Your Parachute will open "In-Sha-Allah"

Definition: إن شاء الله or "In-Sha-Allah", literally translates to "God willing", or "If God Wills". Keep this in mind. 


My weekend went something like this: Friday night 11:30pm, I am on the phone with one of my favorite people here in Morocco, an Air Force cadet named Sarah. Our conversation went something like this:


Me: Sarah, you want to go out tonight?
Sarah: No, I'm too tired.
Me: Ok. You going skydiving tomorrow? 
Sarah: No. (pause). You want my spot? The bus leaves at 6:45am. 
Me: (long pause). OK. I'm going skydiving tomorrow! 


At 11:25, I had no intention of jumping out of a plane any time in the near future. By 7am the next day, I was on my way! 


DISCLAIMER for the family: I know, it's Morocco, still technically a 3rd world country. But the company we used was based in France, each instructor had jumped over 7,000 times with no accidents. Statistically safer than riding in a car. 


We arrived at about 11 the next day, and were given medical check-ups, safety briefings, and lunch. We watched a few people land, and generally chatted about hour nervous we were. 

The Plane

One of the most beautiful areas of Morocco I've seen, and still green in December!

My face was pretty much stuck like this

We jumped, strapped to our instructors, in groups of two, my German friend and I being the last to go. As we put the harnesses on, the instructor, who only spoke French, began to speak to the other instructors. As nervous as I was, I was listening closely, even though I didn't understand. Then I hear the words "In-Sha-Allah", and I felt my eyes get big. Without thinking, I practically scream at the instructor "Lay-sa [no] parachute "In-Sha-Allah!" Fuc-eet [only] parachute!" They found this really, really funny. 

In an amazingly small amount of time, we were headed up, up, up in the plane. In 15 minutes we were above the clouds, with only a white, fluffy mass below us, endless blue and burning sun above. Without ceremony, they threw the door open and jumped, my friend going before me.

That is when every part of my body rebelled against what my mind was about to make it do. Somewhere out of my body came the words "omygodomygodomygodomygod". With little fanfare, the instructor loosened my grip on the plane's doorframe, told me to keep my chin up, and we were falling through the air! I had my eyes closed for the first two seconds, but managed to open them as we fell through the clouds. The 40 seconds of free-fall felt like years. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. Luckily, the instructor could, and then we were no longer falling at 200 meters per second, but floating. We made out way down to safety, turning left and right, the ground seeming to rush towards us. We hit the ground and I was... Astounded, amazed, terrified, and seemed to have had left my stomach somewhere on the plane. 

My friend videoed the landing, but my computer won't let me load it. I'll post it if I can.