31 Paparazzi and Papagayo
In an American hospital, I would have been just another patient. Here, in a Peruvian hospital I was somewhere between a novelty and a celebrity.
I had no shortage of nurses coming by at all hours of the day. They often flocked into my room in groups, one scheduled nurse accompanied by 4-6 others curious to see this gringo first-hand. (It later dawned on me that this might in part have been due to the fact that I was not wearing a wedding band, which had been removed during my initial tests.)
One particularly amusing conversation, which I became known for, involved me trying to figure out the local term for pee-can! For anyone who’s ever been bedridden, you know that a pee-can is an essential item.
I learned that the local bedpan for men is a metal canister called a papagayo, or “parrot”. Why parrot? The design of this indispensable container has a beak protruding from one side at the top, the balance of the parrot shaped by a slice out of the bottom, ingeniously designed to sit at an angle.
I had no shortage of nurses coming by at all hours of the day. They often flocked into my room in groups, one scheduled nurse accompanied by 4-6 others curious to see this gringo first-hand. (It later dawned on me that this might in part have been due to the fact that I was not wearing a wedding band, which had been removed during my initial tests.)
One particularly amusing conversation, which I became known for, involved me trying to figure out the local term for pee-can! For anyone who’s ever been bedridden, you know that a pee-can is an essential item.
I learned that the local bedpan for men is a metal canister called a papagayo, or “parrot”. Why parrot? The design of this indispensable container has a beak protruding from one side at the top, the balance of the parrot shaped by a slice out of the bottom, ingeniously designed to sit at an angle.
Labels: broken leg;
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