i want pain

or so I learned yesterday.

I am still here in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania (means Port of Peace), for what Peace Corps calls our Mid Service Conference (thats right, i'm halfway finished with my work here!).

For the first two days, the 12 remaining health education volunteers met to listen to some presentations by NGOs and other organizations working in Tanzania to improve coordination between us and them, and then exchanged successes and problems we have encountered in the past year - all the while bouncing around new ideas and having a good time eating AMERICAN food (sandwiches!) and catching up.

Then yesterday we started our medical check up, and for me that meant going to the dentist - an always enjoyable experience. Well, lets just say, I was sorely disappointed!!! From what I remember about my last trip to the dentist, I expected to have a kind looking dental hygenist really go to town scraping plaque off my teeth, brutally jabbing the jabber-pick into the tops of my molars to test for soft spots, cleaning and polishing with some gritty, badly-fake-flavored creams and whatnot, and then ending the whole shebang with a not-so-delicate flossing and scolding about improved dental hygiene.

What I got was far from it - the guy kinda just looked at my teeth with a mirror, did some very minor poking, and then a very light cleaning with what I eventually gathered to be some kind of elaborate, clinical-looking water pick. I figured out the water pick part when I started drooling uncontrolably all over myself, lets just say the saliva-sucker-upper thing (do these instruments have real names?) was not up to the task during my appointment.

No flossing, no poking, no scolding, nothing. It was not painful at all, and I have now learned that that is NOT what I expect, nor want, when I go to the dentist. I want blood, I want to cry. Yesterday I felt like I could've left a big chunk of my sub sandwich in my teeth and it might still have been there even after the appointment (went to Subway for lunch - sweet. not a huge fan of globalization, but if fast-food is coming to Tanzania, at least it's Subway and not McDonalds or Taco Bell).

And that was the best option here in Dar - it was at Aga Khan, which apparently is Canadian. Those softie Canadians. I hear the Swedes are brutal, and people actually WERE crying when they left - maybe i'll make a special request for my last appointment at their place.

Today is the last day of official Peace Corps business - then a few weekend days on the beach outside of dar, and will learn if i'm heading straight back to Mwanza or waiting in Dar for a few days until a PC vehicle gives me a lift up. Which reminds me, New Years on Zanzibar was fantastic. Well, a few problems with our first resort and beach (crabby owner, excessive seaweed), but then we moved up to the north side of the island and had a fantastic day of swimming, relaxing, drinking, and talking. It was a shock to see so many other non-Tanzanians, and I wouldn't have wanted to stay much longer, but it was a much needed and appreciated 3 day vacation.