Another 8-hour bus ride across the Sinai. We ended up at Nuweiba, by the shores of the sea, hopeful that we would make it across soon. Moses had made it seem so easy.
Alas, we were not as blessed. Instead of God parting the waters, we sat in a warehouse from 9am to 4pm waiting for the ferry to come. When did it arrive? "3pm, In sha'allah," said one of the guards.
I used to love this word, in sha'allah. It means "God willing" or "if God wills it." To me, it represented a sense of hope and optimism for the future, like after saying that there will be world peace in our lifetimes.
That idea of hope has been dashed after coming to Egypt.
Don't know how to use it in a sentence? I'll give some examples:
You make a plan with your Egyptian friends to meet at a restaurant for dinner. "Let's meet at 9pm," you say.
"In sha'allah."
Your friends meet you there at 9:30, which is exactly the time you expected and quite reasonable for a meeting with Egyptians.
You take a cab from your apartment to a hotel right across the river. You ask the driver, "Do you know how to get there?"
"In sha'allah."
You drive around Cairo for half an hour over three different bridges before reaching the hotel.
You wait in line to get your student ID card at AUC. You take a number and sit back down, waiting for your number to be called so you can submit the required documents. Your number is 1019, and they're still on the 500s. You get fed up. You ask the man at the desk, "Are you open until 5?"
"Yes In sha'allah."
"No, are you open until 5? I have to go turn in some other forms and don't want to just wait here for another hour. Can I come back at 4:45?"
"Fine, In sha'allah."
You return at exactly 4:45 to find the place closed.
For Egyptians, this phrase evolved out of a tradition of not being overconfident in one's future, lest you be found by the evil eye. So saying it after anything theoretically signifies your humility and deference to God's will, which may not match up with your own. I understand this custom and respect it, but with time, it's become hugely overused for things I don't think it was ever meant for. Many people use it to convey Yes, No, I don't know, Maybe, Probably Not, or Definitely. (I guess this is why it's so popular.)
As an American used to at least a modicum of efficiency in the States, the "in sha'allah" mentality here seems to have make inefficient bureaucratic systems even worse.
The amount that this word is used in so many contexts has just made it into something that at worst is noncommital. Maybe it makes more sense to Egyptians, but when foreigners come here trying to make plans of what they'd like to do with no surprises, in sha'allah can just confuse the hell out of them.
Where was I? Yes, so this man at the warehouse has just told us 3pm, in sha'allah. The ferry didn't get there until 4 and we finally boarded at 5. All this for a 45-minute ferry ride across the tiny Gulf of Aqaba.
A day and a half of traveling just to get across the Red Sea...
I knew I should've brought my staff.
No comments:
Post a Comment