Doctor Visits and Flat Tires

Once again, sorry for the lack of updates. Last Wednesday got rather hectic for me and after that we left on Thursday for Ross Bethio for a weekend of field trips.

Wednesday I finally dealt with an ear infection that had been bothering me for about a week or so. While I had asked for (and got) the name and clinic of an English speaking doctor I arrived to find out that Wednesday was his day off, though I was assured that the other doctor also spoke English. I spoke to the receptionist briefly, who had to be torn away from the tv to help me. She wrote me out a bill as I waited to see the doctor (12,000 CFA, roughly 27 dollars). I went in to see the doctor after a fairly short wait, and Alex and Dan who has accompanied me there went out to buy some soap. The doctor was French and asked me if I spoke French to which I responded, yes, a little. His response was, excellent, now I can speak in medical terms in French to this poor girl with an earache. It wasn’t any different from a typical doctor’s visit, and I learned the French word for eardrum is tum-tum. He basically told me that I had swimmer’s ear (I guess those days at the pool and beach add up) and wrote me out a prescription for 3 different things! And if you thought American doctor’s handwriting was bad, you should see French doctors’, I couldn’t tell when it was upside down expect for the heading at the top. Alex, Dan and I headed over to the pharmacy across the street to fill the prescription. They didn’t have the second thing the doctor had written and the third thing was only if I suddenly got dysentery or something like that (they French are hypochondriacs). I just got the first listed item, which is good since it cost another 7,500 CFA (16 USD).  The box was in French on one side and Arabic on the other. I opened it up expecting to find a dropper bottle like in the US but instead got antibiotics to treat the infection, and Dan helped me translate the directions of when to take it.  Since I didn’t get a lollipop, Alex bought me a popsicle. Now a week later everything is fine so I guess it worked out all right though it was a stressful experience.

Dad, do you know how my health insurance repays me? That’s about a month’s stipend I would like to get back.

On Thursday we left for Ross Bethio. It isn’t exactly rural, but if it were in the US it would be what we call a drive through town, only slightly larger than Antes Fort, PA (not Jersey Shore, Antes Fort). We spent 4 days there looking at different fields. We saw rice fields, tomato fields, except that it isn’t tomato season so rice was planted there, peanut fields, and the actually slightly exciting sugar cane field. The sugar cane was the obvious winner, but that could be because we were easily bribed with the sugar cane that we got to eat (for all those wondering, it tastes like sugar).

Though the actual field trips (get it, hahah, punny) weren’t that interesting, it did provide a good excuse to get out of cities and to interact with the Senegalese students who are in our class.  Though I was disappointed that we didn’t go to any cornfields, as I was ready to display my expertise and declare, “Oh, the corn’s bigger in the States.”

Though we did get to explore some of the roadside as twice in the 4 days our bus got a flat tire. Luckily we had a spare tire, unfortunately we only had one, so when we got the second flat the next day, only 15km away from St. Louis we had to call for a new bus to come pick us up and change over all of out things. Amelia, Anne-Marie, Alex, 2 Senegalese students and myself decided that we weren’t that far from Saint Louis so we would walk the rest of the way. Influencing this decision might have also been my mistranslation of fifteen to 5km.  We started walking, but didn’t get further than 5 minutes away when the new bus arrived. They were kind enough to stop to pick us up as they came our way, saving us the rest of the walk.

Other highlights include petting a donkey, tasting raw peanuts that aren’t really ready yet, eating sugar cane, and stopping at a French, I don’t even know what it was, all I know it that they had an ice chip maker and we got ice. Overall it was a good weekend, though fatiguing in some ways and a nice departure from the usual city life.