Osama - Stories of a Lion Boy

This post is from an email I sent in August 2001 - it describes a young boy to whom I taught Art on a compound in Saudi Arabia. It is written after I had briefly returned home when my dad was dying, upon my return to the 'Kingdom' after his death, where I was teaching art to both adults and children.

Action shots from the swing were the order of the day at Al Yamamas, Saudi Arabia

Upon my return to Saudi Arabia, I discovered, contrary to the perception that I had made my most special friends amongst the Jordanians - who were, without exception, witty, well educated, cosmopolitan, liberal, classy, extremely funny, and highly intelligent - that all these friends, and all my art students too, were originally Palestinians. But being of the kind that do not move into the future walking backwards, they quietly, calmly and stoically accept their status as Jordanians in the world. 

As my friend Hadeel put it with a laugh in her voice and a small shrug to her shoulders, 

"Yanee -" (a word they stick into conversation as we would an 'um' or dad would have used an "Oh!"; it loosely translates to "I mean", or "meaning"), "But we are Jordanians - Now!" 

But it struck me anew how appalled I have been to realise what large lacunae gaped in my general knowledge with regard to the Middle East; far beyond the ever-contested borders of Israel and Palestine, the extent and range of the impact of this internecine war on the neighbouring areas of Lebanon and Syria and Jordan in particular I was only glancingly aware of, and then usually so irritated by the morass of detail regarding the various paramilitary or militia groups, I never bothered much with reading the articles.

Like Catherine Morland, I so often find that: 

History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in ... the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all. 

Northanger Abbey

It is only when history becomes a living entity, through people with their own stories to tell, that you contextualise events, and find you can no longer be so sanguine.

But, most of all, when first I arrived in Saudi, I little thought that one corner of my heart would be forever colonised by a compact Palestinian boy-lion (Osama means 'lion' in Arabic) with black-brown eyes and long curly lashes who seldom smiles, but every now and again breaks out into a conspiratorial grin. Not even 8 years old yet (they pre-empted his birthday with a celebration on Mother's Day, but he informs me he is 7 ½ and I believe him, I'd be a fool not to), he is blessed and cursed with an extraordinarily incisive mind, exceptionally quick tongue and an over-abundance of creativity. He excels in everything, is top of every single class, is good at sport, soccer and karate, overall suffering a surfeit of talents, an embarrassment of riches, and - it goes without saying is complex, demanding, inquisitive, highly passionate and extremely stubborn.

Needless to say, I adore him, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word, "to love and have deep reverence for". As dad always said, "It's a bad day when you don't learn something new", and Osama teaches me anew, to look around with fresh eyes, every day. Now that it looks as though they are going back to Jordan, and we towards South Africa, I find in myself a need to set down the nature of our relationship, since it has been such an essential experience in my life. 

Even Osama's very little brother, Husam, wanted art lessons. Here is his drawing in English.

I had a conference some while ago with his mother, a muddle-up of communication, within which she originally thought he was in trouble, and came rushing into the house, dragging him behind her, preventing him from playing soccer, which seized him up with anger: "We are Winning!" his only comment, with which he proceeded to kick the side of my couch rhythmically. 

He had arrived the week before, and announced, as I opened the door to his "bang, bang, bang" knock thereon (everyone else rings the door-bell): 

"My mother says: 'You Must Teach Me'". 

I felt devastated - something was wrong, she was complaining, his parents weren't happy with my teaching - they weren't happy with him! I put myself to bed on the basis thereof; by the time Fem came home my mind was made up, I declaimed to Fem all over the house - this was a gifted child, with his own quirky place in this world and had to be left to find his own creative path, I was merely an enabler and he had such an abundance of creativity - he was so far beyond his years in everything, but what I had to nurture was the child in him, let him be free, give him attention and appreciation - the rest he could and was finding out for himself. I girded my loins and prepared to do battle, hence the summonsing of his mother to my house, whereupon she rushed out leaving the dinner cooking on the stove, all in a panic, which made two of us. 

You may have guessed the outcome. The real story is, turns out Osama was the frustrated one, went to his mother saying he's not getting good enough quickly enough - "Tell Kathryn to Teach Me!" his lament. She told him to tell me himself. Hence his statement as the door opened. The parents were delighted with his work, he was the one unhappy! Ye gods! The implacability and ruthlessness of talent is hard to ignore, and sometimes difficult to deal with. 

Week one was initiated by his competing with my adult students, wanting to know what they'd been drawing. He proceeded to compare his art works to theirs and figure he "looks" better at things. (It takes time, dedication, concentration to see a thing as it "is". The first rule of art - draw what is there, not what you think is there.) 

The first lesson, Reema drew a green pepper very quickly. After she had finished, I asked her to compare it to the original - she suddenly realised to her horror she had drawn it with four segments but it actually had five! Thus opening herself to some mild teasing comment from the husbands who make up one of the mini-communities within the compound. Osama listened with absorbed intent to it all; the next day, banged upon the doors of Hadeel's and Reema's husbands - showed them his art book with a drawing of a green pepper (his mother had to buy it the night before, she hadn't one in the fridge). 

He said to them, "You see this? How many segments has it got?" They agreed on the number. He then showed them his picture, "See?" Yes, they had to agree, he had got it right! 

One of my adult students painting what is there, drawing is as much about seeing as doing

He came to my house that Thursday and demanded to work in charcoal, like my adult class, since he was not going to play around with pencil like any normal child. It's not that he's precocious in the extreme about everything, and a large proportion of his behaviour can also be understood in terms of a developmentally appropriate narcissistic phase, with its concomitant grandiose highs and commensurate lows. However, with that much talent begging to be let out, the level of confidence or arrogance associated with it is partly just frustration demanding a valid outlet, and once satisfied with complete attention, his competitive instincts have found themselves nullified by the overwhelming greatness of - just having fun.

So, he's been stretched, hasn't he just? Me, most of all. Such instinctive talent, like water, has to be left to make its own pools, rapids and depths, all you try to ensure is that it not spill itself dry across arid ground. The person he has to fight is himself. He can hardly contain his yearning, yet has to be patient in the completion of his mastery of tools, most particularly, his very own fine motor skills and co-ordination. What he has struggled to accept is patience, knowing he has simply to grow older and practice more, and to relish again his own play, not to discard something, erase it, the moment it errs from perfection, which usually was on second number two. I had to ban him from using an eraser at all, inform him that I would be the judge of whether he could rub something out, and award it to him only when there was a need. He is so dedicated to work, every time I catch myself feeling he's just an ordinary bright child, I am suddenly caught up again in awe at the fact that he can expand his concentration over two long hours, absolutely focused on the tasks at hand, and by the passion he brings to his work. 

Our most important contract is that he and I have both had to let ourselves play, that way we both learn more! But I had to initiate a long, important conversation with him, in order to rein in his disappointment after the last incident, remind him that he is not yet 8 years old, and, although gifted (since there is no point lying to any child) that he IS still a child, and isn't actually that good yet in the absolute terms he demands - not where he wants himself to be, at least - but that he will continue to improve, year by year, and before he is 20 he will be much much better than me at drawing and art. 

"Better than you?" he said incredulously (what a delight the child is! A remarkable boy indeed!) 

 "Yes. Better than me, much better than me, IF you carry on learning and drawing. But you have to work." At which he pulls a very solemn face indeed, and gets back to drawing. 

As his mother left that evening, Osama, who had been released to finish his soccer game intercepted us at the door to ensure that he really was forgiven, just in case there had been trouble. 

"So, this is your teacher!" his mother said to him, both of us a bit embarrassed by now, whilst he, in part emboldened by the other boys around and flushed with sporting victory, looked me defiantly in the face and stoutly declared, 

"Oh, no! I am teaching Kathryn!" 

So I laughed, and said, "We are both of us teaching each other," whilst his mother pulled him to her and batted him softly around the head, saying in small horrified tones, "My son!" and he looked cheekily up at me, relishing the attention, and smiled smugly. 

They always say that when the learner is ready, the teacher arrives. I little anticipated it would come in such a compact, small form. I have learnt that art is everything, and everything can be art. The staining of the water blue by the paint-brush dipped therein is art, particularly if you add oil, then glitter, then stars, then stain part of the glass outside, and turn it now this way, now that. Thereby inextricably combining lesson of gravity, and of the different materials of the William James' "pluriverse" - since that philosopher knew this to be no universe! Why is a thing so and not so? And, when its material is such, because it is so and not so, that is when art begins to happen, so I have learnt. Examining as I explained how I utilised an eraser to make marks in the charcoal dust, thereby bringing depth to a picture, he delightedly exclaimed, "It's magic!" And so it is. 

On the Mother's Day / Osama's birthday celebration, his mother, Iptisam, invited me to join her and her fellow teachers at a traditional barbeque by the pool. Fem arrived to visit me for lunch, that Thursday (his working Saturday), then back-tracked cautiously towards the pool gate, shaking his head in deep embarrassment, as he realised women and children only were invited, whilst the Saudi women excitedly proclaimed "A man! A man!" amongst themselves, agitatedly replacing the scarves on their heads, thus ensuring Fem's contribution to the morning's thrill. Reema arrived with her usual surprise at dessert time, a chocolate cake warm from the oven, the other ladies clucking appreciatively around it. 

Osama waited his turn, then said to Reema, "Yes, that's very nice, but do you only know how to make the one thing?" 

She held her hand to her mouth in embarrassment as she began to laugh, and said, "He's right! I do know only how to make the one thing!" 

There is another mother on our compound, always saying, "My son is very famous - My son is in the newspaper ... " (he is a lovely, open-hearted, gifted young man in reality), but which litany his younger brother has learnt and one day was busy parroting to me. 

Osama abruptly interceded with a short, "When? When was this?" and when it was explained, dismissed it with, "Oh, That. That was AGES ago", at which the eleven-year old, shocked into silence, duly - closed his mouth, looked up at me in mute appeal, and though tempted, I had not the heart to laugh at his discomfiture. 

The boys of Al Yamamas on the swings, 2001

One day recently, Osama was late coming to my house, so I phoned him up and asked whether he had forgotten, even though it was against our rules. (His mother and I early on co-negotiated that it is his responsibility to remember lessons. The first time he had forgotten, he managed to inveigle lessons for that afternoon from me, such was the disappointment on his face.) 

"I'm on my way!" he said, and hurried to me. Next week, I discovered to my endless chagrin that he'd been put to bed by his mother with a 39C temperature, but, not to be thwarted, when even Hadeel (who is their next-door neighbour) laughingly stood in his way as he was rushing to me, he said, 

"I'm fine! I'm well! I'm going to Art! Kathryn's waiting for me!" and ducked around and past her legs! 

The next week, his father phoned me in despair - Osama was in an absolute taking since he needed to have his teeth seen to urgently, but having discovered the dentist appointment was during "his" art class he point-blank refused to go. Once he had spoken to me on the phone and negotiated another time, he finally acquiesced to their demands that his teeth be seen to first. 

His 39C temperature day, he was tired, and more interested in talking. He undertook some painting, then, on the newspaper lining the desk, he saw part of a political cartoon - Ariel Sharon in the turret of a tank with the star of David on its side, the Israeli parliament blind-folded underneath the tank, a tiny 'star-and-stripes' umbrella above his head, a strangled dove of peace, complete with olive branch in its beak hanging from the nozzle of the tank. Having seen something there that interested him, he moved his sketch-pad off the cartoon. 

After taking a long narrow-eyed look at the Star of David, with his paintbrush loaded with black paint, he circled over it, obliterating it completely. He said to me, "That's Israel. Do you know Israel? This is Israel", and with the wet paint drew for me a Star of David. "This is the sign of Israel," he continued, "I Hate Israel", and eradicated what he had just drawn. 

Then, looking up at me with a frown under his long eyelashes, he asked me, "What do YOU think of Israel?" I said, "I believe Israel has a right to exist, but I think that they are being exceptionally aggressive at the moment towards the Palestinians and that is a problem". 

He said to me, "Do you know they are killing my people? Well, not my people . I am Jordanian - they are - " 

I interspersed, "Palestinian?" 

"Yes", he continued, "but they are - " 

"Arab Muslims?" I supplied questioningly 

- "Yes, Muslims, like me", he finished. We encountered a pause. 

I said to him, "Do you know who that is?" pointing to Sharon. "No". "It's Ariel Sharon," I said. 

"I Hate Sharon" he answered, and picking up his paint-brush, circled Sharon out, twice, with the black paint. 

"Do you know," he said, "My people, they have nothing, just stones and maybe sticks, and they go into the camps and are killing my people, even the children. Maybe," he said, "Maybe, they can pick up a stone, or make something with some sticks .." (and here he gave a garbled explanation of what I gradually came to realise was possibly a description of rock-throwing intermingled with explanations of Molotov cocktails which had become muddled up with the concept of the rocket attacks from land adjacent the camps which had unleashed that particular spate of 'incursions' and retaliatory warfare). He concluded with, "But my people they really have nothing, and Israel has tanks and guns." 

He looked up at the umbrella and, recognising what it signified, said in an exultant tone: "America! I Hate America!" and - proceeded to daub America's flag out, but he took most trouble over Sharon, going over him yet again, after he was done dispensing with America. 

Silence. 

I said, "Do you know what this is?" indicating the rectangle of the cartoon and everything within it. 

He was puzzled, a bit unsure of his ground, "What?" he asked, a bit belligerently, as he's at the stage where he doesn't like to concede he doesn't know everything, and fluctuates wildly between statements such as "I KNOW, I know everything!" and, "I'm so STUPID, stupid, stupid, stupid!" 

"This," I said, "is called a political cartoon." "Cartoon?" he questioned, "like Disney? I Like Disney!" 

I replied, "Disney's American." 

His eyes slit in response to the deep thought that provoked, which was broken by a sudden, appraising look, "Do you eat pig?" he asked me. 

"Yes, I do", I replied, "I'm -" 

"Christian!" he supplied with a grin.

"Yes", I said. 

"It is haram" - 

"forbidden, a sin" I supplied in reply - 

"for me to eat pig," he said. 

"Yes, I know," I said. "Do you know that the Jews also don't eat pig?" I asked him. 

"They DON'T?" he said, incredulity straining through his voice.

"No. For them it is also haram." 

He looked down at his sketchbook for a small quiet time. "I'm tired," he said, fetching up a deep sigh from the bottom of his tummy. "I'm going to go home". And he left.

His story is, of course, all the more poignant when I came to realise that his series of identification manoeuvres and comparisons whereby he is saying: "Like/Not Alike" are forever shot through with the contingency that he is too Palestinian, and so they really are "his people" in more ways than he even has fully processed yet. Living in Saudi Arabia makes you peculiarly aware of the natures of dispossession, and the resilience of personality, since not only Palestinians, but Sri Lankans fleeing the Tamil Tigers, those separated from their land by the mineral strippers of Charles Taylor's RUF of Sierra Leone and multitudes of others from war-filled or poverty-stricken parts of the globe find a stop-over here in this most transient of all expatriate places. 

Whilst in Jeddah we were able to see the BBC documentary, The Accused on the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, and seeing Osama's features on the face of one small dead boy, thrown on top of others, his eyelashes curling from his rounded cheek, his skin the typical translucent yellow grey through which the blue shines, I knew that that conflict would be personalised for me for ever more.  

And hearing Sharon's prior proclamation of Jordan as "The Palestinian State", I felt more strange and angry than I ever had felt before about this most miserable of wars. 

Two weeks later, Osama was sampling my North Indian cuisine, with the mantle of the connoisseur he's recently acquired, having taken well to being guinea pig and chief critic in this regard. 

(That day's recipe was Ladoo, a Coconut Sweetmeat - extremely easy to make and a firm favourite with tall Afrikaans males and compact Jordanian boys. Melt ghee (or butter if you don't have the clarified variety) in a pan with crushed-up cardamom seeds, using even the husks - they're good for cleansing the teeth. Roast desiccated coconut in the pan, until evenly browned (at about 3 to 4 on the ring) add condensed milk, then take off the heat. The sweet-toothed Indians will add sugar now to the glutinous mess, but we find it becomes way too sickly sweet then for our taste. Roll "dough" up into balls, then press down in the centre, putting an almond or other nut or raisin in the middle of each. We found almonds work the best. Leave to cool on grease-proof paper. They refrigerate well.) 

Ladoo or coconut sweetmeats still beloved by our family

As I handed him the coconut sweetmeat, I realised he'd been watching me move about the kitchen very intently. He took the sweetmeat, put it down, put out both his hands, waggled first one, then the other, each back and forth. 

"Which hand," he asked me, "do you use to eat with?" (Relating this story later to his mother, she laughed and said, "Ah! though I am Muslim, I use the left hand for eating since it is the strong one, he is too clever, my son!") 

Imitating him, I put out both my hands, palms up, as if in supplication, then shrugging my shoulders eloquently, and as if in despair, said, "Both". 

At this, he threw himself back against the back of the kitchen chair, fetched up a lugubrious sigh from his depths, shrugged apart both his hands and said, in a despairing tone once he had dramatically finished his lllloooooooonnnnnnggg sigh: "You Christians can do ANYTHING". 

I have his father in particular in stitches whenever I relate the story to them: "Ah!" he says, "Osama - my son - can Christians do ANYTHING?" and Osama rolls his eyes to the ceiling, and sighs, yet again - this time at the buffoonery and idiocy of the adults in his life. 

Yussef assures us that one of these fine days, in about 20 years or so, I will again hear a bang, bang, banging on my door and open it to find Osama waiting there, demanding this time my daughter for his wife. I am his current role model, he's drawing only pictures of women these days and they all look like me. 

I said, "And what if she takes after my husband? Osama will have to stand on tiptoe to kiss her cheek!" 

Iptisam says, "Ah, but - Maybe, she will be beautiful, like you!" 

I said, "He still may have to stand on tiptoes to kiss her!" 

"Maybe, that won't matter", she said, while he said to Fem, 

"You must begin to write down all your expenses, from when she is born, if you have a daughter, and then - It is our tradition, you see, we pay for the daughter." 

And yet again, I find I feel very strange indeed, and that the smile has stilled on my face.