Faith In Robots

The house where we’re living has been a whirlwind of cooking and cleaning lately because the youngest daughter is about to have her First Communion on Sunday (“the third most important event in any Argentine’s life,” Emily’s Spanish teacher assured her). In a bid to escape the bustle, we decided to pay a visit to one of the Buenos Aires sites we’ve been most curious about seeing: Tierra Santa, billed as the world’s first religious theme park.

Getting to Tierra Santa is not quite as difficult as the Hajj, but it’s not like it’s terribly easy, either. We had to walk a couple miles, catch a bus, and walk a couple miles more. It was largely for this reason that we didn’t simply turn right back around when the headscarf-and-sandal wearing ticket taker informed us that it would cost us 15 pesos each to see inside. We grouchily agreed.

Tierra Santa boasts life-sized recreations of key Biblical stories, the biggest Nativity scene in the world, an “awe-inspiring” 18-meter effigy of Jesus, and a recreation of the Last Supper that “becomes a moment of spiritual devotion for all the visitors of the park”. But, in fact, Tierra Santa is kind of a disappointment. Yes, there are kitsch pleasures to behold around every corner: an inexplicable statue of Gandhi that neglects to make mention of his religion, a 2000-year-old kiosk selling candy and rolls of film, a gift tent that carries not only “Tierra Santa: El Video” but “Tierra Santa: El Video Segundo Edition”, and much more. But after awhile, all of the life-sized plaster figures begin to run together, and one starts to have trouble making sense of Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mary, the hundreds of sheep, and the thousands of hedonistic Romans.

After an hour of walking around under the blistering desert sun and taking in animatronic renderings of the Nativity and the Last Supper (imagine people crossing themselves at Chucky Cheese––it’s almost that weird), we decided to split. Across the street we sat on a park bench and looked out across the River Platte. I even turned the other cheek when a dog came over and bit my shoe, so maybe I learned a little something after all. -NSH