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Arrivals and Departures H SHARON L. PARKER My flight landed at Mehrabad Airport on a cold January night in . This was the first time I had been back to Iran since  and I was nervous.I fiddled with my headscarf,worried that it would be seen as inadequate by the person who had the authority to stamp my passport allowing me entry into the country.People standing in line ahead of and behind me were quietly waiting to have their passports and paperwork scrutinized. No one pushed ahead of anyone else. They simply waited. In front of the long line of men, women and children, a young man and a young woman sat in adjoining booths which blocked the way into the rest of the building.As I watched them look carefully at the documents of those in front of me, I wondered if I should admit to understanding Farsi when it was my turn to give them my passport. Or should I remain silent unless they asked me questions in English? What would I learn if they did not know that I spoke the language? Finally it was my turn. I gave my passport to the woman in front of me.“Amrika-i,” she said to the man in the next booth.“Why is she here?” he asked.“To study,” I answered in Persian.“Farsi sobat mekonid—You speak Farsi,”he said.“Yes,”I replied.They both waited. “I lived here a long time ago,” I volunteered.I waited. They conferred and my passport was stamped. I had made it into the country. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour or the cold winter evening that made everything seem muted. Or perhaps it was just me. But entering Iran in  was very different from what I remember of my first arrival in Tehran with my parents and sisters. Our flight landed at the airport on a warm April evening in . The night sky was filled with more stars than I had ever seen. I felt as if I could reach up and grasp them in my hands. Inside the airport terminal, crowded with people talking, shouting and pushing against one another, the scent of roses and jasmine mingled with the smell of urine and sweat. My mother, sisters and I stood to one side while my father looked for our suitcases and boxes. Months later we realized that we did not have ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES 77 everything we had packed in San Francisco to take to Tehran; many containers were missing.This would often happen:we spent much time looking for something only to eventually realize that the container it had been packed in was lost. Since my father and another pilot had flown the plane we traveled in as far as Beirut, where it was picked up by an Air Jordan crew, and we had also stopped in Damascus en route to Tehran, there was no telling where these things had gone. But the loss of belongings became less and less important over time. While I cannot recall the ride from the airport to the pension near Maidan-e-Ferdowsi where we stayed for several weeks,or the Iran Air pilot who met us and took us there, I well remember awakening the next morning to the sounds of traffic,carts and donkeys,street venders, women talking and children playing in the courtyard below the room I shared with my sisters.After our first breakfast of tea,cheese,jam and Barbari and other Iranian breads, I was hooked. I still prefer Iranian bread to any other kind. The importance of learning what to eat and how it had to be prepared was brought to our attention shortly after we moved to Tehran. In the late s,Iranian vegetables were often washed in a purple solution guaranteed to kill off any type of problem bug. Sometimes laundry soap would be used instead.We were told that if it could not be peeled or boiled it should not be eaten. Drinking boiled water was necessary because effective water treatment was not yet generally available. Initially it was difficult to remember what could or could not be consumed . However, it did not take long for us to understand why we had been told to be careful about the food we ate. Mother became ill first, followed shortly thereafter by my sisters and me.We succumbed to what was called“Tehran Tummy.”But my father,who had had two extended stays...

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