COLUMN: Viewpoint – Menno Moto, unique and enlightening

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/05/2020 (1806 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“The piousness and separateness of Mennonites in Mexico positioned them perfectly to become involved in the drug trade.”

“Deforestation is happening at an alarming rate in Belize and the Mennonites are at the heart of it.”

Those observations come from Menno Moto a recently published travel diary by Cameron Dueck who was raised in a Mennonite community in Manitoba’s Interlake. Dueck, now a journalist living in Hong Kong, writes about his motorcycle trip to visit Mennonite enclaves in Mexico, Belize, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.

Dueck wanted to find connections between life in the colonies he visited and his experience growing up in what he calls a happy, healthy, moderately conservative Mennonite family and community. The Mennonites he met in South and Central America were hardworking, friendly, their existence grounded in their churches. But Dueck also discovers darker things.

In Mexico he learns about young Mennonite men involved in the drug trade. Eager for ready cash they are easily persuaded by the cartels to smuggle drugs across the border in their vehicles. Some older people tell Cameron Dueck drug smuggling and the things that come with it, are rotting their Mennonite communities at the core.

In Belize Dueck discovers Mennonites are planning to purchase 29,000 acres of land for more farms. Mennonites are procreating in Belize faster than any other ethnic group and that means they need more property. The 29,000 acres they want to buy is virgin forest and will be cleared for farmland. Dueck hears no discussion about what will happen to the huge variety of wildlife that currently make their home in that forest. Belize has few environmental safeguards in place.

In her novel Women Talking Canadian author Miriam Toews writes about the rapes of over a hundred women and children on the Manitoba Mennonite colony in Bolivia. Cameron Dueck visits the colony and then goes to a prison to interview the men convicted of the crimes. Dueck offers a different perspective from the one in Toews’ book but one no less troubling and horrifying. Talking with a counselor who is trying to help Mennonite women, Dueck discovers that sexual abuse of many kinds continues unchecked and uninvestigated among Mennonites in Bolivia.

The Mennonite colonies in Paraguay offer a stark contrast to what Dueck saw in the first three countries he visited. In Paraguay excellent schools, hospitals and successful businesses have created a progressive, healthy life for Mennonites. Whereas many Mennonites in the other countries, especially women, are barely literate, in Paraguay young people are getting university degrees and have televisions and computers. This is in stark contrast to some Mennonite colonies in Bolivia, Mexico and Belize that don’t even have electricity. What strikes Dueck in Paraguay however is that the people living there have gone through extreme hardship and suffering to establish their Mennonite communities in the Chaco area of Paraguay nicknamed ‘the green hell’ because they wanted to be separate from the worldly lifestyle in North America. Yet over time they have adopted that very lifestyle in Paraguay.

Throughout the book Dueck talks about his own childhood in a Mennonite home and community and compares it to what he is seeing on his trip. Mennonites who read the book will find themselves making similar comparisons. Visiting Mennonite communities in other countries causes Dueck to reflect more realistically on his own Mennonite background and why he has distanced himself from Mennonite faith and culture as an adult.

Menno Moto will be of particular interest to people with a Mennonite connection, but it also offers a well told, unique and enlightening travel memoir for other readers. I’d recommend it.