|SEGUNDA NOCHE| ¿UNA RESIDENCIA BAJO RIESGO DE ATAQUE?

The universe puts me to the test: the room is a whole ecosystem. We live together with two Syrian girls, one from Brazil and me, from Venezuela. All three are Muslim and when they call for prayer, the one who wants to, prays there in the middle of the room, placing her body in the direction of Mecca. Each one goes her own way, making an effort not to disrespect the space and needs of the others. I, for one, must begin to get a taste for not living alone.

We are close to one of the most important mausoleums. Where the remains of Imam Khomeini are, the equivalent of the Cuartel de la Montaña or Cuartel 4F in Caracas, where the remains of Hugo Chavez are. “Let's hope they don't attack it,” I immediately thought.

Tonight it is just Marua and I in the room. Sitting on her bed she tells me that her family was also afraid of the insecurity of coming to Iran, but she refutes them with violence statistics from Brazil and other Latin American countries. She tells me that Brazil alone adds up to the murder rate of 50 other countries. Here it is more common to see a woman without a veil than to know that someone thought of stealing or murder.

I cut to the chase and ask her about the bombings. She shrugs and tells me that she was alone in the room during the last Israeli attacks on Iran in October 2024. That missiles landed less than five minutes from the university.

My heart shrinks and my life crumples.

-Did you hear them? I asked in amazement.
-I didn't hear them. I felt them. And I have the picture, look, I took it from here.

I look at it in terror. It's a picture of the same panoramic view from our window, but with the smoke of a missile impact in the background.

She shrugs and tells me that minutes before the attacks the internet went down. Iran is prepared and knew what the Israelis were going to do. And the internet also went down in October, minutes before the Iranian response to Israel called 'Operation True Promise 2' in response to the assassination of a special guest in Iran.

Marua tells me, without my asking, that the Israeli retaliatory operation was more media than anything else. Something that I already sensed after discussing what the Iranian Ambassador in Venezuela had confirmed to me about the Zionist desperation during an interview I gave him in Caracas.
The Iranian operation was forceful and Tel Aviv's response was a joke. One more act aimed at soothing the Zionist ego.

I have also been warned that, usually, when something qualified as warlike happens, or is expected to happen, the Internet is withdrawn about fifteen minutes beforehand to preserve the mental health of the population and that they are not victims of fake news campaigns like the ones that are activated every time something happens in Venezuela (even if nothing happens) and that are used to generate confusion, destabilization and violence.

Marua, unconcerned, finishes ironing her veil while she tells me the story. She transmits me a tranquility in the face of adversity that is very Shiite Muslim, and that she combines with a precocious maturity of one who assumes the companies with their good and bad parts, she also adds a very casual way of expressing herself, typical of Latin American women.

I'll leave it at that. And we talk for an hour or more about some of the eccentricities of the guys at the university. We say goodbye and I go to bed thinking that I am lucky. That I want to make every day count.

And it will be the last time I title a chapter with an appeal to sensationalism.
No make-up or magic is needed here.
Iran is calm.