birthday biopsy and a brownie

I'm still in Maputo but everything is going okay. I had my biopsy this morning and thank god I had Sarah, another volunteer, to wait with me or I would have gone crazy. First off, I forgot the documents for my biopsy at the PC office and it didn't open until 7:30 and I had to get to my appointment by 7:45. So we took a taxi for a brief stop at the office to pick up the papers and made our way to the central hospital. I enjoyed the part when the taxi got stopped by a cop of some kind and the driver and the cop argued about the validity of the drivers' documents. And then the driver palmed a hundred met note and tried to give it to the cop. I couldn't tell if he took it or not but he did let us continue on to the hospital after a little more arguing. I think I'm learning portuguese more because I understand arguments between native speakers better now. Or maybe I'm just inserting words that I want them to be saying to each other for my own entertainment.

At the hospital, I paid for the biopsy, got taken to another building on the other side of the hospital to wait for an hour and then back across the hospital grounds to get my biopsy done. In the biopsy room, the doctor asked where I was from and I said "America, er, the United States" and he happily proclaimed "you are close to my country then, Cuba." I really wanted to ask him what he thought about Castro stepping down but it didn't seem like the right time to chitchat on international affairs. The Cuban doctor felt at my old abcess that has deteriorated to a smaller bump and asked what it was. I was SO nervous he was going to biopsy my growth and not my thyroid. Sarah, who is more fluent in portuguese, was like "no, that's an abcess." He then did two fine needle aspiration biopsies on my thyroid so they can check if the nodules on my thyroid are cancerous. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. They did another ultrasound of my neck region - this time my thyroid - to find out where to insert the needle, and Sarah got to watch it all, proclaiming "your thyroid looks like the moon." The doctor said I should get the results on Friday but we'll see if that happens or not.

Afterward, we walked to the hotel and watched an episode of Family Guy and then headed to Mundo's for an awesome birthday lunch of pizza for me, greek salad for her and brownies for dessert. It was blissful. And now, free high speed internet at the peace corps office with the movie, Brave New World (or as Sarah calls it, "Pocahantas") on the movie channel in the PCV room. I still don't know how long I'll be in Maputo for.