Mennonites at the Beach
After an exhausting day greeting several thousand people, what better way to relax than to lay on the white sandy beach, with coconut leaves whispering overhead, sipping a cool drink and listening to the soft hissing of waves on the sand and forget about Mennonites in general and customers in particular? At least, that was my goal. Reality hit hard although I should have known better.
The beach was not crowded at first, but it was certainly flowing with more than just salt water. Bottles of beer decorated the various wooden tables; blue tobacco smoke wafted here and there.
As the afternoon wore on the crowd became thicker and I restless. Our children enjoyed the water and sand thoroughly but we parents soon realized we had arrived at the wrong beach or simply the wrong time of day. More bucketfuls of beer materialized under the coconut trees; cursing and swearing was the norm. Some of the swimmers arriving reminded me of the native Amazon Indians in the National Geographic documentaries; a few strings around their body and nothing else. I soon spied other Mennonites in the crowd. They seem to be everywhere, don’t they? They could have easily passed for Canadian or European tourists with their swimwear, except I had seen them before and recognized them as old acquaintances. There were even one or two Old Colony Mennonite men, creating an odd contrast with their plaid shirts and suspenders, squatting calmly at the water’s edge, solemnly smoking, seemingly unperturbed by the “worldliness” around them. In spite of the crowd we did manage a few dips, jostling elbows as we did. You just can’t seem to avoid Mennonites in Belize…
…but then again, it's a small country.
We'll look for a more isolated beach next time.
A. Mendoza
