activities, such as archery, cooking, or horseback riding, she sits alone making key chains every day.

The campers are supposed to put on a play: Fiddler on the Roof. Firoozeh plays the grandmother’s ghost, which requires her to be covered in talcum powder. When the counselors apply talcum powder to Firoozeh’s body, they discover that her body is so greasy that the powder “clumps” on her body, and as a result, she looks like she’s been “dunked in a vat of bread dough.” After the play, she wants to take a shower, but can’t—she can’t stand the thought of getting naked.

On the last day of camp, Firoozeh arrives at the bus station and finds Kazem and Farid waiting for her. Farid immediately yells, ‘You stink!” On the long ride home, Firoozeh, too embarrassed to tell her father that she hated the camp, invents elaborate stories about her “great adventures.” Firoozeh still doesn’t know whether Kazem believed any of these stories.