not exactly open sesame

People are unbelievably in love with Allah here. There are a handful of phrases they use all the time, "inshahallah," "maashahallah," "humdoolillah," "al-hamakallah," and the most popular "bismillah," or translated "in the name of Allah." I fully support doing things in God's name, no problem there, but the hackneyed use of it drives me crazy. On a good third of all of my students' work, be it writing assignments quizzes worksheets, they have written on the top of the page either in English, "In the name of God," or the same translated in Arabic script. That is easy to deal with, when they begin speeches by saying "bismillah," in Arabic and under their breath, it's then that I really don't know what to do. Sometimes I chastise them for using Arabic in the classroom, but most often I just let it slide.
The time that irritates me the most is on mass transit, which are these Toyota Hiace vans which need more than a little TLC. The dabub experience is something that words will never do justice. To flag one down you stand on the street and wave a pointed finger in one of three directions which means practically nothing but everybody does it anyways. Then they'll stop and you get on and climb over two fold down seats to sit in the back where the ceiling is low and you have to crane your neck or hunch over and the springs of the seat are sticking into your cheeks. Then it takes off at breakneck speed and detritus from the ceiling or seats or just the dusty road are blowing into your face on a hot wind, before the driver slams on the brakes twenty yards after they started because someone wants to get off (and here, get off is more correct than get out because the sliding van door is permanently open). But it's the person in the very back and four people must get out to let them off which requires folding down two seats and then everyone must pile back in before the dabub goes again. And repeat twenty yards later. When full, the dabub can uncomfortably seat fifteen people including the driver. But, there is an etiquette for public gender mixing. Men and women do not sit on the same bench, or row of three. So to accommodate a boarding woman there is a big shuffling and consolidating of men to clear up seats for the ninjas. Then, when you want them to stop to let you off all you do is tap coins on some metal which they hate, just knock on the metal which most of the time they don't hear so well, or shout "nazil," which I have no idea what that means but it seems to do the trick because then half of the passengers also shout "nazil" to the driver and he slams on the brakes, four people get off and seats are folded and you squirrel out onto the street and give anybody in the front seat (driver or passenger) your twenty riyals. Today, as I was riding in a dabub to somewhere, this shuffling to let people off occurred a bunch and the man closest to the road had to reboard four times. Each time, as he was climbing in, he said, "bismillah." Piousness has ceased to impress me.
The other common phrase is "inshahallah," which means, "if Allah will allow it." It is used everywhere at all times. In the classroom it's really annoying:
"All right class that's it for today, see you tomorrow."
Followed by sixteen voices, "inshahallah teacher."
Or, "No homework tonight, just study for the quiz tomorrow."
"Inshahallah teacher."
Or, "Remember that your writing homework is due at the beginning of class on Saturday" (like a Monday, after the weekend).
"Inshahallah teacher."
This really gets on my nerves. I think, "No, not 'inshahallah teacher.' If you don't do the homework then there will be consequences handed out by me, not Allah." Teaching is not a great megalomaniac rehab. Recently though, I've learned how to use this magical phrase, on the dabub. Leaving certain busy areas, the dabub waits until it is completely full before going, and for some reason I'm always the first person on so I climb into the far back and wait ten minutes until it is full with a good multiple of three gender ratio. Coming from the mall to my house is too far to walk but still a short distance. When I shouted "nazil" and the following chorus urged the driver to stop, these three women sitting on the folded down seats glared at me through their burqa slits and contemptuously asked me, "nazil?" As in, are you really serious that I have to get up and off to let some white punk in the back off?
So I replied, "inshahallah," and there was no more animosity. These are magic words.