Horses and hunger, an American woman's life in Iran

By Fredrik Dahl

GHARA TEPE SHEIKH, Iran (Reuters) - American Louise Firouz made Iran her home half a century ago. Now 75, she runs a stud farm in the remote northeast and has watched the turbulent transformation of her adopted country from U.S.-ally to arch foe.

She moved to Tehran in the 1950s to marry a young Iranian aristocrat, but the family's privileged existence changed dramatically with Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution followed by the deprivations of its 8-year war with neighboring Iraq.

Firouz faced financial hardship and even spent time in jail, but won fame in the equestrian world for her work in rescuing an ancient breed from extinction and setting out to show its link to the thoroughbreds seen on Western race courses.

She has watched Iran go from a U.S.-allied monarchy to an Islamic state that denounces America as the "Great Satan".

"I've been down, and up again, several times," Firouz said, sitting by an open fire in her simple brick house where she now lives alone. As she reminisced, darkness fell on the vast steppe outside, where wolves roam.

One of few Americans still in Iran, the outspoken woman is no friend of U.S. policy in the Middle East and says any attack over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme would be disastrous for the region.

Her Western friends may think she is crazy to live in the middle of nowhere in a country bitterly opposed to the United States, but Firouz says she has no regrets about coming to Iran and would not leave voluntarily.

"I stopped thinking of myself as an American a long time ago," she said. "I'd be much more afraid living alone like this in America. I miss a lot of people but I don't miss their lifestyle."

Boasting a treasure trove of memories, she entertains guests with stories from a rich and varied life.

HUNGER

With her striking blue eyes and quick wit, Firouz chuckles as she recalls how she had to abandon her car -- and later present the keys to her husband -- when bullets flew outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran shortly before the 1979 hostage-taking that still sours relations between the two foes.

Then there was the Iraqi missile engine that crashed through the roof of the family's house in the capital during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the warhead exploding nearby.

"They were rough times ... bombs came down all over the place," Firouz said.

From her pre-revolution days, she brings to life the prominent guests she and her husband knew and used to entertain -- including Western envoys, authors and explorers.

But all that came to a sudden end when the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was toppled in the revolution almost three decades ago.