Saying goodbye!

My colleagues who have stayed here to help me from May 30th left Tehran today. We were not able to make any moves of extending their visas and as other foreign media have done, we just had to have them leave. It's been quite a battle here, not being able to leave the office for coverage, but they stayed calm listening to my advices and orders, and that really helped. Thank you so much for the help and I hope you'll have a great trip back to Tokyo!
...oh how envious I am...

PS

having an Iranian ice cream bar for dessert at night... not bad!

Crazy and conservative!

Conservatives should be more calm... Maybe the word conservatives is not the right word for these people... The meeting by the people was just chaotic and I thought I would fall dead crammed between sweaty guys and if I can, I would never want to attend this kind of meeting... Of course it was an experience that you can't easily have, but uh, I hope this would be my last... really...


really chaotic...


and what was left after the chaos...

PS
We had another guest from Tokyo. She will stay for 4 days and see how the enthusiasm is... I'm sure she's seen enough of these crazy but conservative supporters!

PPS
We received an elder colleague today who had been here last autumn too. It's really tough to have so many guests at once at this crazy time, but it's my policy to welcome anyone... No one would want to come if I won't open my hands and smile... please enjoy...

We went out to dinner together...

I had some steak!

Supporting team arrives...

One correspondent and one cameraman arrived from Tokyo in the morning. They are here to help and support me for the election coverage, but they only have 10 days of permission to stay in the country. We have 13 days till the day of voting so obviously we have to ask for a visa extension. I'm hearing all these reports that the extension applications are being rejected and I'm really worried about our crew... If I don't get it, I'm going to be in real trouble!!
After asking my collegue to cover an election gathering, we found out that they might have left one of their baggages in the airport. Our faces became as pale as a dead person, but I just had to decide to make them go and find it!
I really don't believe in miracles, but they were able to find the baggage just before they were about to leave in vain. I hope this is a good sign for our coverage team for the next two weeks. Inshallah!

No pics today...

Start of a decisive week...

We had another colleague from Tokyo today and hiring a driver made our office at full force with 9 people hanging around, more than double our usual force... the pressures of showing results is mounting... It's great to have people who will bring good influence to my staff and it's a great help that I will be able to work with other young ones. But I'm also sad that I can't really smile before them saying I'm really doing a great job at this post and I could really make show them how great it is to work here...

We went right away to meet two people that we needed to include in our documentary and I think both interviews went fine. I hope we can get the filming part rolling so I can concentrate on my news reports, which I have been given an ultimatum to give my ideas after digging for these two days. Well, my day is over and I still haven't anything... unfortunately...


at night we went to the film maker's world... a reproduced Tehran in the old days... wow!

A great help!

A visitor from Tokyo! A great help! Especially in a way that I can have some one I can talk about my complaints... in Japanese!!
To welcome our new colleague we went out to the usual restaurant, but late at night, we returned to reality... we've got loads of work waiting for us!


gifts from Tokyo... oh, the Ningyoyaki, great!