A broken tooth and a happy St. Patrick's Day

These events happened independent of one another. That should probably be clarified from the beginning. My tooth cracked last week during our village homestay... St. Patrick's day wasn't until nearly a week later. The catch is, the tooth incident happened in the middle of a dinner where the main dish was flava beans. Soft and mushy - nothing that even needed to be chewed.

In retrospect, I probably should have realized that the tiny, bone-like piece in my mouth wasn't some ingredient from the tagine in front of me. It didn't make sense, but I was more focused on what was going on around me that with what I was eating. So yes, thinking that this was nothing out of the ordinary, I swallowed a small piece of my tooth. If it counts for anything, I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I didn't even notice it was missing until after I finished eating and my tongue caught itself on the relatively sharp edge of the tooth that remained at the back of my mouth.    

What better way to really immerse yourself in a place than to check out the dentistry scene? 

I had an appointment made for Monday afternoon, the day we got back to Rabat. Badrdine gave me the address of the place he'd made the appointment for and after class, I grabbed a cab to bring me to the office in Agdal. I arrived to a seemingly vacant building with just two minutes to spare. I took the stairs to the first floor and knocked on door 3. I rang the doorbell. Nothing. The hallway I stood in was dark and empty -  save for one man who walked by on his way to an upper level - but it had the name of my dentist on a plaque hanging at the top of the stairs, so I didn't think I had any reason to think I was in the wrong place; the only light in the hall came from the doorbell on the wall adjacent to where I stood. I waited for a few minutes, sure that I'd get an answer from someone at some point. I gave up waiting after ten minutes and called Badrdine - the first of many calls that we exchanged as we tried to figure out where the dentist was. Eventually, after almost 30 minutes had passed, I rang the doorbell of the only door that seemed to be occupied and I had Badrdine speak with the lady who answered it. It was definitely a weird and uncomfortable exchange... I used some broken French, not even knowing if she would understand, to ask her to speak with Badrdine on the other end. She seemed to get the point, and as odd as she found it to be she took the phone from my hands.

Turned out, the dentist had moved his office, and his website apparently hadn't been updated --  Badrdine and I learned that the hard way. The new address was only a short walk from the old location, but since I was already late and in an area I wasn't familiar with, Badrdine had me take another cab. When I arrived, I was met by a short woman with curly brown hair pulled back into a short pony tail. She wore white scrubs and big smile, one that I wasn't expecting given the circumstances. In other words, I certainly wouldn't have gotten that kind of greeting from my own dentist had I showed up 45 minutes late. She greeted me in fast-spoken French, linked arms with me and showed me the way into the office. Badrdine had been on the phone with them right up until the cab pulled up, so I was spared explaining myself. Everyone in the office was exceptionally pleasant, and again, I was surprised. I did have to wait two hours before being seen, but I might not have had to had I been there on time. Besides the obvious difference in language (with the exception of the dentist, who spoke English well), it was comparable to any experience I've had at an American dentist. I'm not entirely sure what they did to my tooth - he was relatively vague about that. But for now, I have what feels like a full tooth in the back of my mouth, and I can live with that for the next five weeks. Plus, I can now say I have dental records in Morocco. A short note on the cab ride home to the medina: realizing I had just emptied my wallet to pay the dentist bills, I had a mere 17 dirham on my person. No plastic accepted. I panicked and had him pull over at just the right time -- 16 dirham. Two dirham shy of embarrassing myself for not the first time that day.

Tuesday was St. Patrick's day and coincidentally the same day as our Arabic final. Two reasons to celebrate. For the last two years in Chicago, St. Patrick's Day meant missing dance outs with O'Shea in Boston; this year, it meant missing that and LUCID at Loyola. Not that I've really stopped dancing since coming here - I lost control of my feet years ago - but I definitely missed being home (in Boston or Chicago) for the holiday. Despite being in a country that, well, has no reason to celebrate St. Patrick's day, a group of us found and met at the only Irish pub in the area and made a night of it. I saw quite a bit of green, heard two Irish songs and by the end of the night, I even caught a man and woman feigning the old "Irish jig." It wasn't the holiday I was used to, but for what it's worth, St. Patrick's day in Morocco wasn't so bad. It helps when you're in good company, and I was. 

As of this morning, I have a new housemate, or maybe more appropriately, a new sister to add to the list. Emma has joined the ranks of myself, Issra, Chamae and Najila. She won over the love of Chamae and Issra pretty quickly, even if it wasn't immediately. 

Tomorrow morning we leave for our two day northern excursion: Chefchaouen, Ceuta and M'diq.