As a lot of you know, my knee has been bothering me since beginning marathon training back in October. It was really hurting in December and that is when my doctor and myself have been trying different things to figure out what it is. We’ve tried resting it for 2 months, we’ve had x-rays done, we have tried knee braces, icing it, anti-inflamatories, and even an ultrasound, all with no diagnosis. I have had “specialists” in Benin look at it on three different occasions, all saying different things. Finally, Washington decided to send me to Morocco (as a Medical Evacuee) to have a super expert look at it.
I left for Morocco dark and early on Tuesday morning, the 3rd. I basically stayed up all night because I was worried I’d sleep through my alarm that was getting me up at 2:30am if I went to sleep at all. I was at the airport a little after 3am and waited until 5:30 before I was boarded and on the tarmac. After 20 minutes of being airborne, we landed. I had no idea what was going on since a layover wasn’t on my itinerary and was worried that I had somehow got on the wrong flight. We had landed in Lagos, Nigeria, which did nothing to sooth my worries since we’re not even supposed to go to Nigeria. Everyone started clapping and getting off the plane. I stayed on the plane and slyly asked the flight attendant if she thought we’d be landing in Casablanca on time or if she thought we would be running late. Her answer didn’t exactly help me figure out if I was on the right plane or not since she just told me the local time in Casablanca instead of actually answering my question. Luckily for me, I was on the right plane (which I figured out hours later!) and eventually landed in Casablanca.
I got my luggage, exchanged my per diem dollars to dirham and went out to look for the Peace Corps driver that was supposed to be picking me up. It was so strange. There were no black people, the airport was clean, people weren’t shoving or raising their voices, it was orderly, it smelled nice, and my driver wasn’t black either! We got in the car and started driving down well-paved streets with speed limit signs and painted lanes (more abnormalities!) and people actually used their turn signals. Even more amazing, their turn signals were operational on the cars. It was the cleanest city that I have seen in months and months. No gutters flowing with who-knows-what, no trash littering the side of the road, no goats or pigs tied to the roofs of other cars. And the other cars were all nice! There were American cars, European cars, Japanese cars and they looked new.
We got into Rabat and not only did it look and feel (climate-wise) like a city in Southern California, but there was even a tram! A brand new tram, graffiti-free, that glided past us. We walked into the Peace Corps office and the medical secretary greeted me by name and welcomed me right before introducing me to my Moroccan doctor, who was actually American, Dr. Craig (last name forgotten). They were super friendly and gave me maps and a cell phone that was charged up with credit along with their personal phone numbers in case I needed anything. He showed me on the map where the McDonald’s, T.G.I. Fridays, American Club, hotel, and good shopping was, which absolutely blew my mind that those things existed at all in Morocco.
He took me to my hotel, which had an elevator (!), got me all settled in and introduced me to the two other volunteers who were med-evaced there from Cameroon. Their names were Amanda and Jared and after their appointments for that day, we all hung out together and they showed me where the good stuff was. We went to the medina (super large market) and I was blown away. They have absolutely everything here! There is any kind of produce you can think of, any kind of herbs or spices you could want, clothing, bags, shoes, breads, lots and lots of olives, hand-made goods, lamps, crystal, souvenirs, etc. I was completely overwhelmed. It has taken me nearly a week to get out of West-Africa mode. For example, when they called me to see where I was and I told them where I was standing, I thought to myself out of instinct that it should be easy to find me since I’m the only white person around and I had to correct myself. Another time, I saw a bus full of “white” people and thought, “what are all of those white people doing here?” It took me a while to get out of the habit of thinking that I was the only gringa around.
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| View from hotel room BALCONY! |
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| Inside the artisan part of the Medina |
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| Herbs and spices galore! |
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| Medina food |
The following day, Wednesday, I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to try again, to figure out what was going on with my knee. This man was super nice, spoke fluent English (which a lot of people do here in Morocco, which I’m always shocked about), and is a real-life wizard. He looked at the x-rays that were taken in Benin, which 3 other specialists and numerous doctors all looked at, and could tell right away what was wrong with me. He did some other quick tests to draw his conclusion. One of these tests included poking around my kneecap, which everyone else did too (with no pain), and he poked in this mysterious spot of my knee that caused a lot of pain. The appointment took less than half an hour and I had a diagnosis. Incredible.
So basically, I have two things wrong with me that cause the pain, neither of which require surgery (phew!). The first is that I have a very small amount of scoliosis that has caused a 3mm tilt on my right side (which is why it’s my right knee that gives me problems). They are ordering me insoles for my shoes to correct that problem. The other problem is patellofemoral tracking disorder. Basically, my quad is too strong on one side of my leg and not strong enough on the other, so it has pulled my kneecap out of place via the tendons, which causes part of the pain. Between that and my tilt, my leg bones have been rubbing together and inflaming each other, which causes the other part of the pain. I have to do physical therapy to strengthen the other part of my quad to get my patella back where it should be after using my insoles for at least a month. I have to stay in Morocco until my insoles come in, which they’re hoping are here by Friday. In the meantime, they are trying to get me to see a physical therapist to teach me the exercises to do after the month-long period of using the insoles has passed. So that’s the medical update.
After my appointment, Amanda and I went to the shopping mall (!) to browse around. There was a big store, like a Wal-Mart, that she wanted to get shampoo and stuff from and I wanted to get a new bikini for Greece. I was so blown away walking into the mall. It was just like being back in America. It’s incredible how different West Africa is from North Africa. It really should be it’s own continent! It’s so different. It is more like Europe than Africa. After much walking around (and playing on the moving sidewalk/escalator things), I found what I went there for and so did Amanda. We got into a taxi that we didn’t have to argue over the price for because it was metered and went back to the hotel. She ended up leaving for Cameroon that night but I still had the other med-evac volunteer to keep me company, Jared, so we hung out.
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| Amanda and me |
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| mall wonderland |
Jared and I both had appointments on Thursday, so we went to the PC office together and hung out most of the day. I had to have an x-ray done of my torso to determine the size of lifts I need, which I found out yesterday. Since we didn’t have any appointments the next day or over the weekend, we decided to travel to Fes for the weekend.
Friday, we left whenever we were ready. We weren’t in a rush or on a schedule, which is a great way to travel. As soon as we got on the train to go to Fes, I started feeling dizzy. The train was moving around a lot and it was hot, which I think is what caused me to feel sick. I broke out into a cold sweat and rushed to the toilet only to lift up the lid and find it clogged and filled to the brim with things I don’t even want to talk about. Needless to say, that didn’t help my nausea and before I knew it, I was hanging my head out the door of the train as it was going down the tracks, throwing up my breakfast. I slept the rest of the way until we got to Fes and by the time we got there, I was feeling pretty good.
We only ended up spending a day of the weekend in Fes because it was a little pricey (and touristy) and we basically saw everything we wanted to see in the day that we were there. It was really beautiful there and reminded me a lot of Siena, Italy. We walked around the medina most of the first day. I briefly paused at a little shop that sold earrings and got called a “Scaly wag” and a “Hooligan” by a Moroccan guy who was trying to be funny and maybe mistook me for a Brit? It was unexpected and pretty funny. That night, we sat at a café trying to guess where all the tourists were from. This activity made me realize that I have been in West Africa long enough to be really bad at this game. The only ones I could correctly spot were the Americans. And even then, I may have mistaken some of them for Europeans.
The second day, we hired a guide to show us around the medina since we spent a full hour looking for their famous tannery (leather-making/dying) without avail the prior day. This guy gave us a really good price and spent the entire afternoon showing us around. We saw the tannery, mosque, school of Islam, along with lots of other things, like a rug-maker, and a perfumery. It was a good deal. At the tannery, I got a great deal on a gift for Craig. The owner said that he wanted to help this pretty Peace Corps volunteer and gave me this gift for less than half of what a Moroccan would pay for it. I’m not sure how much of it was true, but I was happy for the deal. I then tracked down freshly-pressed olive oil of high quality and bought 3 liters for less than half of what the low-quality stuff would cost us in Benin. I’m pretty excited about that. After the tour, he invited us to his home for tea, which we happily accepted. After chatting for 45 minutes or so, we left for the train station and got on a train right before it left.
Towards the end of the train ride, I was napping and when the train stopped, I looked up and asked my new friend, Jared, if we were in Rabat, and he said, “No, we have another hour.” I accepted this right away at first, but then realized that this stop had an escalator, which I didn’t see at any of the other stops. When I asked him if he was sure, the woman across from us told us that it was Rabat and we had to rush out of the train with all of our stuff. It was pretty funny.
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| Fes: The Siena of Morocco |
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| the famous tannery |
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| Jared and me in Fes |
Yesterday, while I am in Morocco with a toothache, I decided to have it checked out. I got a same-day appointment with a very good dentist. He discovered a small hole in an old filling that was causing food/drink to enter, which was causing the toothache. He decided to drill it out and replace it right then, which I wasn't at all mentally prepared for, so I had dentist anxiety the entire time and Dr. Craig basically stayed to hold my hand. The dentist left the room for a few minutes and instructed him to give me a "pep talk" even. Haha! In the end, he did a really good job; a much better job than my fancy, super expensive dentist in San Diego.
Other than that, I have just been hanging out and enjoying the Western amenities and abundant options that Rabat has to offer, my favorite being freshly blended smoothies. They have these avocado, honey, and almond smoothies that I thought would be gross but is actually very good and addicting! I will probably be here until at least Friday. Maybe I will fly home on Saturday, but if not, I won’t be flying home until Monday. If that’s the case, and Jared is also still stuck here, we may try to visit some other part of Morocco again, per diem permitting. If we do, I will definitely write another update on here! Until then, enjoy the blog and the pictures!
