El Graduado
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The new signposts are now up in the plaza. It looks like they used Google translate to make the English and Mayan translations. Puerta Maya Pier is now "Maya Dock Door." Muelle Punta Langosta is now "Dock Cape Langosta." Punta Sur Park is now "Cape South Park." The golf course (club de golf) is now "Golf Club." Panteon Municipal becomes “Municipal Pantheon” (I guess that’s where the municipality worships their many gods!).
The Mayan translations are just as bad: Panteon Municipal (which should be “Municipal Cemetery” in English) was translated to the Mayan equivalent of “Buried Dead” on the signposts, because there is no Mayan word for cemetery. The golf course (which is Club de Golf in Spanish) was translated as something like “meeting road” (molah=meeting or gathering, yil=road or path), since there is no Mayan word for golf course, either. The other Mayan translations are not any better, but I seriously doubt any monolingual Maya will be trying to read them anyway.
The plaza also has new tiles installed for the benefit of the blind. These grooved tiles run in (more or less) straight lines down the pedestrian pathways that lead to the plaza, as well as passing around the plaza. I guess they fulfill some kind of new requirement in some new manual of public works, but the way they were installed gives me pause. I envision a blind person walking along the path, feeling the parallel ridges beneath his feet, swinging his cane back and forth, and feeling pretty safe. They even placed some special tiles at points along the path where the blind person should stop (like when they come to a curb), but there are a couple of these that just shunt them off to a dead-end for no discernable reason:
Others have a metal post in the way:
At least the post has a braille sign on it so you know what you ran into!
The Mayan translations are just as bad: Panteon Municipal (which should be “Municipal Cemetery” in English) was translated to the Mayan equivalent of “Buried Dead” on the signposts, because there is no Mayan word for cemetery. The golf course (which is Club de Golf in Spanish) was translated as something like “meeting road” (molah=meeting or gathering, yil=road or path), since there is no Mayan word for golf course, either. The other Mayan translations are not any better, but I seriously doubt any monolingual Maya will be trying to read them anyway.
The plaza also has new tiles installed for the benefit of the blind. These grooved tiles run in (more or less) straight lines down the pedestrian pathways that lead to the plaza, as well as passing around the plaza. I guess they fulfill some kind of new requirement in some new manual of public works, but the way they were installed gives me pause. I envision a blind person walking along the path, feeling the parallel ridges beneath his feet, swinging his cane back and forth, and feeling pretty safe. They even placed some special tiles at points along the path where the blind person should stop (like when they come to a curb), but there are a couple of these that just shunt them off to a dead-end for no discernable reason:
Others have a metal post in the way:
At least the post has a braille sign on it so you know what you ran into!
