I never thought too much about internet control as a form of cultural/societal oppression. And I didn't really realize the extent to which I rely on it to stay connected and in communication. Now it is an ever-present reality. I knew that Facebook was blocked here, but I promised everyone before leaving that I'd be blogging regularly. A friend had said “your blog is probably banned too” and I had laughed if off incredulously. Well, turns out....
So there's this code that appears in the URL box when you enter facebook, youtube, my blog's address....and I imagine many other websites that connect you to the world beyond Iran. It is this: F1-IPM. At home, Dad has an internet card that uses a dial-up connection. It often simply won't connect, and when it does, it frequently drops the connection and/or simply won't load a page. When a page does miraculoulsy load, it takes 45-60 seconds, sometimes more. Dad has a hard line as well as a filter blocker on his computer at work—tunrs out that's how you access facebook here. I went down to his office today for the supposed fast and easy internet access. Facebook tried to work, but then asked for verification via a code it sent to my cell phone which of course doesn't work here. It also offered the option of identifying friends but when I selected this option it said that I'd tried this option too many times for the hour. I also cockily imagining that I'd just throw up the many blogposts that I have been writing offline since I arrived. After discovering that my blog is also blocked, I tried it again on his computer with the filter blocker, switching the hardline back and forth between the two computers. I finally got the blog loaded, but every time each page loaded it was in a different language. Including cyrillic. I managed to make enough guesses to get signed in, but the computer wouldn't read any of my text or pic files. SO, I'll be sending the text and pics to my remote agent who will post on the blog. I'll also continue sending out the text and some pics via email when I have access to a hard line.
This all reinforces the cultural norm here—the main context for life are the immediate concerns of family and relationships. Meals are lengthy, visits common and do not require calling or even necessarily giving a specific time. For instance, on Saturday Pari told me that her friend was coming over the next day to meet me. “I don't know when she'll come, so I can't walk you to Dad's office” she told me. Today some random friend of Dad's wanted to talk to me on the phone. “Welcome to Iran! Welcome home!” he exclaimed over the phone. “I want to invite you to my house for dinner! And breakfast! And lunch!” “Good thing I'm very hungry” I told him.
Another crazy thing is that I have not yet been able to determine what time it is here! And this is totally emblematic of life here. There is a certain fuzzyness to reality outside of the most immediate concerns. As far as I can tell, we are 7.5 hours ahead of Eastern time. But all clocks are different. In Pari's apartment, the clock is a half hour faster than that. When I try re-setting the time on my computer, there is no option for 7.5 hours. So it is possible that I am consistantly a half hour early or late; and it matters not at all. Time is measured in days, or chunks of the day; morning, afternoon. My friend is coming to visit “tomorrow”. I can't walk you to the office because she's coming in the “afternoon”.
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