>The elderly woman, who was not named, wore thick gloves along with a headscarf and long black coat, meaning that Mr Ahmadinejad avoided any skin contact.
>
>Sheesh, I hope it was 20 degrees outside or else she's lucky she didn't faint from heat exhaustion!

Hi Tracy
(I promise no politics in this post :)

That is one of the things tha really boggled me for quiet some time.

I live in Cyprus where temperature often reaches 40 degrees celsius in the summer. Many times I wld see Arab women being dressed top to bottom
Headscarf, not really coat but radengot, few times I saw even those with
face covered.
It looks scarry when you see it at 40c. First time I saw it, I got actually upset to the point that I nearly intercepted her husband to ask him;
How fair is to wear pair of shorts and t-shirt while his wife is equiped for space travel at 40c ??
It would be of course stupid thing to do, but I really felt like asking that question :)

Later I meet in person meny people from that origin and learned/realised that this is simply part of their customs, religion, tradition, bringing up
but also HOT CLIMATE at the end aldough it migh sound absurd.

We now mostly drive cars with aircons, working in airconditioned offices
etc so this might look strange to us, but as an ex-army officer you wld agree that crossing streach of desert or rocky mountains while wearing pair of shorts, sunglases and a flip-flops (as husband mentioned above) wld certainly kill you out there. Whereas wearing what they wear would protect you from being harmed by sun, wind dust, sand etc.
So it is not only religion it is also plain surviwal (historically speaking) behind that dress code.

It is just that dress-code is changing somewhat slower there then in the rest of the world. How did our GranGrannies look? Now imagine them today walking dawn the shopping mall... :)