There is a little piece of Montana in Iran.

Outside the Tehran Peace Museum, the streets are flooded with protesters decrying the results of the June 12 presidential election. Outside, there is violence and anger.

Inside, there is a quiet plea for peace.

A scrapbook created by a group of West Valley Brownies is part of that voice. The "Brownie book" has been part of the peace museum since a group of American travelers, led by Sam and Ruth Neff of Whitefish, left it there in 2008.

This spring, the Neffs took a second Brownie book to Iran. This time the book returned to the United States, but not before it sparked several conversations in cities and villages across the country.

The book, created by Troop No. 3385, is a snapshot of the lives of nine Brownies in the Flathead Valley. It includes photos of each girl, as well as photos of Northwest Montana wildlife, maps, and other information about Kalispell and the state.

It has "funky little slices of Americana there to try to show them [the Iranian people] that we're on their side," troop leader Erica Wirtala said. "We're not the evil capitalistic pigs that their leaders are telling them we are."

That was the message the Neffs and 22 others took to Iran in April. They went as part of peace outreach group Neighbors East and West.

The group formed in the 1980s when residents of Richmond, Ind., tried to create a sister city in the former Soviet Union. The Neffs, who live in Richmond three or four months out of the year, went on several trips there.

The trips' purpose, Ruth Neff explained, was to help Soviets and Americans learn about one another, away from the rhetoric of governments and media outlets.

"It's a way of realizing people are people all over the world," she said.

In the '90s, after the Berlin Wall came down, the group focused its efforts on another "evil empire" - Cuba - and sponsored several educational trips there. The next decade brought a new enemy and a new focus for Neighbors East and West, Ruth Neff said.

"About three and a half years ago, we began to hear about the evil empire in Iran," she said. "We thought, hmm, that sounds familiar."

In 2008, the Neffs and about 20 other American travelers, including several from the Flathead Valley, prepared for a two-week trip to Iran. They hoped to take pictures and letters from American citizens to share with the Iranian people.

"They were asking for some community input and needed kids to draw some drawings," said Wirtala, who knew the Neffs from Glacier Unitarian Universalist Fellowship church.

The Neffs gladly accepted Wirtala's offer to send something from her Brownie troop to Iran, and the Brownie book was born.

"Each girl had a page with her picture, her mosaic [of an animal native to Montana] and a snippet about American life: 'I like Hannah Montana' or 'I like hot dogs,'" Wirtala said.

The rest of the book included maps of the United States and Montana, facts about Kalispell and information about West Valley School, which the girls attend. Wirtala also had a page on which she pasted photos of her family and described her life as a mother and Brownie troop leader.

"As a mother, I think all of us, no matter what nationality we are or what country we live in or what religion we are, we all have the same hopes and dreams for our children," she said. "I wanted them to have a picture of an American mother."

The Brownies also got a crash course in Iran - although Wirtala isn't sure how much the little girls retained.

"You can tell them, here's a map, and here's Tehran, and here's where the scrapbook is staying at for the next couple of weeks. You kind of wonder what they may or may not get out of it," Wirtala said.

Whatever the Brownies retained, the Neffs got a lot of mileage out of their simple scrapbook. Wherever they went, they pulled out the Brownie book and shared its pages with Iranians of all ages.

"It was so nice to have it so we could communicate through the pictures," Sam Neff said. "They were eager as anything to learn about the United States."

This year's book attracted viewers ranging from children to businessmen. When Ruth Neff pulled out the book at the bazaar in Shiraz, men from an oil company gathered around to look at the pictures.

It was an interesting contrast, Neff said.

"All these young men are the men who are supposed to be yelling, 'Death to America!' We never saw anything like that," she said.

Her hope, and the goal of Neighbors East and West, is to promote peace by learning about other cultures and building relationships. The Brownie books helped foster those relationships.

The second book may make another trip to Iran in November. Details about the trip and Neighbors East and West are available at http://neighborseastandwest.org.

For coverage of the Neffs' first trip to Iran, see http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2008/09/07/news/news01.txt

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com