Afra Ghannad

basketball @michiganstateu @MSULaw

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."

"They just come with the table, man."

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.

This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.

I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.

"Did we…?"

"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."

Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.

My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."

Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.

I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.

Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.

Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

[꩜ @laylology]

I never thought being an anti-war Iranian would be such a lonely experience

[Mark | 🏳️‍🌈🇮🇶🇵🇸 @Zerolorry]

I say this often, but one of my biggest pet peeves is someone saying they were stationed there when I tell them I’m from Iraq… As if that’s something we can bond over. As if thousands weren’t killed and many raped by the soldiers. There’s nothing to be proud of!

[Tamoor Hussain @tamoorh]

This mfer really doesn’t read the books he poses with

[mitra @mitrajoy_]

As a Persian Iranian, I agree. I’m personally not Muslim but many of us are. Does that mean we should have an Islamic republic? No, but stop denying what is. And stop hating on
Arabs and other ethnic groups in the Middle East. We are not Europeans. Let’s just be proud of where we’re from instead of trying to be “white”

[mistopher mack 🦭 @motherquoter]

The New Yorker's art department never misses

[Cyrus II of Persia @ShahanshahCyrus]

Zoroastrians celebrating the Persian New Year

📍Mount Damavand, Iran

[MENA @Menavibes_]

All I want is a trip to Lebanon 🧳✨

[⊹ ࣪ pam ˖✦ @pamvonhadder]

in awe of this tennis court made entirely of rugs by jaipur rugs

[Dean Norris @deanjnorris]

From ASAC to ASAP, congrats on your release

[Mr Melancholy @chakravartiiin]

Khamenei only has two moods

[🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Terror-wrist Alien 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @inthapines]

Not an Iranian chess grandmaster posting this acting like we don’t eat kaleh pacheh and kabab with our hands

[Afra Ghannad @asapafra]

@yousefQasem1998 .

[erin @maizie_star]

please please watch with audio

[Shea Serrano @SheaSerrano]

hang this tweet from the rafters

[Afra Ghannad @asapafra]

@PhillipDunckley 🥹

[Rob Perez @WorldWideWob]

not seeing any “all isaiah stewart does is fight” tweets on the timeline today. wonder why.

[Pope Crave @ClubConcrave]

“Land you have to kill for is not yours. Land you have to die for is.”

[Rob Perez @WorldWideWob]

[whispers romantically in ear] pistons.