Heading Home: Initial reflections on Iran

[Editor's Note: Iran peace delegation member David Drake of Des Moines, Iowa, sent the following reflection from Tehran, as he and the delegation prepared to head to Imam Khomeini International Airport on Saturday evening, December 15th.]

Dear friends and family -- it's 10:30 p.m. here -- 8 1/2 hrs later than my home in Iowa.

Our planned flight home was cancelled this morning -- we were to have left at 3 a.m. The flight was cancelled about 10 a.m. A freak accident occurred -- two planes, ours among them, were at the gate. The other plane clipped the vertical portion of the side wing, resulting in a tear -- ours was not able to fly after close inspection over several hours. Lufthansa put us up at a hotel about 40 miles away and we have spent the day here -- I slept about 5 hours. I am much better now -- was pretty out of it earlier.

Some not-so-final thoughts: the people here are warm, friendly, and genuinely interested in meeting and interacting with Americans. Some of the interactions are coupled with a desire to leave this country for the U.S. -- "Can you help me?!" -- while others are focused on the person practicing their English or expressing concern about the actions of our respective presidents.

At dinner this evening, an Iranian man, who had spent years living in California before returning to his native country 9 years ago, relayed that "There is a public life and a private life... And they are entirely different!" Drinking goes on at private parties. Satellite TV is watched by many, even though it is against the law. While all women are required to cover up their bodies except for their face and hands, at mixed parties (men and women) the veils come off. In private, the conversations can cover all the hot topics. People have not seemed concerned about their safety when we have spoken far from others.

Of course, just as in our own country, there is a dark side. Just today, while riding in a taxi with a Canadian physician who was on our same flight, he told me the Canadian ambassador had been sent out of the country. He said that relations between Canada and Iran had been especially strained since the arrest, imprisonment, beating, and death of a Canadian woman, who had been born in Iran, about one year ago. She was apparently thought to have been part of the 'velvet' (or soft) revolution against the government.

A week ago, a German businessman told me one of his Iranian associates had taken him aside to show him video of two men who were hung in public by construction cranes. The Iranian associate had apparently witnessed one of the hangings himself.

The modesty here, on the other hand, is also quite different. While accompanying the five women on our bus who were injured in a bus crash a week ago (all were released and are doing well now), our Iranian guide turned his head when the female physician exposed the shoulder of one of our female group members for examination. The culture enforces the separation of men and women to an extent that is shocking to those of us from the West -- e.g., women riding in the back of city buses, and no night life. Today, the Canadian physician told me that his Iranian hosts, a man and a woman -- not a couple - - were staying in his same hotel. When the woman forgot something in her room, the man accompanied her to the room -- as soon as they arrived in her room, the phone began ringing and the man was told to leave her room. This was apparently made possible by cameras outside of each elevator and on each hallway -- not unlike, by the way, what one sees in Las Vegas and other major cities.

I am glad I came and will be glad to talk to any of you about what I've experienced. I have many stories to share. David