Last Saturday Evie and I went to Miraflores, a suburb on the ocean. It really is a nice part of Lima. Here's the photo. However, this post isn't about Miraflores or the ocean. It's about what you cannot see in the background because my head is in the way.
This picture is from the same place (and isn't Evie's favorite, but again the post isn't about her either). If you look about one third of the way from top of her head towards the right edge of photo you can barely see Lima's famous (or infamous ) Cristo del Pacífico (the Christ of the Pacific) statue. Actually, to see it you really need to download the photo and zoom in, but don't worry about that because here are some pictures of it.
It is a 120-foot structure featuring a white statue of Jesus that is 72 feet tall made of fiberglass built in 2011. It has an awkward setting. It is not on the highest point of the hill, but down below a summit covered with unsightly cell phone towers.
Here's another view looking out towards Miraflores where we were. It's really something of a knock off of the more famous Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
It is lit with colored lights at night which to some makes it more grotesque than inspiring.
It was intended as a gift to the country by former president Alan Garcia just as he was leaving office. Many viewed it as a vanity project by an unpopular president trying to create a legacy. One newspaper observed that it was "A monument as great as his humility."
Nonetheless, Garcia personally helped fund the cost of the statue but only to the tune of around 100,000 Peruvian soles (about $30,000). He said it would "bless and protect Lima." However, it cost over a million dollars and the rest was funded by a donation from Odebrecht, a large Brazilian construction company that has built major projects throughout the South America. The statute received decidedly mixed reviews among Peruvians. Some local residents have been disappointed that it hasn't attracted as much tourist traffic and spending as they had hoped.
Nonetheless, Garcia personally helped fund the cost of the statue but only to the tune of around 100,000 Peruvian soles (about $30,000). He said it would "bless and protect Lima." However, it cost over a million dollars and the rest was funded by a donation from Odebrecht, a large Brazilian construction company that has built major projects throughout the South America. The statute received decidedly mixed reviews among Peruvians. Some local residents have been disappointed that it hasn't attracted as much tourist traffic and spending as they had hoped.
Turns out the donation for the statute wasn't the only donations Odebrecht had been making. Late last year Odebrecht settled with the United States, Brazil and Switzerland for up to $4.5 billion under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for an elaborate bribe scheme involving $800 million in payoffs in exchange for lucrative contracts, including contracts with Peru during the Garcia administration. Here are links to a stories in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. You may want to check out which ever source you're most comfortable with or be adventuresome and check out both.
Odebrecht's business model was to bride government officials to secure contracts for large infrastructure projects, which tended to be completed late, if at all, and with huge cost overruns. Odebrecth made lots of money, the politicians got legacy building projects they could brag about, as well as a lot of money personally, and their country and its people were saddled with the financial burden of overpriced projects that never seem to get done. Corruption, at all levels, is an insidious and disabling disease in so many South American countries.
So here we have a statute, of all persons, of Jesus Christ, that has come to be a symbol, not of Him or His gospel, but of vanity, greed and corruption. How sad.
I was thinking about this last Sunday night, which happened to be Father's Day, when I was talking with Janell and another monument came to mind.
It is not large or on a majestic setting, but is a simple and headstone in a cemetery west of Nampa on a small rise overlooking the beautiful farmland of Canyon County. I know those people very well and their faith in Christ and love and devotion to each other. To me their lives, recorded with this simple headstone, are a monument to what the Cristo del Pacífico statue should have represented, but does not.
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