The morning was wet but by late afternoon the sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly, although there were white puffy clouds piled untidily on the horizon, promising more rain. Ilsa and I took a taxi down the road between the Chellah and the old city walls, on our way to try and find a doctor.
This is the road we were traveling along. This picture was taken in September; it’s greener now after all the rain.
I took this picture through a taxi windshield.
On Saturday, I noticed a rash on Ilsa’s neck. I showed it to Jenny, our English friend who happened to be over. “Oh I hope it’s not that thing we had once,” she said, and described a tiny but tenacious bug, not lice but similar. “We spent so much money on this chemical treatment, and washed everything multiple times in hot water,” she told me, “but the only thing that really worked was excessive bathing in really hot water. It took weeks and weeks to get rid of it, and it was terribly contagious.” Great.
With much trepidation, I checked Ilsa’s neck every day, but the rash grew worse. Wednesday was the obvious day to go to the doctor since she finishes school at noon. After lunch, I rang the doctor, only to be informed she would not be in until next Monday.
I asked another friend if she knew of a good doctor. She did, she said, and gave me an approximate description of his location (“There are two furniture stores facing each other behind the Gas Company. Next to the cheaper one you will see a flight of stairs…“) but not his name. I wasn’t sure which furniture store had cheaper furniture but only one had a sign for a pediatrician outside the stairs. Interestingly enough, upstairs from the other furniture store was a dentist and an oncologist. Apparently, working above furniture is a good thing for the medical profession. Who knew? And do any of the medical professionals in your life work above furniture stores? I’m just wondering how wide-spread this is.
We walked in and saw a spacious waiting room with quite a few people in it, which made me nervous. We asked how long, and were assured only ½ an hour to wait. (We hadn’t made an appointment, obviously, not knowing the name or exact location) There were no magazines, and both Ilsa and I, voracious and insatiable readers as we are, had come out without reading material. It was dire. We were reduced to watching an Arabic soap opera about a guy who had just joined the army (we saw him get his curls shorn) and his wife? I assume, living at home with a new baby and two grandmothers and several aunts, all of whom worked together to change the diapers. I couldn’t figure out who the middle-aged woman wandering pensively by the canal and feeding the fish was, while the sad music sobbed in the background, but I really liked her shirt.
We waited about 45 minutes before being shown back to a room with a bed on one side and a large modern desk and computer taking up most of the room. The nurses all wore black head scarves, white lab coats, and the scuffed low-heeled white shoes of nurses everywhere. Ilsa was duly weighed and measured and then told to lie down; then we waited another 20 minutes for the doctor. Typical.
The doctor’s visit was fine. Turns out he has a boy at Ilsa’s school, same grade but different classes so they don’t know each other (there are six Grade 6 classes; not surprising). He pronounced the rash to be an allergic reaction to a really fun purse we got her for Christmas in the medina; local craftsmanship and great one-of-a-kind work, but apparently using harsh dyes for that darling green strap.
don‘t you love the interior pockets?
I showed him another spot on her arm, and he pronounced it a fungus. In French, they use the same word as ‘mushroom,’ champignon, which really amused me. I’ve been calling her my little mushroom ever since, which she loves. No really! What 11 year old girl wouldn’t?
22 comments
January 9, 2009 at 6:49 pm
All Rileyed Up
One, very cool purse. Bummer about the dye.
Two, that is one *clean* windshield.
Three, I love the description of where the doctor’s office was. I don’t know of any around here located upstairs/adjacent to a furniture store, but who knows, maybe these guys are trendsetters.
January 9, 2009 at 8:19 pm
planetnomad
You know, now that I think about it, I probably took that picture out the window as we were turning. Because that is far too clean for any windshield, especially a taxi windshield!
January 9, 2009 at 9:17 pm
LIB
Bummer about the purse! That IS really cute.
I have a mushroom story from when I was that age~~Unbeknownst to me in the bottom of my bedroom closet, there was a leak in the pipes. When we first realized there was a problem was one day when I noticed mushrooms growing on my closet floor! Salad, anyone?:)
January 10, 2009 at 12:38 am
Marianna
Glad to hear the rash was not the nasty bug!!
I’ve seen that soap!! My MIL watches it…Of course, I didn’t understand a word, but hey…
Marianna
January 10, 2009 at 2:18 am
Kim
Excellent news that the rash isn’t some awful contagious disease. Any chance you can switch out the purse strap for a dermatologically safe one? It’s too cute to do away with altogether.
January 10, 2009 at 10:20 am
Robin
Bummer about the purse, it was cute.
They use the word for mushroom here too. Freaked me out a bit at first I must admit.
January 10, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Debbie
Ditto all the comments on the purse. Tell Donn he can bring it down here when he comes to pick up your furniture and I’ll gladly “take care” of it for Ilsa!
January 10, 2009 at 4:16 pm
jolyn
Gee, I guess you’ll have to use the purse now? Too cute to go to waste, but at least the diagnosis is not contagious.
January 11, 2009 at 12:40 am
Shalee
Well, thank you God for the small things; that includes the purse (which is adorable despite the bad dye), the easy fix for the rash, and the mushroom Ilsa.
January 11, 2009 at 9:23 am
ladyfi
What an adorable purse – shame that she can’t use it anymore.
Thank goodness she only has an allergy and fungus!!…
January 11, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Nan
Can you replace the strap with a ribbon or something? And I bet if you rub clear shoe polish or something into the rest of the purse it might cover up the dye and make it safer?
Cuz that is trooooly a cute purse.
January 11, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Tonggu Momma
Thank goodness! As I was reading, I kept thinking, “please, not scabies. please, not scabies.” Because your friend’s description sounded a lot like scabies. Cute purse, though.
January 12, 2009 at 8:48 am
Steph
HEY, OUR pediatrician is also located above a furniture store too..actually, above a shopping mall strip here in Beirut! We have one-stop shopping. I can buy some nice black boots, get some meds at the pharmacy, go to the ATM, and buy some furniture, AND see our pediatrician at the same time! See, life in the Arab world isn’t necessarily harder…
January 12, 2009 at 9:56 am
Linda
My doctor is above a shop selling fish. I had champignons as well but in another place, if you know what I mean. Later, when suffering from the same malady, I kept telling the pharmacist that I needed a supository but blank looks were all I got. What I needed was an ovule. The little things can get to you.
January 12, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Jeanne A
Maybe you could wrap a ribbon or something around the strap.
Glad there is an easy solution to the rash.
WE’ve got the upper respiratory thing going on at out house. Not fun in our sub-freezing, snowy conditions.
January 12, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Carrie
I have to say, the Dr. must have been pretty smart to figure out it was the purse-strap, and not send you home to begin a series of fruitless medical treatments. How did he figure it out? Did Ilsa have the purse with her?
It is a lovely purse, too! I hope you can find an alternative strap for it.
January 12, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Michelle Mitchell
Okay that bug comment? That would have sent me squealing at first I think.
Hope that it all goes away quickly–and as usual love the pictures.
January 12, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Pieces
That may be the cutest purse ever! I’m so glad that her rash wasn’t that bug–thingie. I love your comments about the soap opera. And those photos are gorgeous.
January 12, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Mary Witzl
I love your description of the soap opera! I wonder if any of the doctor’s other patients had suffered from an allergy to that dye?
Our pediatrician worked upstairs from a plant nursery. It was fun walking past the geraniums and nasturtiums; it made that awful smell of rubbing alcohol less worrying.
January 12, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Caffienated Cowgirl
How absolutely bizarre…
But I love the new nickname 🙂
January 14, 2009 at 2:08 am
suburbancorrespondent
Hooray! No parasites! I would have been shouting with joy.
January 15, 2009 at 9:17 am
LG
Reminds me of the time Jo broke her glasses in Gabon… we were most fortunately in the capital. The directions for the opthamologist were something like your doctor’s office, and appointments were: come at 4, which means, come at least at 3, which we did, to find ten people already there, snaking down the spiral staircase. And by 4, there were maybe 40 of us. It was HOT, and we all found spots on the stairs, but at 3:30, a smart looking receptionist in her tight Wax African print skirt and starched top, with huge shoulder pads arrived and unlocked the “door” and instantly, chaos rearranged itself into a perfectly ordered queue, as each person reassumed his or her place in line. And then marched in the door, being handed a number as they entered, then a seat on the balcony where we could watch an African soap opera and wait and wait and wait and wait. But the doctor was good, the prescription worked for Jo, even down to the astigmatism.
But then we had to find the optician and that was a stretch for my French. how to order this or that, words for deposits and order from France and this thing and that. But they came and my wallet was at least $500 lighter, but Jo could see…. And there we had yet another chapter for our book