Meet Belize's secluded Mennonites, a community frozen in time

Oscar Holland

CNN
August 9, 2021

Homesteads dotting a pastoral landscape, families living by lamplight and men in straw hats riding horse-drawn carriages -- the scenes in Jake Michaels' photographs could easily depict bygone times in the American Midwest. But not only do his pictures hail from the digital age, they were taken hundreds of miles away in Belize.

The tiny Central American country is home to around 12,000 of the world's most conservative Mennonites, a group of Christians that live in closed communities and shun modern technology including, in some cases, electricity. Dating back to 16th-century Europe, the Protestant sect's members have since moved around the world in search of isolated farmland, and to escape persecution or attempts to integrate them into wider society.

Belize's colonies date back to the late 1950s, when a group of over 3,000 Canadian Mennonites immigrated there from Mexico. Their arrival followed an agreement with the Belizean government, which offered them land, religious freedom and exemption from certain taxes (and, as committed pacifists, from military service).

In return, the country has enjoyed the fruits of their agriculture. Today, Mennonites dominate Belize's domestic poultry and dairy markets, despite representing less 4% of the population.

Hoping to document their traditional way of life, Michaels visited three Mennonite colonies in Belize's north -- Indian Creek, Shipyard and Little Belize. And despite the communities' apparent aversion to outsiders, he found them surprisingly receptive.

"People were far more hospitable than I expected, and everyone was very understanding, even though my Spanish is not that great," he said in a phone interview, explaining that the group's mother tongue is Plautdietsch (or Mennonite Low German), though many also speak Belizean Spanish.

"A lot of time was spent without a camera in my hands. It was more about interacting, socializing and getting to know people before (the photography) even happens."

Stuck in time

Spending time in Mennonites' family homes and expansive farmland, Michaels discovered a world frozen in time (an idea alluded to by the title of his new book, "c.1950"). But beyond the obvious anachronisms of technology-free homes and women dressed in bonnets, the resulting photographs hint at an idyllic life centered on family -- and free from the trappings of modernity.

"My whole practice shifted as the days like went on. My mind slowed down, and I was more present in the surroundings," he said, adding: "I'm not trying to say that their lives are simple, but I think it, for me, it just allowed me to slow down and be more present."

But the photographer was also wary of romanticizing this remote way of life.

Permitted to run their own schools, Belize's Mennonites have literacy rates significantly lower than the country's other ethnic groups, with just 5% completing formal secondary education. The communities are mostly reliant on commercial agriculture, with colonies organized not only around family and religion, but also labor.

Michaels' photographs detail these economic realities. They depict Mennonites sorting beans in a dimly-lit room or in plastic aprons at a papaya-packing factory. Other images show men attending a nearby auction and smoke rising into a bright blue sky as land is cleared for farming.

"Their world intersects far more now with the modern world than it did before," Michaels said. "There are several Mennonites who work in tandem with Belizean people, so they're aware of the outside world and what's going on.

"There are good aspects to life, and there are hard aspects to life," the photographer added. "At the end of the day, people are still making a living ... people still have jobs. So, I think it was important to show the whole spectrum of life."

Picture of contrasts

Like Mennonites elsewhere, Belize's colonies have both conservative and progressive members, resulting in differing attitudes towards technology. Somewhat unexpectedly, electronic gadgets like cellphones and cameras make occasional appearances in some of Michaels' pictures.

It is a contrast he exploits to powerful effect. Take the image of a young woman in traditional clothing pointing a small digital camera towards Michaels' own lens, a photo he described as "one of my favorites from the whole trip."

"Everything about it seems as if it's a photo from like the 1950s, but then there's a modern camera in her hand," he said, adding that the gradual creep of technology was not necessarily perceived as a threat. "They're far away in the rolling hills of Belize, so it's not like there are (competing lifestyles nearby)."

And although the experience has not prompted Michaels to forgo technology himself, it has left a lasting impression on his photography.

"It definitely impacted the way that I shoot going forward," he added. "It made me more interactive and more social with people rather, than just taking photos."

 

"c.1950," published by Setanta Books, is available now.



https://www.cnn.com/style/article/belize-mennonites-jake-michaels/index.html

A Simple Life

Mennonites living in Belize exist apart from the government, with limited technology and surrounded by farmable land.

Daniel Shank Cruz

Produced by Eve Lyons
New York Times
September, 15, 2018

When Mennonites began moving to Belize in the late 1950s, they did so for the same reason their ancestors have migrated for centuries: to live in line with their religious beliefs, including the separation of church and state, pacifism and sustainability, without interference. That means apart from the government, with limited technology and surrounded by farmable land.

Mennonites, a traditionally sectarian Christian denomination, trace their roots to the Anabaptist wing of the Protestant Reformation. Today they number approximately one million worldwide, with most living in parts of the developing world, including Paraguay, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Those in Belize, called Old Colony Mennonites, descend from the settlers of Chortitza, the earliest Mennonite colony in the Russian Empire. Their ancestors moved from the Netherlands and what is now Poland to present-day Ukraine in the 1780s, then to Canada in the 1870s, Mexico in the 1920s and, a few decades later, Belize.

An agreement with the country’s government checked off certain ideological boxes for them: They were able to negotiate exemptions from military service and given permission to establish private schools where lessons would be taught in their primary language, a Low German dialect called Plautdietsch.

The group left Mexico in the mid-20th century primarily for reasons of faith, but land was also a factor and now affords them some distance from outsiders. Consequently, the Belize Mennonite community has remained largely out of the public eye. But their way of life offers much for those dissatisfied with the realities of a hyper-connected urban existence to ponder.

Mennonites place great value on community and consider family to be a building block of the broader group. Their relationship to God is collective, rather than focused on individual salvation, though they may hope for that too.

The Mennonite belief that Christians should be “in the world but not of it” has fostered a sectarian ethos that prizes self-sufficiency and mutual aid within the group. Older children look after younger children; neighbors help each other fix farm equipment. The goal is to live as cooperatively and as peacefully as possible.

In Belize, Mennonites express themselves through dress and design, too.The plain styles of clothing that they may wear are highly regulated, though more loosely so for men, who often buy their clothing in stores.

Women, on the other hand, make most of their own garments and are expected to wear prayer coverings on their heads whenever they are in public. A generational shift in dress styles has slowly taken place, with bright colorful printed textiles replacing somber solid colors.

Similarly, while Old Colony Mennonites fill their homes with simple, plain furniture with clean lines, aesthetic flourishes like patterned lace curtains or elaborate wallpaper patterns may be incorporated.

The group’s interactions with technology are also influenced by their communitarian ethic. It is often assumed that people who reject technology do so out of fear of its all-consuming nature, but the choice has more to do with skepticism and adherence to principle.

For instance, their rejection of cars for personal use is not because they believe motorized vehicles are inherently bad — they use tractors for farming — but rather their emphasis on the importance of community. If one were to have access to a car, one would be tempted to leave, but the limited travel range of horses and buggies keeps Mennonite settlements close-knit.

Of course, it’s 2018, so some Mennonites use smartphones for business, and sometimes those smartphones end up in the hands of their children. That members of these communities now have infinite access to the outside world in their palms means the Old Colony Mennonites could be on the cusp of a major shift.

Already there have been other signs of modernization, including the increasing number of Mennonites — both men and women — who are employed by outside businesses (factories, for example) rather than have the traditional, hyper-local occupations of farming, carpentry and mechanical work.

For many of them, life is still insular. But whether it remains this uncomplicated has yet to be seen.

Jake Michaels is a photographer in Los Angeles. He is working on two monographs that will be published in the spring. Daniel Shank Cruz is an associate professor of English at Utica College.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/15/style/mennonites-belize.html