Meeting with Sari

It is a Saturday raining morning of October. I meet this three-year-old girl in the commercial area of the Mennonite Colony "Good Hope", 45 km away from San José de Chiquitos in the eastern part of Bolivia, not far away from the Brasilian boarder.

Sari, one of the thirty grandchildren, has come with her grandfather to do shopping in a black carriage run by two horses. Her pale face, blond hair and flowery handmade dress, which she probably has inherited from her cousins or aunts, attract my attention. While her grandfather is entering the shop, the girl stays in charge of the carriage. Suddenly, ashamed by my gaze, she turns into her grandfather. Nevertheless, her curiosity for the unknown makes her look at me. Our glances meet each other once again. For her, I am "the other" so different from the people she is used to live every day. For me she is a symbol of the time hidden in the past, far away from the necessities and comforts of the XXI century. Finally, we say goodbye to each other, and each one is walking back to her own world...

***

It is estimated that there more than 70.000 Mennonites living in Bolivia in 57 colonies around the department of Santa Cruz. They are mostly ethnic Mennonites of German and Dutch descent, so-called "Russian Mennonites". They speak Plautdietsch, a German dialect originating in the Vistula delta. The first Mennonites immigrants came to Bolivia in the 50's from Paraguay and then were followed by those from Mexico and Belize in the 70's. The "Russian Mennonites" living in Bolivia are among the most traditional and conservative of all the Mennonites in South America. Their life on the edge of time is based mainly on work, close to God and nature.