The sequence we shot with a poor brickmaker illustrates one of the crucial rules of reporting from the field: Let yourself be surprised and give yourself a chance to be lucky. It's so easy to be fixated with one's schedule that you miss the obvious.
The brickmaker's story fell into our laps as we were shooting a sunset just off the main road from the Jamkaran mosque in central Iran. A man and his daughter were watching with great fascination from his motorcycle, so we walked over with our translator.
He had been told that we were Americans and he had never seen an American — he just wanted to watch. Ted asked him where he lived and he said to our translator, "If they saw where I live, they would weep." That's the sort of invitation you don't pass up.
Heidar Sistani works incredibly hard and is proud of it, making thousands of bricks by hand with his family. His wife did not want to be photographed, so she stayed far off to the side of their home, a one-room hut they share with their two children.
The electricity in the house for lights, the TV and a fan is simply tapped from the power line passing along the road. In this part of the world, many people just splice into the power line — there's no such thing as the meter reader.
For Sistani, the populism of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raises the hope that someone will pay attention to his needs. That his wife can get an operation because of health care put into place with the new government counts for a great deal to him.
Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, makes a point of his humble beginnings and of continuing to live simply. Other Iranian presidents have lived luxuriously and generated resentment for it.
Ahmadinejad has made many promises in his first year in office and high oil revenues might make it possible to deliver on at least some of them. Virtually all of the government operating budget comes from oil revenues, based on oil selling at $40 a barrel. With oil at around $60 a barrel, world demand keeps Ahmadinejad in a position to help the Sistanis of Iran.
Heidar Sistani, like so many people we met in Iran, may have been truly dirt poor, but he was gracious, sensitive and hospitable. As we were leaving with the light fading, he said, "If you need a place to stay tonight, you are welcome to sleep here."
