report from iran

The San Francisco Chronicle is running a five-part series on the trip that Sean Penn made to Iran this past June. Day One

I walked slowly over about a 2-square-mile area. The image of Ayatollah Khomeini, as stern as an Orwellian leader, is omnipresent on the sides of buildings, walls, billboards and bus stops, watching my every move. As I studied one of those building sides, the searing eyes of their beloved Ayatollah, I stepped off a curb and was nearly flattened by a transit bus. I leaped backward onto the sidewalk. And there they were, staring down upon me, Iranian men, in the front of the bus. But as I regained my bearings, the last third of the bus passed me and it was there, where everything went into slow motion. Sliding by me was the rear of the bus, occupied only by women in black chadors. The back of the bus. I thought of Rosa Parks.