My Spanish is better than my Low German, thanks to sitting in on the kids' Spanish lessons. The first language of all the people I know, however, is Plautdietsch, and I am clueless in that quarter. All you people who know Plautdietsch did not let enough spill over to me. So.... sitting in on a Bible Study at the colony earlier this week was - well, I liked paging through the German Bible.
I feel like I'm pretty familiar with Conservative Mennonites. I mean, we've got the Huldemans down South in Rosenort and the Hutterite Colony just back of us. There's all sorts of Whitecap, Blackcap, and Black Bumper Mennonites out the Steinbach way; and we've even got Amish down by the border. Then of course we all have our Mennonite background. But somehow they're different here.
They look pretty typical, all right: the men all wear black overalls and white plaid shirts and cowboy hats. (Apparently there's real legit cowboys here too. I'm just dying to see them.) The women wear their dark flowered dresses and wide round straw hats. They drive horses and wagons which anyone could pick out as Mennonite a mile away.
But - but. They all live on one of the colonies which are very spread out on the deserts around Charagua. The rules and the discipline are very harsh, and there is a lot of oppression and corruption. It's more like communism than anything. There is zero of Menno Simons' teachings left, and precious little truth. Satan is hard at work in their community, and he's not being very discreet anymore.
Last Saturday a boy from the colony came to us while we were finishing up brunch and explained (in Plautdietsch, of course) that he was supposed to get beaten for several small offences, owning a radio among them. (I find it hilarious that radio is our main ministry to a people for whom radio and the ability to listen to it is strictly forbidden.) Anyway, this boy, being over twenty years old, did not want a spanking, especially since it was long overdue and they threatened to beat him almost to death, so he came to us. Now, we don't want to make enemies with the colony, nor do we want to let this boy get beaten. So Rudy took him to the police station. He came to the river with us in the afternoon, and in the evening he went to the colony with the police, and Rudy went along, just as translator. The result of a big discussion with the colony leadership was inconclusive, which was good since we expected it to end like it usually does - with the police getting paid to leave them alone.
We heard from a couple that dropped by the next day that he had not been beaten; but that doesn't mean he won't yet.
Oh, it's been fun. The last two weeks of school have been good - for half an hour every morning the Friesen kids come over and we teach them all a song, act out the next chapter of the story of David, ask questions about the next paragraph in 1 Peter, and memorize a verse. Then on Fridays we have recitations, when all the parents show up and we say our memory verses to them. Other than that, the school is all DVDs.
In the afternoons the kids have Spanish three days a week, or we play with them. We taught them "Janitor" while we were in Santa Cruz, and it is their favourite - they call it "Statues". We play "Doctor" and "Vet". Daphne and I tell each other fairy tales - I tell her the traditional version, and she tells me the movie adaption. The latest craze has been making friendship bracelets, as Isabelle brought her cotton collection, and they weave away while I read aloud from Owls in the Family. Yesterday we played a lot of chess, and Doreen made the very best Orange Julius's that I have ever tasted, or am likely ever to. Think fresh squeezed orange juice from locally grown oranges.
On Sunday we will drive to Santa Cruz and then the Neufelds will leave us there and we'll stay with the Friesens at the guesthouse for a few days, and then go to the Derksens' and help with their school at least until Isabelle leaves.