Tooth

So this one day I was eating some rice and beans. Tasty and full of protein. Munch munch munch... CRUNCH! And then a back molar of mine began to hurt. I was done eating the beans and rice as now there were clearly rocks in it and I had hurt myself. Excllent. I went back home and realized that I had probably cracked my tooth from the way it felt. Sensitive to heat and cold and dull ache when I ate too much on that side of my mouth. I then looked in a mirror and saw that it most definately looked cracked. So I did what any good Peace Corps Volunteer would do, I called the office.
Peace Corps only uses one dentist in all of Benin. His office is in Cotonou. When I called the Cotonou office I knew that I was going to have to go down to Cotonou. Teeth aren't the type that fix themselves. So I call up Peace Corps and make a reservation for a week later because that's the time that the dentist could see me. I have an uneventful trip down to Cotonou and get into the Peace Corps house in good time. I then go and see the dentist. Now to be honest seeing a dentist in a 3rd world country is a scary thing to think about. It's not that I don't trust the dentists here, I'm sure they are all intelligent individuals. It is the quality of education that I doubt. I also doubt the facility, when I can get parasites from drinking water out of the tap in the same city it doesn't bode well for dental hygiene. So the entire bus ride and the wait leading up to it I worried, I didn't want to go but I wanted this tooth business taken care of.
When I arrived in the dentists office it was the most up to date dentist facilities I have seen. Ever. I sit down in the chair, they poke my teeth and look around in my mouth he scratches his chin, says 'hm.....' then I get xrays done.
'So far so good' I think to myself But then he puts the xrays up on the digital screen. He scratches his chin and says 'hm....' I sit and wait, thinking 'seriously there is a problem, I can see where it's cracked lets fix it. You must have seen it, you've explored regions of my mouth that most ex-boyfriends don't know about. You can't have mised it. It doens't take a genius to see the problem.' He then says to me "I do not see a crack. But you do have a small cavity on the other side of your mouth." I sit in the chair and say "But I still have a problem, it's not right. What do you suggest I do about it." Ready for hte responce? Brace yourself, I'm not kidding he suggested....I change my toothpaste. I've been using the same toothpast for the last year and half do you think that it's going to help I know what happened and its' not my toothpaste! "But it's still a problem" I say and he says "Well there is no crack so I can't do anything." Once again Benin you have failed! Benin really had the chance to impress me, but fell flat on its' face instead. Benin... geez.
So then I go back to the Peace Corps office and talk to the doctor here and show him my tooth nobody EXCEPT the dentist has said to me 'Oh its' not a problem." Everyone that has looked at my tooth has made a face and said "Yes you should get that looked at" The next step now is to send a copy of my xrays which don't show any crack to the states. I have a copy myself and know that there is no crack showing as the tooth looks just the same. But also now that I know I have a cavity I'm going to get that fixed as well while I'm down here. So e-mailing the xrays is also a problem because the internet is down in the medical office (no fault of the med unit). So I'm stuck here until internet is fixed and this tooth has some sort of plan of a solution at least.
I'll update you all soon.