Why Time Is No Problem in Morocco

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Why Time Is No Problem in Morocco (Part 1)
In the 1990s I was hired by the Peace Corps to be the Technical Coordinator in the Orientation and Mobility/Visually Impaired program. The school was located on a campus in Rabat, the capitol, in the northwest tip of Africa.
In Arabia, language not only is used to describe dreams and reality: language IS dreams and reality. Experience is a poor relative.
The river that divides Europeanized Rabat from its mystical, gleaming whitewashed citadel of magic, Sale (pronounced "Sah'LAY") is named the Bou Regreg: "The River of the Father of Reflections".
Compared, physically, to the great rivers of the world, the Bou Regreg is a stream. A rivulet. A tinkle.
Yet its name has mystical, cosmic implications. It is the father of reflections: our lives are apparitions in mist and steam, viewed in a mirror, named after a progenitor who merely had to dream us. We are, but we exist only in the minds of others, pale reflections. After-thought.

Most mornings I walked past the slums, the bidonville, with my friend Si Nejmi, a Sufi (although he would deny he was one) who wore the same coffee colored polyester robe day after day. The word "Sufi" refers to a mystical offshoot of Islam. It means, literally, "wool" on reference to the wool robes that the original 13th century Sufis wore, day in, day out.

Si Negmi used the phrase "Insh'allah" a lot, as did most of my Arab friends.
Literally, it means "If God wills it."
In practice, it serves as a reminder that our life is not entirely in our control: we are but reflections after all.
After six months of Insh'allah I finally understood it's most colloquial useage.
Insh'allah, I now realize, to a Western mind, is a combination of three common expressions:
1) If God wills it
2) Good luck, buddy
and
3) Shit happens.
Raffle question:
Describe the national flag of Morocco

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Comments

[Tim Miller]

Another meaning for Insh'allah in Morocco
Another thing it can mean is, "unless I decide to stop for tea and cigarettes for an hour and then go to the park to check out some western babes," as in "I'll meet you at the office at 3 o'clock, insh'allah."