We were warned by returners that the first week out in the Alps was going to be difficult but none of us were prepared for the training, early mornings, late nights, limitless alcohol and of course living away from home with a bunch of strangers! Most people muddle through this ok; evening situations are lubricated by the free vino and day time chats over a toilet bowl worked a treat to create friendships!. This would have been manageable if it wasn’t for what happened on the first morning.
I woke up at 7 ready for a hard day’s work and feeling keen, however I was also feeling a bit odd … a bit lobsided perhaps. I thought nothing of it and kept on with my routine, it wasn’t until the make-up part of the morning with a mirror that I noticed something was wrong. The whole side of my face around my jaw and ear had swelled up into a red, puffy, lumpy mess. I looked like a mumps victim! I was now officially the Elephant-man of the valley and we hadn’t even been there for a full 24 hours. Good start. I slunk into breakfast hiding behind my hair and tried not to show the people I hadn’t even known for a full day that I looked like a gargoyle. I sensed that i wouldn’t win any friends, just maybe a few disgusted looks and an admission into a freak show. Each day for breakfast we have a selection of cereals that all look and taste like rabbit food and are just as difficult to chew, while desperately trying to masticate my breakfast I noticed my face aching and swelling even more and so I was fairly certain that the problem was somewhere in my jaw. My medical knowledge being limited to “pills and a glass of white” meant that self diagnosis was not an option so I took a few ibuprofen and hoped it would just blow over.
It didn’t. It just got worse, a lot worse. When you meet new people who you are going to be living and working with for the next 6 months you want to give a good first impression. I can tell you now that a girl who keeps whinging about pain and whose head looks like a balloon does not give a fantastic impression. After a few days ibuprofen wasn’t working and eating was proving difficult so a visit to the doctor was in order.
If you have never been in a resort before it opens to punters let me explain what its like - everything is shut. The town runs on a skeleton service of 1 bar, a small doctors and a post office. Whereas during the season there would be several English doctors and town full of pubs and clubs and lots of places to shop. Since this was the case I had to visit the French doctor, after being turned away from the pharmacy (for being too repulsively ill I suppose?).
I can’t speak any French at all, I covered the basics at GCSE and then never looked back. I’m embarrassed to be one of those English people that are completely ignorant to other languages but seriously, if I tried to speak their language the natives would probably deport me for word-murder! I entered the surgery close to closing time so I received dirty looks from receptionists who obviously wanted an early exit, these looks of contempt swiftly changed to disgust and worry when they saw my face and listened to me trying to explain that I needed to see a doctor urgently in grunts and hand gestures. After 5 minutes of me making a very “English” knob of myself, the most handsome doctor came into reception. He was a typical tall dark man with a French accent and so I tried my best flirty and mysterious smile……….. he recoiled. The situation got worse when he told me “I talk small English” and since I talk “small” French I knew we were in for a long haul. First we had to enter in my details into his computer, a simple task you might think, but noo, it was an ordeal in itself and involved me leaning over his desk to type my name and birthday when I got frustrated with the language difficulties.
Imagine you’re a helpful and goodlooking French doctor and into your surgery lumbers a swollen sweaty girl with a red face and a distinct smell of fried food (I’d been in the kitchens all day) and then imagine her leering over the desk at you in an attempt to grab your keyboard and type things. Now you can sympathise with the poor man and truly place yourself in the awkward situation.
Next he politely asked me what was wrong (wasn’t it bloody obvious??!) and I gestured to the affected area and it was his turn to make mad hand signals. He asked questions I was expecting eg. is it a problem with your teeth/ear/gums, too much alcohol etc but he also asked some surprising questions: “do you swell because you punched in face?” My answer was a bewildered “errr….no” but now I was wondering if I looked like the sort of girl that engaged in barfights? Then he asked if I was pregnant and the interchange went something like this;
“you maybe pregnant?”
“er… what does that have to do with anything?”
“you pregnant?”
“no”
“you sure?”
“yes”
“you definitely sure you not pregnant?”
“yes I am really really sure!”
Having to go through the humiliating questioning and his reticence to believe me made me wonder why he was so adamant? I know they say chalet girls put on weight but it had only been 4 days! It was very very awkward. After that he had me up on the bed to look at my face more closely and it was all going smoothly until he suddenly jumps in the air and shouts “you wait, no move” and then runs out of the room. I didn’t know what to think, I just sat on the bed dripping slushy snow everywhere and feeling abandoned but he shortly returned with latex gloves which he snapped on and then turned to me with his most charming smile and uttered the classic line;
“I put my fingers in your mouf?”
And that was the moment I underwent the single most awkward moment of my trip so far. I lay prone on the bed with my “mouf” wide open, breathing garlic breath at him while he had both hands in my mouth pushing around. To use an overused phrase – I wish the ground had swallowed me up! Shortly after that harrowing experience he managed to work out I had an infection in my jaw (at least that’s what I think he said) and the prescription was settled no problem.
A word for the more cautious and awkward among you, if you are in a foreign land with a painful yet not life threatening illness, wait for the English doctor. You won’t have a funny story at the end of the experience but you will still have your dignity intact!
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