Mexico Unveils Swine Flu Statue
It’s finally here, everyone! The world’s first (and, I’m going to take a big journalistic leap into the future here, only) swine flu statue. In effigy is young Edgar Hernandez, aka “Patient Zero,” the boy from La Gloria, Veracruz, who was one of the first in Mexico to get the A/H1N1 virus. The governor of Veracruz decided to memorialize him after swine flu became the most exciting tourist attraction in La Gloria’s history.
The photo shows little bronze Edgar holding a frog in his right hand. Water pours from the frog’s mouth, somehow representing the virus that combines flu genes found in pigs and birds. “The Boy from La Gloria” is modeled after the famous peeing boy statue the Mannekin-Pis in Belgium. Governor Fidel Herrera Beltran explained the connection: “Edgar Hernandez is healthier than ever, and even when he goes to the bathroom people follow him because they want to cure themselves [with his urine].”
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Wow … weird, surreal and I have to say macabre too. I’m reading Gabriel García Márquez’s biography right now, and I know it’s cliché but Patient Zero’s statue has Macondo written all over it.
I’m adding this to my list of “places I must see before I die” immediately.
It’s like something from an Alejandro Jodorowsky film.
Everyone knows that frogs first gave the flu to pigs because they pal around together in the mud. What does that mean people are curing themselves with Edgar’s urine? Drinking it? Wiping all over their bodies? Feeding it to their pigs?
Good question, I’m not really sure. The sad thing is that the father says the attention has turned his family into a laughingstock, and he’s desperate for work. Maybe the statue is just weird enough that it will bring tourists to La Gloria and create some jobs. They’ve been paving roads and fixing up parks there apparently…
In response to another comment. See in context »Needless to say that the real Manneke Pis from Brussels has never cured anything but the turnover of the restaurantowners in the neighbourhood. As long as he keeps pissing, tourists will see the menus that are placed right in front of him. Mussels anyone?
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