So I thought that I should get my teeth cleaned since I haven't done that in almost 6 months. I found the dentist's office without difficulty, but was surprised that the walled-off garage-like door was closed with a lock on it. (All stores, buildings, shops, houses have practically a fortress-like security fence, wall, gate, enclosure with multiple locks on them to keep out thieves.) Before I could get my cell phone out of my bra (which is where I have kept my phone since I arrived, as instructed, to prevent a thief from taking it) a woman arrived with a key to unlock the lock the door and roll it up to allow entry. She was the dentist. Of course there is no dental hygienist. I never saw her wash her hands, but she did put on surgical gloves. She said something to the effect that she had never seen as beautiful teeth as mine, which I will pass on to Dr. Kleederman, my prosthodontist at home. Since my teeth are so beautiful and I do such a good job maintaining them, I only needed a brief cleaning! I believe that I was in the dental chair for a maximum of 20 minutes. (My appointment was at 10:00 AM & I was home by 10:45 AM, which included time to walk to the bus stop, take the bus, & walk home.) The cleaning cost $25. One of the best parts of the appointment was that the music that was playing on the radio included my favorite Latino singer, Marco Antonio Solis!
Walking to the bus stop after the limpieza (cleaning), hit home that I did not get my teeth cleaned in the Berkshires. The brief walk was down a street that I had not previously walked on, so I took note of my surroundings more than usual. There were dozens of vendors calling out to try to sell all kinds of fruits and vegetables and shrimp and fish, which were not over ice as would be the case at home. Very colorful.
Both the bus ride to and from the dentist appointment were also noteworthy. It is not uncommon for someone to get on the buses to try to sell whatever wares s/he has. They typically announce to all the passengers what they are selling, will distribute whatever it is to anyone and everyone who will take the item and then they give a dissertation on why the passengers should buy the item. If you don't want to buy the item, you just give it back to the vendor. I do believe that I understood what the vendors on each bus going & coming to the dentist were saying. The first one was selling, what looking like brownies, which were wrapped in plastic. He said that if you ate 3 brownies you would be able to speak English and if you ate 4 you would be able to speak French. I don't know why you need more for French. I didn't buy any brownies because I already know how to speak English and I don't need to work on my rusty French. Perhaps if he had Spanish-speaking brownies I would have bought some. On the bus ride back home the vendor was selling a little trinket that looked like something someone might hang as a Christmas tree ornament. What I understood from this vendor's speech was that this trinket helps with alcohol and drug addiction. Since I have neither, I did not buy this trinket.
An interesting morning!!
One more unrelated piece of information is that I recently figured out how to listen to WAMC (NPR for those outside of the Berkshires reading this) on my computer. I have decided that I don't have to struggle to listen in Spanish to the limited local news on the t.v. in my room. Listening to WAMC is great! Although I only have time for snippets of information, I can now feed my NPR addiction & have a better idea what's going on in the Berkshires & the world. Maybe I'll pass that on during the upcoming WAMC fund drive!
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