Monday: June 8th, 2009 - Tehran, Iran - Seven Weeks Ago

This is what occurred on Monday, June 8, 2009, actually seven weeks ago in Tehran Iran. Earlier this day we had gotten caught up in the traffic that resulted from the government buses that carried Ahmadinejad supporters. We received a call about the massive Mousavi rally that spanned the entire 20km of Vali-e asr. Simply put, there was no way we were going to reach it especially with the clutch in the taxi burning out. Instead, we took the Tehran metro all the way to the end of the line. With each stop, the conductor would hold the doors long enough to allow Ahmadi supporters to jump from car to car praising his and the Ayatollah's health. Tehran metro cars are actually three cars connected so you can see very long as well as travel in between the cars ~ it was packed with thousands of people. The authorities have recently changed one of the last station's names and made it a Shahid stop - that is named after a martyr, yet the map in the car as well as the physical letters on the metro stop did not convey the new naming scheme. Only with the announcement did we know that the station name. A woman on the train, in her 40s or 50s, spoke in a very loud voice ~ "Where is Mirdamed!?!? What are we not stopping!?!" She knew better of course but was trying to make a point of the martyrdom the state places on some ignoring those sacrifices of others. One of the Ahmadinejad supporters, appearing to be in his 20s, responded its changed, Thank God and praising the martyrs. The back and forth between the young man and the older woman progressed until the end of the line when she finished and put him into silence mode "One God, we all have the same God." His eyes pierced and I thought a knife was going to come out, really.

Getting out of the subway, there were no taxis that would go in the direction we had to go because of the very serious traffic from the Ahmadinejad back-up. Everyone would wave some one down to no avail. We decided to walk down the exit ramp to the freeway ~ not sure way nor who's idea it was. A fancy car stopped upon my hitching thumb and a bazeeri invited us to take us were we needed to go. It was surreal ~ a very sharp dressed man, who had decided to join the Mousavi camp and distribute CDs, fliers, and flow charts that connects all of Ahmadinejad's ministers through marriage.

We waited until night fall and ventured out again.

This is what we saw.

Merci, Jahan