Another Guarani-Mennonite exchange

Another project in August, together with our friends from the NGO Volens, was to organize and participate in a "cultural exchange" between Old Colony Mennonites from Durango Colony and indigenous women from the large Guarani region of Isoso, Bolivia. The six Mennonites and we were hosted by a group of women artisans--this group makes soap and sews children's clothing to sell in their community. Several of these Guarani women had watched laundry soap-making in Durango Colony last year, and this was their chance to demonstrate how to make body soap.

We began the cold, blustery day by having tea and cookies at the home of the director of the women's group. They then led us through the entire process of making soap, beginning with building a fire to melt fat and ending with stamping each piece of glycerin soap and giving each of us one to take home. We then ate lunch, wrapped up, and headed home. In between, the men went to see the fields and the river with one of the few men still in the community (most are in far-off Montero cutting sugar cane).

LEFT: Ramont and the men look at the fields.


Mrs. Doerksen from Durango brought some laundry soap to give members of the Isoso women's group, which they are examining here.



Here we are in front of the soap-making building.

A final thought: we often tend to over-romanticize the value of these exchanges, so we won't say too strongly that each group now heartily appreciates the culture of the other. One of our ongoing challenges is knowing how to talk honestly but appreciatively with Mennonites about their Bolivian neighbors. However, it is true that at least one of the Mennonite women is going to try this method for making hand soap. And we think it is also true that the world of each participant in this exchange was made just a bit bigger and wider.

For more photos of this event, click here.