Girl Power and Wisdom

Well this past week has been another one of those weeks. Good days, productive days, painful days and lounging around days. Just a typical week in the life of a PCV.

This past weekend in Agadir I attended a Women's Wellness Conference hosted by several second year health volunteers. Even though I wasn't able to bring any women from my site this time because of time conflicts, I feel as though I learned a lot. I feel as though the women really gained a lot of useful information and skills over the 2 days. Some of the sessions included leadership, health, community planning and beauty. The event itself was a training of trainers. Now, hopefully, the women will take everything they learned back to their communities. In a few months, we will try to bring everyone together to discuss what they were able to do in their communities. Through the event I have also learned of an amazing organization in Agadir who I hope to work with in the future.

On Sunday I stayed in Agadir for a night of fun with a few other volunteers before heading up to Rabat to have my last wisdom tooth removed. Of course it started to rain like crazy on Saturday so traveling was not easy. My bus to Marrakech was delayed so I only had time to pick up a few snacks for the train to Rabat. Luckily the rain stopped long enough for me to walk from the train station in Rabat to the hotel. Tuesday morning I walked over to the dentist (in the rain) and waited for my name to be called. Now for those of you who know me, you know what happened when I had the other 3 wisdom teeth removed. A quick note for those of you who do not, they were removed in Thailand under local anesthesia and it wasn't pretty. Back to this tooth. The dentist gave me more local anesthesia and after only about 5 minutes picked up the scalpel to which I screamed and said, "WAIT! I can still feel everything!" He assured me it would be fine. He began the procedure and he was right. I didn't feel anything. I could hear everything though which was worse. For those of you who don't know what bone crunching sounds like, be thankful. It took about 35 minutes for him to pry my tooth out. It wasn't so bad but I was in tears none-the-less. He stitched me up and sent me on my way.

I left the dentist office and thankfully it had stopped raining again. I made it back to the hotel and after sending my parents a quick email telling them I was still alive, crashed for the day. I was able to get down some ice cream in the evening but that was about it. I had to wait about 6 hours for PC to get me my meds so the one dose of codeine I had wasn't enough. I was in so much pain by the time my meds got to me. PC called the hotel and told them to bring me some ice (twice) but I never got any. The next morning I woke up and my face was more swollen then after the procedure. The pain was a bit better though. In the afternoon I made it to the PC office to fill out paperwork and schedule to have my stitches taken out. They also graciously gave me ice to bring the swelling down a little.

On Thursday, a full 42 hours after my tooth was pulled, I was on the road back to my site. The full day of travel was not great but it could have been much much much worse. I left Rabat about 9 in the morning and finally walked in my door at about 8:15pm. Needless to say, I crashed again last night. The swelling has gone down and the pain is getting better little by little. I will head up to Rabat next Tuesday to have the stitches taken out.

Another memorable week in my PC service. I am going to try my hardest to forget the sound of the dentist breaking into my jaw to get my tooth out but other than that, not too bad. Here's hoping I'm all healed by the middle of next week! Oh and I guess my 6 month anniversary of arriving in Morocco came and went but all the same, Congrats to everyone in my staaj for making it 6 months!!