Malian Dental Cleaning

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Since I got my assignment in Burkina last Friday, I spent Monday and Tuesday in Bamako trying to get medical clearance to transfer. I had to get a physical, some shots, a dental checkup, and lab work to test me for everything under the sun. Being one of thirty or so volunteers doing all of this through one doctor, I spent most of my time waiting around.

The dental cleaning was a particularly interesting experience. We were referred to a Lebanese dentist working in Bamako, who was surprised to see ten of us arrive at his office needing checkups immediately. He seemed a little frazzled, overwhelmed, and he said he’d be with us as soon as he could. In the meantime we sat in the waiting room reading old issues of French Cosmo and admiring a painting on the wall portraying a fierce naked woman strangling a bald eagle.

Since I was so rushed to get to through my medical clearance, I was first to go when the doctor was ready. A Lebanese-or-something nurse rushed me into a chair, threw a paper bib around my neck, and told me to rinse my mouth with a cup of lukewarm pink stuff next to me. The doctor rushed around the office muttering things and then handed me a suction straw and dove in to cleaning my teeth with a high-pressure water sprayer. He would mumble things in French, English, or another language, never turning his head or gesturing to indicate to whom we was speaking. It took me a while to catch on that he was telling me not to move as he pulled the corners of my mouth back so far that I had to turn my head. When he was done with the water sprayer, he rushed around a little more and muttered some more things before approaching me with some white stuff. I heard “this is toothpaste” not a millisecond before it was slapped on to my mouth, mostly missing my teeth and coating my upper lip. He went on to use the spinny electric toothbrush at such a high speed that toothpaste shot up into the air in all directions, splattering all over my face and in my hair. He didn’t seem to mind this, just finished his work and told me to rinse my mouth with more warm pink stuff. I leaned back and a hand came from behind me and dragged a wet towel across my face. Then, to show off fancy technology, a small camera on a stick was connected to a monitor and then shoved in my mouth. This provided a shaky, Blair-Witch-like view of what may have been my teeth for two seconds before the doctor said, “Ok, good cleaning, eh?” and shoved me out of the chair and out of his office.

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