Gloves

The secret of gloves
The secret of the gloves has finally been revealed to me!

When I first arrived in Iran, I noticed that many of the women wore gloves: even in the middle of the summer! This, I quickly deduced, had nothing to do with the requirements of the hijab. The women who wore gloves spanned the spectrum of religious dress. Some of the glove-wearers wore the full black chador and some a barely there scarf with a short manteau.

Were they, perhaps, germ-phobic, I wondered?

I asked several people. No one had an answer. And then, I filed my glove question way back in the recesses of my brain.

A friend of a friend was visiting. Her mother is Indonesian and her father is Dutch. It was her first visit to Iran. Immediately, she understood the secret of the gloves. "It's so that your hands are not ten shades darker than the rest of your arms." D'oh.

I quickly confirmed this with a brand new friend of mine who is a glove-wearer. "All I have to is go out into the sun for ten minutes, and my skin gets darker," she explained.

That should give you some info about how pale I am.