When I first moved to Abu Dhabi I couldn’t wait to embrace the Arabic language. Having said that, there are a lot of things I can’t wait for – patience isn’t one of my virtues.
Still, determined that I will not do the typical British thing and rely on my own language to get me through my average day, I armed myself with a handbag-sized Arabic phrase book and uploaded each yourself- Arabic on to my iPod. I was good to go and ready to learn.
And indeed after six months working and living in the capital, I’ve already picked up some commonly used words. This is however, where my patience has intervened.
I may not be able to yet fully string along a sentence in Arabic and I always manage to inconveniently forget what “left” is (shimael, as it happens) when I’m giving directions to a taxi driver, which means I’m forever heading “yemeen” (right) and that’s invariably the wrong way.
But I have mastered one word. All too well. In fact I’m starting to dislike it – immensely.
For someone who has little patience (as mentioned) and who works in a job where deadlines are a regular and important part of the working day, it’s never going to be a popular choice to hear the word “inshallah”.
Inshallah means “God willing”, of course. It’s a common enough term if God so wishes, then it will happen. Unfortunately for me, it seems there are few occasions where God is an keen as me to get things done; when I find that my requests are met and something does happen, it’s usually more than a few days down the line and sometime after my deadline.
Now I love the more relaxed way of life out here – I’m happy to have left the chaos of London life behind me. But when I request some specific information on the phone or in person and don’t get a response, it’s not reassuring to be told “inshallah”. It doesn’t answer my question for one, and it’s near impossible to plan ahead.
Take the last time I went to the hospital to go and have my medical. Asking when the results would be ready to pick up, I was told – yes, you guessed it: “inshallah”. Could it be that God might be perfectly willing, but his servants on earth might be dragging their feet a little?
Normally I wouldn’t mind. But when a day or two means you either get your visa in time or you have to leave the country, I sort of feel there’s a sense of urgency and importance in knowing more specific details than the equivalent of “maybe tomorrow, maybe not”.
So my Arabic vocabulary hasn’t progressed too much in my time here. But I am learning a multitude of new ways to express a bit more urgency in my requests “today, not tomorrow ” for instance ...
[writer] Miranda Cleves


[Originally published in Abu Dhabi Week vol 2 issue 18]