in Iran

I was worried as my plane touched down in Imam Khomeini airport last night. I'd been variously warned about the dangers for Iranian-Americans entering the country and a week or so ago had been told they were sending all arrivals straight to the Ministry of Guidance or of Information for questioning. Despite being adopted the previous couple days by an Iranian family in Vienna (as an indication of my being taken in as one of their own: “Aslan hamam nemikoniii?” (Don’t you ever bathe?) was how the mom greeted me my second morning. "Uh, I was..going to..take a shower after..tea" I managed as her daughter shrieked at her to mind her own business) my Persian was rusty, which I actually figured might not be a bad thing for feigning ignorance if I were interrogated. I was worried that they would see a video of me at a politically sensitive meeting in Vienna, or find out that I had attended a RAND conference on Afghanistan in the same city or an academic conference on Iran with a bunch of dissidents in Spain a month earlier, and that they'd find a business card from an Austrian magazine reporter that I new was floating around somewhere in my luggage but I couldn't find.

But here's what actually happened at the airport:

Past an sign written in atrocious English about Swine Flu and after getting my passport stamped no questions asked and breathing an initial sigh of relief that maybe that was all, I saw that after the baggage claim area, there was a long and wide blob of a line snaking towards an area where they were X-raying luggage and it seemed asking a lot of questions to people they pulled aside. The line was barely moving. I picked up my checked bag and got to the end, where soon two women from my flight who'd been sitting across from me in the back row and waited absolutely as long as possible before donning their headscarves were complaining loudly at having to wait. The young of them walked up to the front of the line and started arguing with the customs people and security guards. After about 30 seconds the security guard gave in to her barrage of complaints, walked over to the cordoned-off area nearest to the end of the line, and pulled aside the band fence (like at movie theaters--what are those called?) to let all the people from the Vienna flight arbitrarily skip customs. "Go go go" the man formerly ahead of me in line whispered as we hurried through an empty hallway and outside, circumventing the customs area. I’ll say this about Tehrani women: they’re not timid.

So entering Iran turned out about as easy as traveling from one EU country to another. Part of me wishes I hadn't left my big digital camera behind in Berlin for fear of being thought a journalist.

Pretty much the only signs I saw walking around the city most of the day doing chores of the post-election protests were stencils of Mousavi's face--black in most neighborhoods and green in others--on every single one of these metal boxy-looking things placed every ten meters or so along the big streets (I think they serve some electrical purpose). I also saw "Neda" scrawled on a garbage can in my neighborhood, but that was it. Police presence on the streets didn't seem more than usual, and I didn't see any black-armored riot police.

Maybe just luck of the draw yesterday or a function of my headache (I think due to a combination of the pollution, lack of sleep the night before, and my breakfast of sugary pastries from my favorite neighborhood bakery), but people seem less friendly towards and curious about me for my foreign accent than usual. Last year the usual course of conversation was What are you doing in Iran? Which is better, America or Iran? Where are you from in America? I have a cousin in LA. Do you have a girlfriend? Do you go to discos? etc etc.

But with the exception of a carrot-juice salesman with bad teeth and a cousin in Seattle, so far people have just looked me up and down and not said anything after learning I'm American. A guy at an internet cafe asked me if I was a reporter.

At about 2210 last night I detached myself from my computer (internet speed is okay in the am but frustratingly slow, if you can connect to dial-up at all, after maybe 20:30 when everyone's trying to use it) thought to listen for people shouting from their rooftops. I stood on my little balcony and immediately heard chanting, mixed in with the heavy, vibratory bass from I think a house party in my building two floors up. I stood out for a while and then walked around my neighborhood listening. It was mostly women chanting, with an occasional extra-loud male, mostly God is Great with the occasional Death to the Dictator mixed in. There seemed to be a couple groups of maybe 3 women calling back and forth to each other from across the way, but every now and then a chorus of voices would join in. Nobody from my own roof but I think there were some women a couple buildings down chanting. I saw one normal police car stopped with lights flashing in front of a building, but otherwise no presence of security forces. By the time I stepped back inside my apartment around 2300, the chanting had died down.

When I first heard about it, I was skeptical about this whole roof shouting project as futile and a way for people to pretend they were DOING SOMETHING without actually confronting the authorities, but after actually hearing it I can completely understand why people are continuing it every night. With daily life on the street pretty much back to normal, it seems easy to just shrug and say that it's over, but the chanting is a fairly strong way of asserting solidarity and keeping the flame burning without going out into the streets.