Ow!

Removed

This past Monday I finally cornered a dentist and got him to remove my wisdom teeth that have been bothering me for over a month. Even though I had been assured by more than one Ecuadorian that he was the best dentist in Ambato, I was still nervous about getting the procedure done here and I was shaking in the chair the entire time.

The dentist only gave me a local anesthetic for the procedure so I was awake the entire time. After my face was good and numb, he took out a pair of pliers and applied them to my top wisdom tooth which had already emerged from my gums. I'm not sure what I thought was going to happen, but he gave it a strong push and pull and then ripped it out. I never realized how easy it is to pull teeth out, but even given that the procedure lasted mere seconds, it was still startling to have a tooth removed from my mouth with a pair of pliers while I was awake and watching.

The second tooth was a bit more difficult because it was still underneath my gums. Even though I didn't feel too much pain because of the anesthetic, I still felt pressure when the dentist was moving my tooth around. He had to cut into my gums and break the tooth into pieces, so he used a screwdriver looking tool to crack my tooth and twist it into a position to get at it with a drill. It was an incredibly uncomfortable sensation the entire procedure, but I got out of the chair feeling like a man for knowing that not a single drop fell from my trembling, tear-swollen eyes.

Dentistry is barbaric... Barbaric!

When the procedure was over, I wiped the blood that had squirted out of my mouth off my glasses and paid the dentist in the procedure room in cash money. The dentist didn't sew me up because he said the gum flaps were close enough together, and he didn't give me any restrictions on what I could eat. When I got home I looked at my mouth and was shocked to see a large hole in my lower left gum. Again, I don't know what I was expecting to see there after my tooth had been removed, but since he said stitches weren't necessary I figured it would be more of a slit than a wide open gap.

That day at lunch I ate regular food, but I had my head tilted to the right the entire time because I didn't want to get potato matter stuck in my tooth-hole. A week after the procedure I am a little concerned that I am still feeling the same kind of pain that brought me to the dentist in the first place, but I hope that it will go away as my gums heal, and I really hope that the cause of the original pain was actually my wisdom teeth because recovering from that procedure sucks.


Lunch Meat

I used to be a really difficult, picky eater when I was a kid. I remember my diet consisting mostly of macaroni and cheese and hot pockets, and I was not too keen on trying out new foods. I have come a long way since then, and as an adult I pride myself on my willingness to try new foods and my diverse tastes. Recently, my host family has been challenging my culinary bravery and making me long for the simple days of microwavable, pepperoni stuffed pastry crust treats.

For instance, liver is disgusting. There is no reason why anyone should be eating organs when there is so much delicious meat on a cow's body. This one is a favorite of my host family, and I almost killed my host brother the other day at lunch when he requested that we have it more often.

Last week we had something which appeared to be a sausage filled with couscous, but that smelled suspiciously like an asshole. I have eaten enough questionable animal parts in this country to know not to ask what anything is before I try it, so I ate a whole mystery sausage before I came to my own conclusion that based on the taste, smell, and appearance, I must have been eating an animal rectum and that I didn't need to be doing that if I wasn't winning money for it. I still haven't found the courage to ask my family what it was, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I know my American sensitivity to eating non-traditional animal parts is slowly fading when we had tongue for lunch the other day and I didn't think twice about it. Seeing the taste buds was a bit of a challenge for me, but I cut them off and actually enjoyed eating something that wasn't an organ or anus.

I'm just waiting for the lunch when I sit down and see a fried udder on my plate.


DELE

This past Friday I took a trip to Quito to take a test of Spanish proficiency called the DELE. The only interesting thing about the day was how I missed an entire section of the test because the proctor didn't explain to us how far we were allowed to go in the booklet in the first hour.

As I was doing the first section I thought that it was an awful lot of time to do the three short readings and answer questions, but since I had never done a complete practice test I had no idea how long I was supposed to have had. I figured I was just really smart (a supposition that always ends with me realizing how stupid I am) and looked over my answers with all my remaining time. When the first hour was up the proctor asked us for our answer sheets and mine was the only one half empty.

I almost freaked out that I paid $150 dollars to take the test and studied for the past three months only to blow an entire section because I didn't understand the directions, but then I remembered that I was still in Ecuador so I asked the lady if I could answer the questions with my time from the next section. As I predicted, she didn't see a problem with that so I finished up with some of my essay time.

I don't know if I will pass the test or not since I'm not sure how hard they grade the written and oral sections, but I'll get the results in a couple of months. I really had no motive for taking the test other than the fact that it was something to study for and a way to improve my Spanish, but it will be nice to have some kind of evidence that I speak Spanish proficiently instead of having to depend on people taking my word for it. After all, it is never very convincing to write on a resume "fluent Spanish" since that means something different to different people.

A wise man once said to me, "It's not about what you know, it's about what you show" and I think that holds true for just about everything you work for in life, including language proficiency.