The Rest of the Flight and My First Day in Iran

The rest of the flight from Paris to Tehran was marked with my Mom realizing that my Dad did not have his watch on. Dad suddenly realized that he had left it at the metal detector earlier when we came into the terminal. The plane doors were already closed and the plane was minutes from take-off. He jumped up and asked one of the flight attendants to see if he could get off the plane. He assured my Dad that he would call the terminal and take care of it. My Mom and Dad were slightly panicked. The watch was one that my Mom had sought for a number of years to give my Dad for their 30th wedding anniversary. I assured them that everything would be okay. Moments later, the flight attendant appeared with the watch and a ring that he had left as well.

The flight was about 6 hours long and 2625 miles. Landing in Tehran was similar to Paris. We were let out on the tarmac and were bussed to a terminal where we got into line for passport presentation. A distant relative of my Mom had arranged to meet us in the terminal as we arrived and was there as planned. The idea was to get us through customs easier. This man has a high post in the government and as he showed his identification, they swept us through customs without so much as opening a bag.

On the other side awaited family. Aunt, uncles, cousins, and close family friends had come to the airport to greet us. After 20 years of absence, I recognized everybody. The two halves of our family have grown up getting to know each other over occasional phone calls and pictures and, more recently, the internet. The greeting was overwhelming. Immediately there were reminders in conversation to test the memory of this nine year old kid who had visited Iran so long ago. We all hopped into different cars and went to my Aunt Farzaneh and Rouhi’s house. Spending the evening getting to know this side of my family in person was a blessing. Occasionally, I sat and just listened to the conversations of others as I soaked it all in. While I listened to their laughs and looked at their smiles, I wondered why I had to grow up apart from this side of my family for so long.

The next day, everybody came over to my aunts’ house again for lunch. I then went over to my cousin Saeid’s house where I was able to access the internet and check out his drum set. He’s really into hard rock and is really into System of the Down, Metallica, Tool, Linkin Park, and others. His dad (my uncle) and brothers have moved to the U.S., and he is the last one trying to get his paperwork in order to join them. To give him a little sense of closeness, I pulled up his parent’s place on Google Maps (maps.google.com) and showed him a satellite photo of his parent’s house and neighborhood. Modern technology has really affected us in more positive ways than we sometimes realize.

As we were surfing the web, I received an error message stating that “The Islamic Republic of Iran has disallowed access to this website.” A whole country with censored access to the Internet! Not to worry, though, because Iranians always find another way to get the job done, and he showed me a roundabout way that they had established to get to the same website. Now, this website we were trying to get to was not a porn sight or one that had anti-government propaganda. It was one of those friend network sites. Once again, it makes you count the blessings that we have over here every day.