Admon’s
iPhone was “too much” (as they say in Iraq) an extension of himself that I often
found it difficult to separate man from machine. I
teasingly rebuked him but secretly found it extremely
annoying how dependent upon it he was. In the break room at school even while
joyfully surrounded by teachers at the breakfast table, there it sat before
him; he was texting someone. When he drove it was in his hand; he was navigating
through songs. When we were out, it was out; he was snapping selfies. I wasn’t his
girlfriend and I should not have cared, but feeling like that that phone was
Admon’s mistress evoked a hot jealousy from my heart.
At school...
around town...
and even hiking Admon was constantly snapping selfies!
One
afternoon at school not unlike most, I laid my books down on the table beside
Admon between classes. The phone was in his hands and, distracted, he
instinctively moved over for me to sit. He didn’t look up. I was tired and
irritated. Shifting uneasily in my chair to get comfortable without showing any
part of my legs from under my long skirt, I wanted the company of his
conversation. “Admon, what are you thankful for about grade 9?
They’re driving me crazy! My humanities class has 52 students. It feels
too large for me alone and they
are using it to their own advantage!"
“What?
OK, sure,” -Ad’s classic response when he was
trying to be agreeable. He lifted his brown eyes to me for the first time.
“Admon,
who are you texting?” my voice rose, rebuking him. –Why wouldn’t he pay attention to me? the
human sitting right next to him! My irritation was turning to anger.
“It’s
Mr. Sufian,” Ad’s voice was gentle and rhythmic. He hadn’t heard the emotion in
my words, so he did not reply in kind. He placed the phone on the table, looked at me
fully, and signed. I read the sadness in his sigh and
because of his answer my anger melted into shame. Sufian had been Admon’s best
friend the year before. They worked together and, both Iraqi Christians, shared
much in common. Sufian had taught Admon how to use the gym, a newer and growing
hobby for men in Iraqi Kurdistan. The two of them had coordinated many social
events with other coworkers, and their families were close. They had been
neighbors until, two months prior, Sufian and his young wife had obtained the
coveted green cards to emigrate from Iraq. Knowing these details I
meekly listened to Admon’s report.
“They
are getting settled in Indonesia. Sufian hopes that it won’t be a long stay
until the UN gives them clearance to move to America. His daughter gets sick
from the wet climate.” And I listened on until finally I saw it: Admon at his
core is relational; the phone was simply a tool that connected him to the
people he loved. These people were becoming geographically more distanced from
him as Iraq’s Christian population quickly disappeared
from a country in which they no longer felt welcome. I sighed to myself and made
a resolution to be less judgmental of my friend over his technological
tether.
Not
long after I became a beneficiary to Admon’s iPhone addiction. In Iraq it
seemed like bills became due on the collector’s whim; there was no pay schedule
that I could discern. This meant that random Middle Eastern men appeared at my
gate at indiscriminate times, demanding dinar
(Iraqi currency) for utilities I often hadn’t previously knew even existed. Few
spoke English, and I understood even less Arabic. On a rainy weeknight the electricity bill
collector rang at the gate and summoned me onto my patio. “Englizi dasani?” I inquired in Kurdish, gathering the grey sweater
I had hastily slipped on to cover my arms under my rib cage with fists of agitation. The
happy-faced middle-aged man assured me, that no, “Kurdi noz-sanum, Englizi noz-sanum,” but, “Arabi dasani!” He knew only enough Kurdish to tell me that he spoke
neither.
We
motioned back and forth with no success for several minutes, the man waving a translucent
paper with unintelligible squiggles and dots that was my bill. His presence had
interrupted my dinner and I felt increasingly irritated by the communication
gap until my roommate shouted to me that I should, “Call Admon!” Suddenly
hopeful for a resolution to this man’s demands, a rescue from the rain, and a
return to my dinner, I whipped out my cheap pay-as-you-go cellphone and had Admon immediately on the other end.
Korek was the service provider for my cheap phone. To pay for "minutes" I bought scratch-off cards at the local grocery store.
“Let
me talk with him,” said my savior with a cheerful cadence to his words. I offered
my phone to the man and Admon efficiently navigated the
conversation in Arabic. After some time the service man, smiling, handed the
phone back to me for Admon’s explanation in English. “Let me stay with you
until you are done,” offered Admon, “if you have more questions.”
I
turned to our collector with large hand motions and awkward facial expressions
asking him to “please wait, I’ll be right back,” and disappeared to retrieve
the dinar from my bureau’s top
drawer. I was able to pay our bill and quickly sent the man on his way. The
transaction complete, I told Ad, “Shukran,
Mr. A.,” before hanging up. Laughing at my Arabic, Admon responded, “You’re welcome,
Miss A. I’m happy to help.” Genuinely, I knew he was.
I
needed Admon for practical things like paying bills, getting places, and understanding
the culture. I also needed our interpersonal relationship but couldn’t believe
that Admon needed me like I needed him. It was through Ad’s use of his iPhone
that I began to believe that our friendship was truly interdependent. He used
it to tell me things that at first he wouldn’t tell me in person.
An
illness kept me from school for several days. On the second day I lay on my sickbed contemplating my helplessness and aloneness in that foreign
land but Admon’s texts surprised me with a different reality: “Abbey! I miss you! You need to feel better soon. I’m going crazy alone at school.” He was the only coworker and friend to reach out to me in my illness. Admon's simple words made me consider that my absence exposed a definite void in his life. In
the beginning Ad needed his iPhone to tell me so.
And,
again, when I left for America during Christmas break he used his phone to
communicate his need for what my friendship offered him. “Miss A.,” the texts received by my cheap phone
read in fragments as a taxi sped me along narrow, potholed roads to the airport, “I hope your holiday is
the best with your family but I’ll be so bored without you.
Come back to us soon.” My face flushed with pleasure. Later during my time away he messaged me
through Facebook: “Hey friend, I miss you. I hope you are fine. I just wanna
ask you, when are you coming back?” Social media became our cross-continent
form of regular communication until I returned to Iraq at the end of our break two weeks later. After
that Admon felt somehow emboldened to express his feelings for me in person.
During
the second semester Admon’s availability through his
phone became a professional lifesaver.
Third quarter grades were due in the morning and I struggled alone at my
computer with stacks of yet-to-be-graded papers framing my tiny kitchen desk, mocking
me. I would need to convert each student's grade from so many points into 100. On Facebook I messaged Admon my SOS with two
words: “Math question!” It was past 1 a.m. on a Thursday night but Ad’s response
popped up within a minute: “Okay,
go ahead” with emojis showing me his eagerness to help. I presented my problem.
Admon explained the conversion steps I needed to take and included a photo of
the necessary equations. Effusive in my thanks for his help, his response was
simple: “No need. I’m always here for you. Good night.” He was. And because of
his iPhone, I knew that he always could be…
