Morganland

We spent the past five weeks in the German Mennonite colony of Morganland (officially called Canadiensia II), which is 2-3 hours east of Santa Cruz. We lived with the Fehr family, whose two daughters still at home are Liz' second cousins. Ramont spent a portion of each day studying Low German from a book and the rest of the day hearing it straight from the mouth of native speakers. And now...he can understand it fairly well and what he speaks sounds like a native!

Life at the Fehrs was slow-paced, steady, and comfortable. Few words are wasted, yet going visiting in the evenings and on Sunday is expected. Work is more than a livelihood; it seems to border on a hobby (for example, we're always looking to make tasks more efficient so that we can get back to what we "want" to do; here we did tasks slowly and thoroughly because they ARE what we "want" to be doing). A typical day for us went like this:

Ramont helped milk at 6:00; Liz drank mate with the eldest daughter and helped get breakfast ready. Breakfast was anytime between 7:30-8:30. On Mondays and Fridays, Liz helped one of the daughters do laundry from before breakfast until late morning; Saturday mornings were spent cleaning; other mornings held various tasks such as yardwork, visiting, doing the grandparents' laundry, cooking, etc. Ramont would help Peter with whatever he was working on, including field work. Siesta was until 2pm, and scheduled terere breaks were somewhere between 9:30-10:30am and 2:30-3:30pm. Evening chores and milking went from 4:30pm until about 6:15. After that we would drink terere again (or other refreshing drinks!) and have a late supper at 7:30 or so. In the evening we'd often sit outside with just the family, or with visitors, or listen to Low German news on the radio.

We got to visit several different churches in the colony, met most of the Toews relatives, ate copious amounts of heavy farm food (meat, dairy, and carbs), and discussed many a medical condition and details of gory accidents. It was an extremely rich glimpse into one kind of Mennonite colony life.

Here are a few photos:


Now we're back in Santa Cruz for a few weeks, biding our time until we can finally move down to Charagua (around the first of December, we hope...).