So, I have this running injury that is flaring up. Thinking it would be bad if I continue to let it get worse, I headed to the doctor. This might not have been the best use of my time.
After paying to see the doctor, I was sent to the waiting room across a dusty parking lot. The secretary in the waiting room seemed to be hiding, but after walking through a windy hallway, I found her. She then gave me a tongue depressor with the doctor's name and a number... depressingly number 28. Then an abrupt man in a Hawaiian print shirt rushes me to a locked room, quizzes me about my age in french and english and then he sends me to wait. Ironically, the doctors have not even arrived, so my number is even more depressing as they are on zero.
The waiting room is full of people who have broken limbs and who are talking in their normal Somali tone (which to most Americans is just above a yell). I sit down to read my book and a student from the university approaches me and asks if I am a friend of Hannah, his teacher. "Why yes, she is my roommate", I respond. He then precedes to sit next to me and tell me that Djiboutians want to marry American wives, so they can live in America.
The doctors finally arrive, all the people storm the doorway hoping to be picked next. Which is hilarious because they each have a number. They are yelling and pushing and there is even a police man there to keep the crowd under control.
It would seem that "patiently waiting one's turn" is not an ingrained cultural motto.
After waiting three hours, I get my turn. I push my way through the crowd that is still there (even though 28 people have already had their turn)and sit in front of a nice doctor. Who I see for five minutes and he sends me off to get an x-ray. I sit in a new waiting room with far less people and then wait for my x-ray.
By the time the x-ray is over, the doctor has already gone home. (I'm pretty sure if I was him I would have tried to escape all the yelling people, too).
So I leave, less 9,000 franc and four hours of my life, without a diagnosis, with two x-rays in hand and the hope to return in a week when the doctor comes back. Needless to say I was a little dejected and all I wanted was to sleep or buy some ear muffs.
