Insha’Allah

Now that I’ve been teaching in Zanzibar for two months, I’ve settled into a good routine and am really enjoying getting to know my students.  The students are all computer science diploma students (the equivalent of an associate’s degree).  A lot of my communication skills syllabus is pre-determined by state mandate but, where possible, I’ve been trying to tailor it to computer science by assigning communication tasks that the students might need to do in their chosen profession.  I’ve learned a lot about Zanzibari culture through reading their work.  From the assignment to write an instruction manual for something they know how to do well, I learned how to weave baskets, how to make pilau (a Swahili rice dish), how to spear fish, and how to make katlesi (the ubiquitous fritters made from mashed potatoes plus something else like fish or meat). More recently, students wrote business letters, including a complaint letter: From that, I learned a lot about what is frustrating to my students—inconsistent electricity, unreliable water, erratic cable television, and inefficient civil servants.

I share their frustrations, but I’ve learned a coping mechanism from students, as well.  People in Zanzibar (and Muslims more generally) say “Insha’Allah” (or “God willing”) when making plans for the future. Before living here, I thought that it either reflected a fatalistic attitude or was like “knock on wood,” a perfunctory phrase that people say reflecting on (or knowing) the significance.

But it really does do here to make plans with the awareness that the plans may not work out as expected. Slowly, I am learning do that, myself.   When I am planning for class, I can’t count on doing anything at all at the last minute because there's invariably some crucial element that is not available.  In the past month, for instance, my stapler has gone missing from my desk, my computer has blown a fuse, my computer cable has malfunctioned, my computer date has reset to 1950, my printer has jammed and run out of toner, the internet has been down, the photocopy shop that makes my copies has had a giant paper jam in the one (barely) functional copier, the street I’ve needed to walk through has been flooded, there’s been no chalk in the classroom, and my class has been shifted to another time and room unbeknownst to me or my students. On a good day, only one little thing like that goes wrong, but there’s usually a couple. At home, I’d be frustrated by all of these small mishaps, but here I’m starting to accept the unpredictable and am finding that there are benefits to living in a place where I don't usually know what's going to happen. I make plans, I do my best work, and I know that things may not work out as I have planned--and I'm learning that that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, last week, when it was pouring so loudly that it was impossible to hear in my classroom, I was happy that I had a quiz planned and that I didn't need to do a big lecture day.  A few minutes into the class, the courtyard outside my classroom started filling rapidly with water, and a few minutes later, water crept up and over the foot-high concrete step outside the classroom and promised in short order to spread into our classroom itself. I interrupted my students, who were working diligently, and I asked them for help—what does one do in this kind of rain: Go up to the second floor? Hold one’s  feet up and wait it out with the expectation that the water will recede soon? Exit quickly to a nearby classroom on slightly higher ground?  My students considered the all of the options, but advised the last one. With the quiz-taking conditions decidedly disrupted, I decided just to count the quiz as a homework assignment. The students were happy not to have the quiz, and I was happy, while we were waiting for the storm to subside, to have a chance to talk with my students more informally than I usually can when we're in our regular classroom setting.  It’s not what I had planned to do that day, but it wasn’t necessarily a worse plan.