Martin was keen to put his name down on some of the land.
“I’m not sure I want to farm right now, but it would be nice to own some farmland. Later, I might like to farm,” he said. “I don’t want to be a wage earner all my life.”
Being a wage earner and not a business owner or farmer was a big deal on the colonies. Mennonites—men, mostly—with a bit of money and entrepreneurial spirit found quick success on the colonies, leveraging the cheap labour, affordable land, and market opportunities around them. Most of the countries the Mennonites had settled in had underdeveloped markets, poor transport systems, and relatively porous tax and regulatory schemes. That created opportunities to build something from the ground up, and when the Mennonites did so they almost always made money. Being a colony member also made you a part of a country’s business elite, with access to funding and advice.
Mennonite wage earners, on the other hand, had to compete with the low-paid local indigenous populations, and there were few protections offered to workers. While some colonies offered employee insurance and other basic benefits, that wasn’t common. Working for an hourly wage was seen mainly as a stepping stone for young men before they began their own businesses, and as something young women did until they were married and had children.
So Martin, Klaas, and I went to the land meeting, which was held in an old clapboard church that had been converted into a community hall. The parking lot was nearly full of pickup trucks and motorbikes when I arrived. A steady stream of men entered the hall, exchanging muted greetings and handshakes. There were no women. An urn of weak coffee was drained into Styrofoam cups, slurped by men who stood in circles speculating on the sale.
Next to the coffee were four boxes of soil. Bright red, brown, black, and a sticky dark grey clay, numbered and cross-referenced on a map on the wall. The farmers crowded around the boxes, feeling the soil with their hands. Everyone was too engrossed in the boxes of soil to take any notice of me.
“Ya, this is the good red soil that we know, like on that field I have nearby,” said one farmer, wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt and jeans, a cap in his hand. His feet, calloused and stained with dirt, poked out of leather sandals. He nodded appreciatively as he plunged his hand into first one box, then the next.
I watched a younger farmer, thin, with a fair complexion and wispy blond hair. The man next to him appeared to be his father, slightly thicker than the young man, with a balding head of reddish-blond hair. They were conferring in low tones.
“Well, the land with this red soil will be expensive, we know that. Everyone wants more of that land. But maybe this blacker land, maybe that would be more affordable for you,” the father said. “With those acres of the good stuff we have, it wouldn’t be so bad if we had some of this blacker soil. Even if we just turned it into hay land.” The son’s eyes shone with excitement as they turned to find seats. The room was almost full, and they stood at the back, rising on their tiptoes in the search for empty spots. They spotted two off to the side, and made a beeline for them.
The meeting was called to order, with 150 men turning their attention to the front where their leaders offered up a prayer of blessing. Every Mennonite meeting began with a prayer, so the business of taming the earth and making money was blessed by God. Conversations were hushed, hats were doffed, and heads bowed as the room fell silent.
“Lord, we thank you for bringing us together like this,” said Clarence Dueck, one of the colony’s three mayors. “We thank you for this opportunity before us, and for the work the men have already done. We ask you that you will guide us in our decisions, that we will do all of this in your name and for your glory. We ask that you be with us here tonight, Amen.”
The Yalbac Land Purchase, consisting of two separate plots, lay just northeast of the existing colony. It bordered Labouring Creek, near the Green Hills land that the colony had bought in 1989, where Klass had been kidnapped. The new plot of land was wild and unbroken, with only a few rough roads and outbuildings installed by the previous owner.
Aerial photos and Google Maps images showed the different grades of soil. Some areas were suitable for raising cattle, in others the soil was marginal, but it could be used for certain crops, and then there were the spots with the good soil. Those were like veins of gold and they caused as much excitement.
“The average price is $1,200 an acre, some will go for $2,200 an acre, some as cheap as $750, we think,” said Norman Reimer, another of the colony’s elected leaders, facing the audience with his hands in his jean pockets. “For anyone bidding on the land, a 20 percent deposit is due in about two months.
“But there are a lot of things we have to decide first, a lot of things left to do. I can’t emphasize that enough,” Norman warned.
Work-thickened hands rose into the air, followed by deep voices asking questions about the quality of the trees on the land. Would they produce lumber? The hilly areas, where did they drain to? That area there, it looked rocky. Was it as bad as it looked from the air? “It will pay to log the land first, but it won’t be a logger’s dream,” Norman said, and the men nodded their heads in understanding. He flicked through photos until he found one showing a flattened forest of trees.
“This bit here was knocked down by the hurricane a few years ago, and then burned,” he said. “But these are Cohune palm trees, and that’s normally a sign of good land.”
“And that red soil,” another voice asked, from near the back of the room. “Is that the red soil we have on some of our other fields, that really good stuff?”
“Ya, we think so. We think the red areas will be very good cropland. This area is very flat and it will need to have some drainage put in,” Norman said, pointing to the map.
It was hot in the hall, and I could feel sweat trickling down my back. There was a ripe smell rising from the men around me. They leaned forward in their chairs, conferred with one another in hushed tones, pointing at the map at the front. As Norman looked out over the crowd, waiting for comments or questions, the noise level from the small discussions rose, octave by octave, until the hall was a babble of voices.
Norman cleared his throat, but no one paid any attention. He tapped his microphone. The men ended their conversations in gruff whispers and turned back to the front.
“Are there any more questions?” Norman prompted.
“I think we all agree that this looks good,” a grey-headed farmer in the middle of the room said. Necks craned to see who was speaking. He must have been a respected elder, as heads nodded and men smiled when they saw who was speaking. “The land looks good and I think there is plenty of demand here for it. So what is next? When can we start working on the land, get our machines in there and have it surveyed?”
“We have carried out the initial survey you asked us to do, and now we await further instructions from you,” Norman said. “We’d like you to come to us and suggest what you think should be done next.”
The leaders struck me as humble, obedient servants as they surveyed the room, inviting more questions. Norman pointed to a hundred-acre lake on the map, surrounded by bush.
“One suggestion we as a committee have is that we save this area. We could still use it for irrigation, but with half a mile of bush around it the lake would make a very nice wildlife reserve,” Norman said.
The reserve was a generous gesture, but no one asked about the wildlife that inhabited the land, or what the environmental impact of clearing 29,000 acres of wild forest might be. Belize is home to jaguars, endangered Yucatán black howler monkeys, Baird’s tapirs, peccaries, and green iguanas as well as a myriad of birds such as osprey, scarlet macaws, jabiru storks, and the national bird: the keel-billed toucan. They, however, were not present at the meeting.
Seeing how Costa Rica had turned its natural environment into a tourist bonanza had spurred Belize to pay more attention to preserving its own forests, but the government was also
desperate for development. When it came to clearing land to create productive farmland there were still few safeguards in place. Deforestation was happening at an alarmingly fast pace, and Mennonites were at the centre of it. There were about 11,000 Mennonites in Belize, less than 4 percent of the population, but they were procreating faster than nearly every other ethnic group in the country, and that meant a constant need for more land. Despite the valid concerns of conservationists there were no environmental studies required before 29,000 acres of virgin forest would be cut down in one fell swoop.
The land purchase meeting was dragging on into its second hour. There were more questions: about payments, how the bidding process would work, and how the land would be divided.
“Okay, I think we’ve talked enough,” Norman said. “It’s time to hand in your requests, and then we’ll go forward from there.”
Everyone was given a small slip of paper printed with the different grades of land available, with space to write down their name and the number of acres they wanted of each category of land. Farmers passed the completed forms to ushers at the ends of the rows—just like passing their weekly offerings to the ends of the pews on Sunday mornings.
The men filed out of the hall, breathing in the fresh night air. They stood outside chatting in small groups, voices softened by the darkness. They slapped at insects, speculated, and dreamed about the opportunities the new land would bring.
“So, are you going to get some?” I asked Martin.
“That’s our plan. These chances don’t come often. My dad would like to see me take advantage of it too. Maybe he can help me break it.”
The farmers climbed into pickup trucks and drove off, one by one. Martin and I, each on our own motorbike, followed them, choking on the dust that rose from the dark road. It was still early, but the colony was asleep, the place dark save for a few streetlights. Restaurants were shuttered, the gas station was closed, and the parking lot of the ice cream parlour was empty. Early to bed, for tomorrow was another day of work.
CHAPTER 9
Belize
Lower Barton Creek
The road slithered through mud holes and across the slippery exposed bedrock in the hills of western Belize. It was muggy, the morning rain having just ended. Someone had recently mowed the lush roadside grass, and the clippings were still scattered across the road. A wire fence, weaving and stumbling like a drunk, separated the mown verge and the fields beyond.
I came to a low sign that had been painted white at some point in the distant past. Lower Barton Creek, it said in clumsy hand-painted letters. Sleek, fat cattle stood under broad trees, pausing their grazing to watch me pass. More fences, still leaning tiredly, nearly home. The centre strip of the road, between the two tire tracks, was stamped with hoof prints and an occasional feculent offering.
Then, across a small valley, I could see tin roofs among the trees on a small hill, held up by unpainted concrete blocks. Ahead, I saw men mowing the grass. They were all dressed in the same blue or grey shirts, dark trousers with suspenders, and straw hats with black bands shading their faces. They wore long, untrimmed beards. Some wore rubber boots, others had muddy bare feet in sandals. Every one of them stopped their work as I approached and stared at me, open-mouthed. As I drew abreast of them they waved, machetes, scythes, and shovels in their hands, still staring.
Martin and Klaas had given me directions for how to get here, along with their version of Lower Barton Creek’s origins. Life on the Spanish Lookout colony was good—sometimes so good that the most pious, including one of Klaas’s brothers, split away from the church because they were afraid the comfort would lead them to hell. They created Lower Barton Creek to save themselves from hell.
“If you want to know how to live life the right way, the way God intended, just go visit my brother Walter,” Klaas said, the sharp taste of sarcasm lacing his voice. “I believe that we must be in the world, telling people about Jesus and helping them and living with them. Walter believes that he must build a wall between himself and the world.”
Klaas and Walter barely spoke to each other now, because they had differing views on church rules. Mennonites are not only better than weltmensch, but also better than each other. Disagreements on doctrine and lifestyle regularly sunder Mennonite communities. Mode of baptism is a popular point of dissent—some believe that a person must be immersed in water for the baptism to be effective, while others think simply sprinkling water on the believer’s head is the best way. The churches that practise full immersion are seen as more charismatic, and many take such a hard line on the topic that they demand a sprinkled person be rebaptized if they want to change churches. I, for the record, was sprinkled.
Other splits happen because of choice of dress—white or black head coverings for the women, necktie or a plain shirt buttoned to the top for men. Someone is always taking umbrage with their preacher or fellow worshippers over their dress. They find a few others who agree with them and they start a new congregation that sets a new standard of Godly living and unity—until someone leaves.
Church splits often cut through families, and one side has to go to hell because the other side is right. Cousins become distant and unfamiliar because their father didn’t join a splinter group with the rest of the family decades ago. Klaas and Walter were like that. Life on Spanish Lookout wasn’t godly enough for Walter, so he helped create Lower Barton Creek, an atavistic colony far at the conservative end of the Mennonite spectrum.
The community, located only a short drive away from Spanish Lookout, was established in 1969 by families that came from Belize and North America. They used no electricity or engines, not even for farming—a concession even the ultra-conservative Old Colony Mennonites made. They grew everything they ate and took pains to limit their interaction with the outside world. Education was restricted to basic elementary school and the leaders decided what books and printed materials were allowed into the community.
I followed the tracks up a small hill until I saw Walter, an elderly man with a short stout body and long white beard. He opened his wide farm gate, greeted me, asked my name and where I was from, all in a brisk manner with little pause to hear my replies.
“You’re a Dueck. Hmm. Let me think a bit,” he said, turning towards the house and beckoning for me to follow. Walter wore the same blue shirt, dark trousers, and suspenders as the men I’d seen working beside the road.
I told him I was staying with his brother Klaas, and that Klaas had sent greetings. Walter grunted and nodded.
His farm consisted of a house, milking shed, hip-roof barn and a small chicken coop. The buildings were all unpainted and the windows had no glass, only screens and adjustable wooden louvres. The yard was verdant and shaded by towering trees. There were no engines to be heard, no whirring fans to worry the ear. Just peaceful silence.
Walter led me onto the veranda. Benches, a hammock, and a small table were set in the cool shade. His wife came out of the house and cleared a spot for me to sit. She wore a heavy black dress that reached her ankles and a severe black kerchief framed her broad face. She didn’t say a word but stared at me as Walter filled the silence.
He repeated all of my details to his wife in a loud voice, a chippy lilt to his recitation. She nodded and returned to the kitchen. Walter turned back to me and continued firing questions at me, as if playing a game. Family connections, community names, trying to place me in his mental map of the Mennonite diaspora. After five minutes of trying he gave up.
“I was only three when I left Canada, so there are many families that I haven’t kept up with,” he said.
Walter spoke English with a familiar accent that reminded me of my uncles in Manitoba, and just like them he sometimes switched to Plautdietsch for a punch line or even an entire thought. His family came from the same region as mine and the accent had stuck.
The idea to found Lower Barton Creek had been hatched by
a group of families from various places and communities. While they were all running away from different problems, they shared a dream to escape modern society as fully as they could.
“We were Kleine Gemeinde but thought that the life was going too high,” Walter said. “We didn’t like the use of cars, the clothes were getting tight, and the young people were out of control.”
“How do you know that you were living too high? What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Well, we made too much money,” he said.
The first big church split came in 1812, when southern Russia was already the cultural epicentre. The Kleine Gemeinde had already met separately from the main congregation in Molochna for several years because they felt spiritual life in the main church was suffering. They thought the majority of Mennonites were displaying poor ethics and morality, particularly those who were providing tacit support to the Russian military by paying fees to exempt them from service. Eventually the split became formal, and although Kleine Gemeinde was a derisive name, the breakaway church accepted it and used it themselves. Johann was Kleine Gemeinde. In the 1870s, almost the entire church community moved to my home province of Manitoba or the state of Nebraska. Splitting from the main church wasn’t enough, they needed to leave Russia entirely if they wanted to live godly lives.
In Russia the Kleine Gemeinde were among the most conservative of Mennonite sects, but in Canada the Kleine Gemeinde became more moderate. And more wealthy. Those who disagreed with that change started colonies in Belize, where the little church maintained conservative social rules while allowing modern equipment for farming and transport. If you disagreed with colony life you could revolt and be damned to hell by joining the moderates and weltmensch in their sin, or you could rise up the ladder of piousness and go even simpler, even further back in time. Walter chose the latter.
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