Unexpected Souvenirs
Posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009
I’ve taken to bringing art back from my trips abroad. Usually paintings. They’re full of local flavor, better than any photograph my point-and-shoot could ever take, and, most important, are compact enough so as to not require me to break my rule of never checking luggage. They also can allow for hours of procrastination once back home.
An oil I got for $3 from an artist in Malawi? A quick glance at it can easily turn into an hour of daydreaming about ocher anthills the size of Andre the Giant and the surprisingly soft sand along the shore of Lake Malawi. A peek at an ink drawing of Mt. Nevis forces me to relive the 5.10 “hike” up a 1,500-foot ladder of exposed roots to its summit. In Marrakech last week, researching some articles about foodie vacations where you don’t need to worry about getting fat – the High Atlas are an hour from delicious downtown restaurants like Le restaurant at La Maison Arabe – I got my most unique art yet: two X-rays. Of a collarbone I broke into four pieces on Day 4 of my eight-day trip.
Having sworn off mountain biking numerous times in the last few years as my balance has deteriorated, I should have known better than to give in to the suggestion to do this devil sport while in a foreign country. But, despite a fairly loud voice in my head telling me it was a bad idea – especially after realizing my guide didn’t speak any English – I gave in. Ten seconds later – perhaps even five — I was ragdolling down a 45-degree scree slope still holding onto the bike’s handlebars (as it rolled over and under me). Awesome.
Finally, thanks to a tree about 40 feet downhill, I came to a stop. With the bike on top of me. At first, I didn’t think I had done any permanent damage. My left shoulder hurt, but I swung it around a few times. Then, the last swing, there was very noticeable crunching and grinding. The crunching and grinding felt, for lack of a better word, gross. I had never broken my collarbone, but the crunching and grinding, along with the giant bump threatening to poke out through my skin, made me pretty sure I just had. Again, awesome.
But not nearly as awesome as my initial experience at a clinic in Marrakech four-some hours later. After handing over my passport, someone in a white coat asked if I could move the fingers of my left hand, the side on which I maintained I had a broken collarbone.
Me: “Yes.”
White coat: “Well, if you can move your fingers, you can’t have broken anything.” (Since this guy’s English was spotty, I’m paraphrasing a bit here.)
Despite the hard science behind this statement, I still insisted x-rays be taken (and crossed my fingers that this dude was not my doctor).
Several years ago, after a minor car crash in Bulgaria, I met the world’s oldest x-ray machine. The one at this clinic was a close second. And of course no one cared to ask if I might be pregnant, had me sign any forms, or gave me any sort of lead apron to wrap around the parts of me that weren’t being zapped.
Long story short. I rocked the world of my initial examiner with x-rays that showed you could in fact have a very broken clavicle and still move your fingers. They rocked my world by insisting I needed to spend the night. FYI: “No fucking way” seems able to cross any language barrier. “Painkillers” and “narcotics” seem not to translate however. Three doctors (the initial one at the clinic, one at a hotel in Casablanca and one at a hotel in Fes) over the next four days gave me nothing more than Tylenol. And the first prescription was Tylenol mixed with caffeine. As if I wouldn’t already have problems sleeping. And isn’t caffeine generally (and universally) regarded as detrimental to the healing of broken bones?
Twittering and Facebooking through the entire experience, especially through the four hours the clinic and I eventually agreed that I would stay, even posting my x-rays on my FB page, friends were in agreement that the situation sucked. But that it would make for a most awesome story if I were to have it operated on in Morocco. Umm, yeah, right.
Morocco can do the hell out of couscous, and I’ve never seen such beautiful gardens and I hear Moroccans have a special way with camels. But screws and plates in a shoulder where I was really hoping to have as minimal of a scar as possible? Sorry, but no. I actually left the clinic in more pain than when I entered it thanks to a hack-job IV in my right hand. Propped up in a clinic bed, emailing my orthopedics-inclined husband by hunting and pecking at the keyboard with my now-deformed right hand, we scheduled surgery for one week into the future. When I would be back in the U.S.
I can’t say that, had I known I would have to get through the second half of the trip sans narcotics I would have agreed to stay. (Although the final hotel in Fes, Sofitel Palais Jamai, and its chicken pastillas were worth going through almost any amount of pain for. Back in the late 19th century, when it was built, it was the palatial residence of the Grand Vizir of Jamai, after all.)
While navigating and dodging donkeys in the narrow “streets” of Fes’ centuries old medina, a few accidental bumps from fellow shoppers caused me to emit sounds and words I’m fairly certain most Moroccans had not previously heard. And I had to impose on my traveling companions, all strangers to me when the trip started, to help me with luggage toting, not to mention dressing (and undressing). Thank god I had already hammam-ed with several of them and we had all seen each other naked already. Their then helping me get dressed and undressed (and showering) didn’t feel quite so weird. But still, I’m sure these were duties they had not signed up for. And then there was the fact that there was only one shirt that I could get on and off without screaming bloody murder. Even when it’s as cute as Cloudveil’s Edamame V-neck, six days (in a row) is a long time for one shirt. Especially in a country where the usual June temperature is 90.
But I survived and was wheeled, an IV perfectly and painlessly done, into the clean, well-lit OR the morning after my return, exactly a week after I had taken my tumble. I was home on my couch by that afternoon, narcotics – sweet, sweet narcotics – in hand and a five-inch steel plate with eight screws on my left clavicle. And two awesome x-rays to add to my office’s art collection.
World-traveler Dina Mishev bases her writing and adventure careers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
