The Great Bowman
Last weekend, while visiting Mar del Plata, I took a tour of Sierra de los Padres, and on the way the van of tourists stopped at a shrine to the Virgin Mary.
“This,” the translator explained as we approached the shrine, “is the virgin of the diapers. People come here and leave diapers in front of the shrine.”
It was an understandable mistake: pañal=diaper, pañuelo=handkerchief. The poor translator was a dude from California who wanted to be asleep, not translating information for a van full of his friends and relatives (and me). His wedding to an Argentine had been scheduled for the previous day, and his guests had all flown down for the occasion, but Tom Ridge would have none of it. The Department of Homeland Security, which is in the process of taking responsibility for weddings of US citizens to foreigners, told him that the necessary paperwork will now take six months instead of two. Or maybe more. And I guess he can't have the wedding until the Department of Homeland Security approves it, although why that is I'm still not quite sure.
Lacking a wedding to attend, the wedding guests had decided to take a tour of the Sierra de los Padres, but when they met their guide it turned out that he spoke no English, and they spoke no Spanish. Thus, they rousted the non-married Californian out of bed and asked him to translate.
Once I came to understand the situation (the basics, at least), I felt bad that I hadn’t offered to serve as translator for the group, sparing the poor man the suffering – which was not lessened by the fact he had stayed out partying until 6:30 am the night before. And wouldn’t the group have been happy to have THE GREAT BOWMAN translate for them?
To explain: I picked up a copy of the Herald Thursday to check on an article I’d written (I work at the Herald these days), and found that I hadn’t written it. Instead, thanks to a typo on somebody's part, it was written by a mysterious character: Jeremy Bowman.
And I thought it was bad when my first article in the Herald had a small error! (It said Argentina where it should have said Argentine.)
For a while I enjoyed having an alter ego, deciding that the acclaimed yet reclusive BOWMAN wore a leather jacket and rode a Ducati, cruising around Mar del Plata unfazed by the startling cold.
Unfortunately, this fantasy fell apart yesterday when, back in Buenos Aires, I walked into work at the paper and found somebody sitting in my seat, doing my job. It turned out this person was none other than Jeremy Bowman, the new intern. Suddently it was all too clear: whoever prepared my article for publication must have confused the two Jeremies. But I digress...
“Sierra de los Padres,” the translator explained, “means mountain of the parents.” As we drove out to the site, the tour-guide took pains to point out when we were going uphill. He must have feared we would complain, on arrival, that we hadn’t ascended at all:
Along the way, I chatted with the translator, learning that he planned to return to the US to open an empanada shop. In addition to his wife, he hoped to bring an empanada chef back to California, but was not sure that he could surmount the relevant immigration laws.
He also explained that his wife-to-be spoke no English. They met one week after he arrived in Buenos Aires, when he spoke almost no Spanish.
previously there was danger
afterwards you have Cheapskate heaven
If I can figure out how to paraphrase your story briefly, you may be the next funniest thing of the week.
Although I'm pleased that you chose for your alter ego an elusive man who wears leather and drives a Ducati. I never thought of anything so clever back when I was signing letters "David Sclothe." The only elaboration I did for that guy was to say, "Oh, um, I'm sorry, I don't know why anyone would have put you through to me. You say Mr. Sclothe sent you a letter? Well, he must be around here somewhere, but I gotta confess that I can't transfer calls within the department. Yeah, these corporations and their phone systems." [submitted on 07 Mar 03]
There really is a Virgin of the Handkerchiefs (some readers were confused about this), who apparently helped an infertile couple conceive a child many decades ago. The happy couple left handkerchiefs as thanks, starting a tradition. [submitted on 15 Mar 03]