Serious Miscommunication (Not Mine This Time)

We took an afternoon recently to go and visit the Lima city center with CUSO. Javier was our primary tour guide, and did a wonderful job entertaining us with his good nature and history knowledge.

This picture was taken in San Martin Plaza, a famous central square downtown in Lima Central. There is a homework assignment below, but here’s a bonus question: What word was Christina saying while I counted down the photo?

Directly behind where we were standing for this picture, in the center of San Martin Plaza is this statue of the Madre Patria, the symbolic mother of the country of Peru. If you look closely at the picture I took, you might see what I did, that the Madre Patria appears to have a small bronze squirrel perched on her head.

Do I have something in my hair?

When you go around the side and use a little zoom, you get a clearer view of our squirrel, which is actually a Llama seated comfortably on top of Madre Patria’s head. One might think this is a bit peculiar, but Llama’s are very Peruvian despite the odd choice of seat for this particular bronzed example.

Not a squirrel…

This particular llama’s story only gets better. Apparently, the original documentation describing the monument that went to the craftsmen called for the ‘flame of freedom’ to be dancing across the Madre Patria’s brow, which sounds far more dignified than having a furry camelid perched there.

Now for your homework assignment:

1) Open a new Google search window.
2) Type ‘translate flame english to spanish’.
3) Hit enter (or click search).
4) Await percolating understanding.

Context can be a tricky thing. I can only hope that the poor craftsmen’s good friends gifted him with different shaped llama’s on every national day until he finally expired. I can’t help but wonder as to the shape of his tombstone….