No country for the feeble hearted. by D.P.

Going to the Dentist is scary enough in a country with the best trained dentists with the latest equipment. So in a country where everyone warns you against the medical care, the last thing you want is a toothache. The last thing we did before leaving the States was to go to the Dentist and take care of our dental needs.
So it was no fun to wake up here one day with flu symptoms AND my teeth aching on one side. Of course I hoped that the aching teeth were caused by the flu and that when the flu went away my teeth would be fine. Nonetheless, I asked a 8 year veteran here who the best dentist was. He said his was trained in Germany but DID NOT have an x-ray machine. He told me the name of an Arab dentist from the capital and trained there who had an x-ray machine.
What to do? The known guy or the unknown with an x-ray machine?
When the flu cleared up and I knew I had a serious toothache,-I went with the x-ray machine. This guy's clinic is in his house. In the 3-week process of helping me,
he disclosed that his equipment was from the 80's but top notch stuff.
On the first visit I learned that he did not have the alleged x-ray machine, but he told me he could send me to the university for them or MAYBE he could pinpoint the problem without one. Cheryl had started me on antibiotics because I had swelling around my gums. The dentist and I thought we probably had found the problem tooth, but I still thought we were going for the university x-ray options to make sure, when he started drilling! Well, I hope he got this one right. No shots or anything. He said the tooth turned out to be dead. He drilled out an old filling and began the first step of a root canal. Now I thought that because this was just an "inspection", he had skilled some of the niceties of dentistry.
But obviously, he was going far beyond "inspecting." It was when he told me to "rinse" that I realized what was missing. There was no drainage tube hooked over my teeth and into the bottom of my mouth, nor even a bib.
Another strange thing is that he packed the "root canal" with a disinfectant that smelled like detol or pinesol. Not only could I not stand it; no one I talked to could either! It was on cotton down the root canal and then he blocked it in with another piece of cotton. He instructed me to replace the "retainer" cotton regularly with another pick of cotton, using a toothpick or a match stick.
In 2 days, I replaced it just once.
Now the story has a great ending. After 4 visits (all with no bib, no drainage suction hose, and no anesthetics) I went home with a good root canal and filling for $83.
The dentist had a very interesting story. He was kidnapped from his home down in the capital and ransomed with money. He came here looking for safety but found the housing too expensive, so he went back to the capital and continued working. Friends told him he would not be kidnapped again. But one day at his office, while changing the oil in the generator, 3 men came in and asked for the doctor. He knew they were kidnappers. He told me this is the ONLY lie he ever told in his life.
He said, "He's out to lunch. I'm the secretary." They left and he immediately moved here.
Back here at home during that time we had our pipes freeze. Now you know how in the States, this is no small problem. But here everyone's solution is, "Just wait till 11 am and the sun will thaw them out." Strangely, with no water due to frozen pipes, I go into our kitchen and find flies on the window and ants on the counter! What a place: the inconveniences of winter do not even spare you from the inconveniences of summer.
At one time, each of our teams' 4 houses had problems:
ours: water leading from inside the concrete bathroom floor down to the first floor.
another: no hot water. another: generator not starting, and the last: wires burned up so no electricity could come to the house. Like he said: "In America, wires don't burn up: breakers are flipped."
Such is life here. Never a dull moment.