Lena was decked head to toe in a heavy dark dress with a black head covering. She and Hans were dressed almost exactly as they would have been 150 years ago in southern Russia.
The buggy seat wasn’t designed for three adults, so I had to put my arm around Hans and all but sit on his lap to keep from falling off. The road filled with other horses and buggies, all carrying soberly dressed couples riding to church. It was a quiet, dusty scene, broken only by the soft plop of horse’s hoofs and the creak of wheels. We rolled into the churchyard and parked at a hitching rail. Hans opened the wooden box and took out their hymn books. There were quiet greetings exchanged with neighbours, but there was none of the socializing that I’d grown up with at church. The church had several doors, and Hans pointed out which one I should use, determined by a confusing mix of age, sex, marital status, and position within the church. Hans was a song leader, and he used a special entrance reserved for church leaders.
I had attended many church services on my journey and each one varied in its degree of austerity in the name of tradition. This one, I knew, would be at the extreme end of the spectrum.
I felt a hundred pairs of eyes on me as I entered and trod on other people’s toes on my way to an open spot on the backless benches. Men sat on one side, women on the other. The most aged worshippers sat on benches set against the dais, facing the rest of the congregation, so they could lean against the low wall separating the dais from the rest of the church. Each man gave a slight, silent nod to his neighbours as they entered, and then, before sitting down, the men took off their dark fedoras and white cowboy hats and put them on racks that hung from the ceiling. Each man then hitched up his trousers and sat down, staring straight ahead while he waited for the service to begin.
There was no music or chatter. Throats were cleared and shoes were dragged across the wooden floor with a hollow scrape. The man who sat next to me burped with a suppressed, gaseous sigh. Then a door swung open and six middle-aged men entered in single file. They climbed the two steps to the dais and sat down. Hans was one of the song leaders, and once again I was surprised at his transformation. The heavy overcoat, cowboy hat, and gloves were gone. Now his white forehead glowed above ruddy cheeks, his hair slicked into a severe side parting. The men opened their songbooks in unison. Hans called out a number. The rustle of turning pages filled the church. Hans began to sing in a mournful, nasal tone and the congregation joined in.
Unaccompanied “long melody” singing, where the leaders start each verse with call and response, is a plangent form largely unchanged since the sixteenth century. It became the only music allowed in most Old Colony churches when they arrived in Canada, as leaders tried to erase the modernization that had taken place while they were in Russia. To me, it sounded more like a droning chant than hymns.
After several songs a group of three older men entered and took their seats beside the pulpit, and then one of them stood up to begin a one-and-a-half-hour sermon. He switched between Plautdietsch and High German, his tearful pleading read line for line from a book before him. He begged the congregation to live holy lives and extolled the youth to turn away from their sinful ways. Never did the preacher smile, never did his demeanour offer a ray of happiness, joy, or grace. He was delivering the laws of the church, and that was nothing to be happy about.
The service had begun at eight o’clock, and by nine the church was stifling hot. There were no fans—indeed no electricity—and the air was torpid. The smell of sweating bodies bundled in heavy clothing lay thick across the sanctuary. The chirp of birds could be heard through the windows, only underscoring the sombreness of the service inside.
Around me heads began to loll. Men leaned forward, elbows on knees, heads on hands. Chins slipped from their perches and bodies lurched forward in drowsy clumsiness. At one point the entire row of song leaders took out their songbooks, in unison, and propped them on the low wall in front of them and rested their heads on them for a quick nap, even as the preacher droned on. A few minutes later the men sat back up, again in unison, blinking and yawning as the sermon continued.
The church was a rectangular one-room building filled with unpainted benches and white walls. Not a picture, a Bible verse, or a cross broke the austerity. Through the windows I could see horses still harnessed to their buggies, stamping their hoofs and shooing at flies with their tails. When a horse shifted and rattled his buggy the men craned their necks to peer out the window to see if it was their horse causing the ruckus. Chickens wandered the yard, pecking at holy crumbs.
Three times the preacher gave the command to pray. Each time I was caught off guard as the entire congregation stood up, turned around, and dropped to their knees in perfect unison. The church became silent as the congregation fell into individual prayer. Or they did as I did and inspected the ass and shoe bottoms of the person in front of them while listening to the flies buzzing in the corner. After each prayer the congregation stood up, dusted off their knees, and returned to their backless benches for further lecturing.
I watched, both detached and intrigued. Here was what these Mennonites would proclaim as the heart of their culture. Faith: living it and expressing it in a severe and particular way. I looked at Hans in the row of leaders. The camaraderie we had established the day before was lost. I tried to make eye contact with him but he did not look at me. Some of the church services I’d attended on my journey had made me feel nostalgic and homesick because they were so similar to the worship services I’d grown up with. This one made me feel like an outsider, but still, I felt a tiny thread of connection. Like an outsider who understood, who knew the secret of our shared history. The faces around me were familiar, not unlike the faces around the campfire on the banks of the Red River at the start of my journey. I shared my Mennonite genes with these people, both the ones I admired and those I despised. Mennonites were just like any other family.
Just when I thought it would be impossible to keep my eyes open for a moment longer the preacher’s droning came to an end. I stumbled out into the sunshine and sucked fresh air into my lungs. Horses were untied from hitching posts, songbooks put back into their wooden cases with a hollow clunk, and the buggies left the churchyard one by one, trailing clouds of silent dust.
Back at the Loewen farm, Sunday lunch was followed by meddach’schlop. The air hung still and heavy, aiding in the well-deserved and highly cherished Sunday-afternoon nap. I crept into my tent and lay down, drowsy from the heat. Helena and her girlfriends, made restless by the quietness, loitered in the shade of the plum trees a few metres from my tent. I could hear them speaking in whispers.
“He slept in that thing, but he came inside for breakfast,” Helena whispered to her friends. “And he came to the barn to watch me milk the cows!”
“Oh! That must have been so embarrassing, to have him watch you work!”
“Ya, and he kept making jokes the whole time.”
“But why is he here? Does your father know him? Is he a salesman?” “No, he’s a stranger. He’s on a long journey. He told me he was a writer.”
“He’s a weltmensch?” one of the girls asked, her voice rising in surprise.
“No, he’s a Mennonite. Well, I don’t know. At least that’s what he said, but he’s not a Mennonite like us. He speaks Plautdietsch, and he says he comes from those Mennonites in Canada. So, I guess he’s a Mennonite.”
I smiled to myself.
Yes, I am a Mennonite.
Afterword
My motorcycle journey did not end on the Loewen farm in Argentina. I rode on to Tierra del Fuego, where I celebrated New Year’s Eve 2012 and then tried, and failed, to sell my motorbike. So I turned north again, and spent several more weeks camping my way up the beautiful Chilean coastline until I arrived in the capital, Santiago. Here, I sold my motorcycle and flew home.
My eight-month trip spanned some forty-five thousand kilometres and took me through nineteen count
ries on two continents. I burned nearly twenty-five hundred liters of fuel, wore through four rear and three front tires, and developed a very calloused backside. I have enjoyed keeping in touch with many of the people in this book. Of most interest have been the Mennonite men in Bolivia’s Palmasola prison. Most are still behind bars, but Peter Wiebe, the self-taught veterinarian charged with creating the anaesthetizing spray, was released in early 2018 and he moved his family to a more inclusive Mennonite community to rebuild his life. Jacob Wall, the first man to be arrested, was also released in 2018, when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer; he died shortly after his release.
The Mennonites in Mexico who were planning a move to Russia scrapped those plans. They also explored creating a new colony in Angola, but those plans were also abandoned. However, Mennonites across the Americas continue to acquire more land and to move back and forth, north and south between countries and continents, as economic and social factors change.
Klaas Friesen, the gregarious kidnapping survivor in Belize, tragically died in a road accident in 2015.
It has taken me seven years to publish this book. Getting it all down on paper and finding a publisher were part of that, but asking myself probing questions about my identity took longer, and was more emotionally and mentally challenging, than I anticipated. The book languished for long periods of time as other, less personal projects, from ocean sailing to digging for dinosaurs in the desert, presented themselves as welcome distractions. But I kept coming back to this story. I was encouraged and prodded into action by friends and family who persistently asked about its progress.
Today, in my home city of Hong Kong, writing in 2019 after a summer of protests that have made newspaper headlines all over the world, I am faced with new questions of identity, of who we want to be versus who others see us as, and at what cost. Hongkongers are fighting for the right to be themselves, to maintain their freedom and their wonderful and eclectic cultural mix. Again, it is a culture that I feel I belong to, but in which I find no easy fit. Many of the existential questions Hongkongers ask themselves remind me of my motorcycle journey to find my Mennonite identity. The search for our identity has no end; the true reward is in the beautiful discoveries we make along the way.
Acknowledgements
My journey took me to nineteen countries across two continents, covered some forty-five thousand kilometres and lasted about eight months. I rode from Manitoba all the way to Tierra del Fuego, then back north to Santiago, Chile, where I sold my motorbike and flew home. No one robbed, attacked, or chased me away. Instead, people took me into their homes, gave me a bed to sleep in and food to eat. They guided me to hotels and negotiated discounts on my behalf. They helped me back to my feet after I crashed, offered local remedies for my maladies, and pointed me in the right direction. They lent me tools and fixed my bike for me. On the colonies, they did all these things even as I kept asking uncomfortable questions, badgering them for insights into their lives. Thank you to the bikers who waved as they passed, the momentary friends made on ferries and dusty roads, to the farmers who let me camp in their fields, and all those who ensured my safety. Thank you to those who saw a vulnerable solo traveller and stopped to say hello, to help, to share a moment of my adventure. The world is full of very good people. Don’t be afraid to travel and rely on the mercy of strangers, because when you make yourself vulnerable on the road you experience new places, people, and ideas.
Thank you to all those Mennonites who told me their stories, showed me their colonies, took me into their homes, and fed me foods that reminded me of my home. There were many exceptional stories and characters that didn’t make it into this book, even though they all deserved it.
My dear friend Victoria Burrows joined me on her own motorcycle for about two months and six thousand kilometres, from Mexico City to Panama City. I’m sorry I couldn’t include all of our raucous adventures in this book. Thank you for sharing those miles and experiences with me.
Among those who helped me on the road were (in the order of their appearance): Troy Dunkly, Stephen and Caroline Burns, John Friesen, Bram Siemens, Gary and Bonnie Dymond, Caprice Parks and Joe, Klaas and Greta Friesen and their family, Ed and Carolyn Reimer, Norman Collins and the Panama Piratas MC, Sonja and David Tkachuk, George Dueck and his extended family, Richard and Suzanne Chang Jonfe, Dom Harris, Luz Dary and her mother, Ofelia, David and Lisa Janzen, Rudy and Erma Friesen, David and Sieglinde Toews, Jacob Banman and his family, Anton and Elwiera Kauenhowen, Patrick Friesen, Werner Bartel, David Fehr, Peter Fehr, Rudolf Harder, Randy Fehr, Dorian Funk, Andy and Rafa Thielmann and the boys of Steinkrug, Volnei Adriana Damaren, the bikers in Witmarsum Colony, Hans and Lena Loewen, and the Chilean family who abandoned their day trip to guard my motorcycle while I went searching for parts.
Thank you to my family, who helped me with research and contacts and who have been my most powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool. My father, Leonard P. Dueck, was a true Mennonite pioneer, and I am eternally grateful to have inherited his sense of adventure and his determination to push on when talent, resources, and expertise have long gone dry. You inspire me. I also thank my great-grandfather John W. Dueck (Johann) for recording his experiences so that I could discover them more than a century later. Thank you, Fiona, the love of my life, for pushing me to complete this book and brightening my every day as I did so.
I thank my early manuscript readers: Chris Maden, Edmund Price, Justin Hill, and Thomas McLean.
I owe deep gratitude to my editor, Janice Zawerbny, for taking on my manuscript and then forwarding it to the right people. Thank you to Dan Wells and your team at Biblioasis for believing in this story.
This book was made possible through the support of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Vladimir & Yachiyo Wolodarsky Endowment Fund for Literary Arts & Music, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Copyright © Cameron Dueck, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
FIRST EDITION
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Menno moto : a journey across the Americas in search of my Mennonite identity /
Cameron Dueck.
Names: Dueck, Cameron, author.
Description: Series statement: Untold lives
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190238755 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190238763
ISBN 9781771963473 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771963480 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dueck, Cameron—Travel—America. | LCSH: Mennonites—
Canada—Biography. | LCSH: Mennonites—Travel—America. | LCSH: Mennonites—
America—Social conditions. | LCSH: Mennonites— America—Social life and customs.
| LCSH: Motorcycle touring—America. | LCSH: America—Description and travel. |
LCGFT: Autobiographies.
Classification: LCC BX8143.D84 A3 2020 | DDC 289.7092—dc23
Edited by Janice Zawerbny | Copy-edited by Chandra Wohleber
Cover designed by Natalie Olsen | Interior designed by Zoe Norvell
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the financial support of the Government of Canada. Biblioasis also acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,709 individual artists and 1,078 organizations in 204 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million, and the contribution of the Gov
ernment of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates. This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.
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