You Should See What’s on Iraqi TV

For the past several months, I have been helping to get a new art gallery established here in Amman in a part of the city that is known for its artistic vibe. The gallery, which is the brainchild of my Syrian friend Khaled, is an innovative version of traditional art galleries and even of the “art cafés” which exist throughout Amman and allow patrons drinking their coffee and tea to view exhibitions in the same space.

Khaled, who went to university for Interior Design, arrived in Amman several months ago with no plan and no friends (sound familiar?). He essentially found a second family here overnight, and these friends make up the team that has come together to fund, construct, and run the gallery. The gallery, named Young Eyes, has traditional art exhibitions and a small café and study space, but it also will soon offer workshops for anyone in the community interested in art. Khaled’s specific passion is art from recycled materials, but he and his friends also plan to teach photography, painting, and even colloquial Arabic classes. In short, there is nothing they can’t do. They also hope to highlight artists who are just beginning to make a name for themselves in Jordan.

I met Khaled through a friend from Seeds of Peace, and soon after that the rest of the gallery family became a part of my life. They are probably the most diverse group of people — Middle Eastern, British, German, American, and Spanish, to name just a few  — that I have met through one location here so far. They are also by far the craziest group of people. All of them have unique and somewhat bizarre stories as to how they came to Amman, and this was the backbone of the gallery’s opening exhibit: black and white photographs of each of them accompanied by sets of headphones and mp3 players with voice recordings of them telling their “How I Came to Amman” story. Many of these involve chasing romantic partners across the world. I had a hard time relating to these particular tales.

When I went to the gallery for the first time, a fair amount of progress had been made in converting it from an apartment space, which it had been previously, into a trendy, black and bright green hub for people much cooler than me. It still had a long way to go, however, and the opening date was only a few weeks away. But Khaled was cheerful and optimistic and set me to work right away. I warned him early on that my artistic ability as far as the visual arts go is extremely limited. He said it was fine and gave me the important task of cutting old TV and audio cables and coiling them into “cool shapes” to use to decorate a sign for the gallery. Vital to the success of the business.

I was contentedly cutting cables when a few other friends of Khaled’s arrived. I hadn’t yet met these ones, so I paused what I was doing to learn their names. One was Lucas, from the UK, and the other Mustafa, from Iraq. Mustafa was put on hot glue gun duty to attach my skillfully fashioned cable coils onto the styrofoam outline of a large eye. I don’t question the creative process.

He sat down beside me and plugged in the hot glue gun. This particular glue gun was a bit too menacing to be considered standard art supplies. It was the length of my forearm and had a crazy pump attachment on the back to release the lethal and scorching hot gluey substance. Mustafa casually brandished the contraption while making loud comments about everything going on in a mix of Arabic and very good but very fast English. I was a bit wary of the whole situation.

“So,” I said to him as I expertly wrapped and tied a piece of black coil and indicated where on the styrofoam eye he should place the glue, “You’re from Iraq? When did you come here?”

“In the last year or so, pretty recently, from Baghdad,” he said as he squeezed out the glue and I quickly secured the coil to it. I realized I had met plenty of Iraqis, but never someone who had stayed there for so long after the US invasion. I felt a little uncomfortable.

“Oh, wow…I mean, so you were there for like, everything. How…like, I don’t know, that sucks,” I eloquently responded. I continued to nervously eye the hot glue gun. He shrugged.

“Eh, it’s okay. At least now I have a chance to get even. Instead of Americans torturing Iraqis, I can torture an American!” With that, he turned the hot glue gun and held it an inch away from my face. I shrieked. He started laughing. “I’m kidding! Oh my God, you Americans are so paranoid.”

I forced a choked little chuckle out. “Haha…yeah.” I scooted my chair a little further away, mostly as a joke, and we kept gluing my coil masterpieces. He continued to randomly point the glue gun at me and laugh along with everyone else in the gallery at my startled reaction every time. The things I will put myself through to make friends.

Mona, also from Syria and a recent arrival in Amman as a result of the conflict in her country, asked us what music we wanted to listen to. Khaled was busily cutting colored pencils into little pieces for the styrofoam eye. Someone suggested George Michael.

“Oh, like from Arrested Development? Wait, does his character sing or something? Michael Cera has an album?” They all looked at me blankly.

“Sarah, you…you know who George Michael is, right?” Mustafa asked slowly.

“No,” I responded carefully, “not if he’s someone other than the guy from the show.” Silence.

“Sarah, you’re from the US and you DON’T KNOW WHO GEORGE MICHAEL IS?” Mona yelled. “How is that possible??” This is the real torture, I thought to myself. Being exposed as a sheltered child whose pop culture obsession wasn’t able to really start until college and separation from my mother’s movie/music/television screening rules. All those nights freshman year finally watching Desperate Housewives online until the early morning hours, feeling so rebellious and free. And still no idea who George Michael is.

“I don’t know, I just have never heard of him I guess. Play something?” I soon became grateful that I had never heard of him, or seen him. And also realized that there was no way this would have made it onto the “Things Inappropriate for My Children” list I’m sure my mother kept in the same locked cabinet where she kept the Disney movies that were too scary for us (Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin because of that one scene where Jafar’s men capture Aladdin and throw him into the sea with a ball and chain tied to his feet). I uttered a silent thanks to her for never making me listen to George Michael.

“Wow!” I said enthusiastically. “What a guy…” It was clear from the expressions on their faces that I was not going to easily recover from this. We finished gluing the coils and I went home in shame.

I was back to help the day before the gallery opened. It was the perfect picture of artistic chaos. Piles of trash lay on the floor and half of the art hung from the walls while the other half waited in a pile on the floor to be installed. After I had glued hooks to the rest of the pictures (gluing seems to be my new specialty), Khaled put me in charge of making signs for unfinished parts of the gallery that were “coming soon” out of recycled cardboard. We both had an understanding that the only reason I was asked to do anything involving signage that people would actually see was because I could write in English more easily than anyone else there.

I got to work with some scissors and sharpies and proudly traced a few convincing recycling signs onto the corners of all of them to indicate how environmentally responsible we were being. Mona and I were sanding down the sides of the cardboard to make the signs smoother when Mustafa and Lucas arrived to help. Apparently, Mustafa knows a thing or two about electric circuits and wiring, and he was put in charge of installing lights. He called me over to help hold the ladder, then promptly handed me a wire to hold and mimed flipping a switch and electrocuting me. I screamed, everyone laughed and made jokes about jumpy Americans, we moved on with business as usual.

The opening was fantastic. Crowds of people showed up to appreciate the new space and the artwork. I had a great time standing in the back room where all the food from the caterer was sitting waiting to be served. After a week, it was time for a new exhibition. This time, the gallery featured an Iraqi artist named Sami Mohammed, who paints beautiful abstract art inspired by nature. Once again, I showed up to help a few days before the opening and was put to work painting over brown spots on the baseboards that had been delivered in brown instead of black and needed to be hurriedly painted the same color as the floor. Most of this had been done before the opening, but some small brown spots remained, so I crawled around on the floor with a cup of black paint and a paintbrush feeling very artsy and industrial. This place is really doing wonders for my self-esteem.

The night of the opening of the second exhibition I arrived a few hours early to help with any last-minute preparations. Since mostly everything was done, we sat in the café area and watched trailers for Catching Fire (guess whose idea that was). The someone asked if we had seen the cool new Volvo commercial with someone named Van Damme.

“Who’s Van Damme?” I asked. More incredulous stares.

“Sarah, you’re kidding,” Mustafa said. “Like have you ever watched a movie?” I quickly came to the conclusion that he was not a Disney star of some kind.

“Of course, I just…not whatever kind of movies he’s in…I don’t know.” Everyone just sort of sadly shook their heads. Clearly I was a lost cause.

People started arriving and I was put in charge of taking down names and email addresses so that we could notify people about future events. Naturally I felt extremely weird doing this because you never really know what language the people you randomly approach here are going to speak. A friend from Seeds of Peace, Orlando, was visiting, and he relished taking pictures of me awkwardly meandering up behind patrons and abruptly squeaking in a voice several octaves higher than normal, “Hi!!! Um, would you like to…if you’re interested…email? Name? How do you spell that? Say that again? Sorry, one more time? Ok, here, you write it.”

The artist then approached me to ask if I would consent to being interviewed for an Iraqi television station that was there covering the event. After immediately confirming that this would be in English, I agreed and followed him into one of the showrooms. I nervously fidgeted by one of the paintings while they pointed a blinding light in my face and held a huge, fuzzy microphone inches from my nose. The cameraman and I stared at each other for about a minute, and then he said, “Are you going to speak?” I turned red.

“Haha, oh, sorry, I didn’t know if you were, you know, ready. Sorry, I don’t know how this works…” He impatiently gestured to talk. “Okay, okay, so, um, well, this artwork is really, um, beautiful, and, since I am not good at art, uh, it’s really nice to experience art that is, you know, abstract, but still, like, based on nature and things we see around us, you know, all the time, which, I guess, makes it accessible, to, like, really anyone, if that makes sense, and Sami Mohammed is…very…talented.” What am I supposed to do with my hands during this?

“Done?” he asked. I nodded. “Your name?” He kept the camera pointed at me.

“Sarah,” I said.

“No, your name,” he said.

“Um…Sarah. Sarah is my name.”

“Please say your name,” he repeated, annoyed.

“Sarah. My name is Sarah. Sah-rah,” I said, using the Arabic pronunciation.

“Oh, Sah-rah is your name.”

“…Yes.” He waved me away and I returned to the main showroom in the gallery to collect my clipboard and resume some sense of professionalism and composure. Spying the food, I grabbed a large Arabic pastry and stuffed it into my mouth. My new comfort food.  Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, were you a half man, half woman for Halloween?” he asked. What is happening to my life. I turned to face a guy I had never seen before.

“Y–, well no, actually, I was half Miley Cyrus, half Hannah Montana,” I replied, trying to speak around the food in my mouth and spewing little bits of thyme and bread into the air. He grinned.

“Nice to meet you again! I was the ghost.” I suddenly remembered meeting a friend of some friends at a party with a sheet over his face. I realized we had talked for a while but I hadn’t actually seen him. Of course. Here of all places. Orlando hovered nearby laughing hysterically under his breath. Suddenly, I came to a disturbing realization: I was living in a world where George Michael and Jean-Claude Van Damme were more recognized than Miley Cyrus.

As I handed the ghost the clipboard to write down his email, I decided that I could accept different food, a different language, and even a different pronunciation of my name, but one thing I would not accept was any adjustment to my definition of important pop culture. Other parts of my identity are flexible, but my carefully curated appreciation of celebrities will not be compromised in order to prioritize an 80s pop star over a naked girl swinging on a large piece of construction equipment. I can assimilate, but I do have some non-negotiables.