A carrot in one hand and a bottle behind your back

While I was out shopping near our hotel in Tehran today, I stopped in a market for a bottle of water. A man in the store named Hossein recognized that I spoke English, and when he asked where I [...]

Tourism for peace

Yesterday morning, our tour guide for Shiraz, Ashkan, picked us up at the hotel. He was very interested not only in showing us around, but in learning about the work we are doing to bring peace [...]

Road trip: Esfahan to Persepolis

Our tour guide Abbas picked us up at our hotel this morning to drive us to Shiraz, with a couple stops along the way. Today Abbas was wearing a tan hat that had “Cal” written on it in the typical [...]

Letter from Capt. Ahmadzadeh to US Navy Captain Rogers

This is another piece that Iranian writer/filmmaker Habib Ahmadzadeh asked me to share with you. Please share your thoughts in the comments section and I will make sure he sees them. Letter from [...]

Navigating the language barrier

We arrived at our hotel in Esfahan around 4:00 yesterday afternoon after a short flight from Tehran. We didn’t have any planned activities, so I decided to take a walk and see if I could find a [...]

Miles for Peace: young Iranian activists bring their messages of peace to the world

After a lovely morning of sightseeing in northern Tehran, we met today with members of Miles for Peace, and Iranian organization dedicated to promoting peace. Their mission statement begins: We [...]

A Letter to the Sa’d Family

This short story was written by Habib Ahmadzadeh, who I wrote about yesterday. This story is based on his experience in the Iran-Iraq War. He has asked me to share his writings with you and would [...]

A veteran for peace in Iran

We spent this evening with Habib Ahmadzadeh, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who writes stories and makes films based on his experience as part of his effort to promote peace. When Habib was 16, [...]