Bruja in Brief
In our house, we do “Sana, sana, colita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana,” every time someone gets hurt.
So we were visiting friends in another state when my son bumped his head and came running over to me to make it better. I kissed the top of his head and whispered the words into his hair.
“What? What language is that? What’s that you’re saying?” asked one of our friend’s elderly relatives.
I explained it was Spanish, and that it was just a traditional thing to say when a little one got hurt.
But that wasn’t enough. ”Translate it,” she ordered.
I hate it when people ask me to translate.
“It means ‘Heal, heal, little tail of the frog, if you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow,’” I sighed.
“Magic words!” my daughter added.
“TAIL OF THE FROG?” the old woman gasped. And her eyes narrowed on me and said only one thing, which does not require translation: “Bruja!”
*photo by PIKAPLE
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I think my abuelita use to say that to me.
I think it’s sweet.
Don’t listen to the bruja who called you a bruja.
Ja ja ja! I never thought about it that way. My mom always siad that to us and I want to say it to my children. It’s cute. If you think about it, it might be true, deep inside us latinos have these magical creencias and the word “bruja” is not bad, it’s just that we are all used to think it’s bad. Oh well! It is funny when it gets translated!
I hate when people ask me to translate things like that into English. It really does not have the same effect and it just makes us seem weird. =/
Hilarious! I grew up with that saying (and many others.)
So how is it this old lady knew the word “Bruja,” but didn’t understand the words to “Sana, sana?”
Bah! Que vieja!