We sailed the New River running through the jungles of Belize, looking for Lamanai pyramids. The crocodiles were removed splashing our way, cormorants drying their wings in the sun and lizards were camouflaged in the undergrowth. What none of us expected to find here was the very Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.
At a bend in the river appeared. Behind them, a horse tied to a nineteenth century carriage. He got into a boat tiny, just a piece of wood with a prehistoric engine. And so up the river in silence. Actually there were three. They wore plaid shirt, Carpenter breeches and a straw hat. They were blond and looked at us with curious eyes of crystal. We look for the moment that lasts the cultural collision, while jumping for the first time we stood in front of the Mennonites.
We look for the moment that lasts the cultural collision, while jumping for the first time we stood in front of the Mennonites.
Menno Simons was a Dutch priest who finished sixteenth century dissociated from the Catholic Church hierarchy marked by the institution. Simons joined the Anabaptist pacifist who believed in personal freedom of the believer and therefore considered more just make adult baptism. That was in 1536 and as human beings like so much identify with a group, supporters of this reform became known Mennonites and began to refine their creeds. At some point they decided that actually, the most consistent being a Christian was away from other Christians and that it took the first Russian fields, the Ucrania, Canada and the U.S., which coincided with the Amish, farmers from the movie "The only witness", even more radical and more austere Mennonites. They then moved to Mexico and Central America and here, in a bend of a river in the jungle of Belize, purely by chance, the find us.
The next day, after visiting the Mayan ruins, decided to approach the village where they take refuge in the jungle, of this and men, 700 Mennonites. By circulating dirt roads carriages. Women wore dresses of our great-grandmothers, covered from neck to ankles, indifferent to tropical heat. Several teenagers working in the sawmill, to cut lumber with which to build the same houses their ancestors built four centuries ago. Are farmers and growers, almost all family, because no one joins in spirit to a pagan and a Mennonite home with a Mennonite or ceases to be. For the children we were the "new", a concept that will be learning to avoid, because in this society survives time fleeing, XXI century as refugees.
In all see evil because progress is, his understanding, a tool of the devil.
They have transformed the palms and wild plants in crops of papaya, have ordered and domesticated horses landscape. The Mennonites have become a jungle outpost against foreign area. They are peaceful, kind and patient, but distrust of the world. In all see evil because progress is, his understanding, a tool of the devil. We were welcomed and cared not for an interview. Conversation with Abraham, one of the leaders of that village, a simple man, who spoke accented Spanish Anglo although he was born in Belize (although the official language is English, the vast majority of people speak Spanish).
In their view sin is everywhere, stalking. It is best to hide, so it is better to invent a reality, anchored in time, refusing to move. Internet is a threat to the spirit, flee, dear reader, leave this story. And by the way, you know, that as Mennonites, travel the world is also an invitation to sin. So try not to move.
Poor Mennonites.
