photo: Stanisław Ciok Flipping through a recent issue of the Polish news magazine ‘Polityka’, I had a chance to read an article about the Roma people, perhaps better known Stateside by the more colloquial ‘Gypsies’. Entitled ‘Romofobia’, the piece describes the challenging situation of the 8 million-strong Roma minority living within Europe. Poland, where I live for a good chunk of the year, has a…
Stephen Scott on the Old Colony Mennonites: People known as Old Colony Mennonites occupy large tracts in the state of Chihuahua near Cuatemoc and Casas Grandes and in Durango. These German-speaking people emigrated from Manitoba and Saskatchewan in western Canada in the 1920s. They came to North America in the 1870s from Russia. The name, “Old Colony,” derives from their origin at Chortitza, the oldest…
It’s the ‘long weekend’ in Poland (a combination of the traditional May 1st communist worker’s holiday and Poland’s May 3 constitution day), and I’ve just paid another visit to my friends Jacob and Anita Martin, whom I’ve written about a few times on the blog. The Martins, who’ve lived in Poland since 1993, struggled a bit at first, but have been able to build themselves…
They live about as far back in as you can get, two miles down a mud road, deep in the heart of a serene pine-and-birch forest. The neighbors are mostly friendly, and Jacob has worked out a deal with one of them–a big-city transplant and a bit ‘unhandy’ when it comes to farming– to manage and use a cow and some of his equipment. It’s…
Tomorrow I hit the road to pay a visit to Jacob and Anita Martin, an American couple living in a village about an hour-and-a-half outside of Warsaw, that have been portrayed as Amish in the national media in Poland. photo: global.net Since I’m joining the group late and will miss the pre-arranged transport, I’ll have a nearly 10-kilometer walk to get to the Martins’ village…
It looks like Anita and Jakub, the ‘Amish in Poland’, are back in the news again. The Pennsylvania/Indiana-transplant couple, who settled in a village not far from Warsaw 14 years ago, appeared on the national talk show ‘Rozmowy w Toku’ (roughly, ‘Conversations in Progress’) tonight. Kind of an odd place to find an Amish family, but again, we’re not sure exactly what their particular brand…
This one goes back a couple years, but really surprised me when i first found it. An English-language Polish weekly, the Warsaw Voice, reported back in 2000 that a few families, apparently of an Amish or Mennonite persuasion, had settled in a village not far from the capital. The arrival of the families apparently caused quite a stir: one villager ‘ran from house to house…
A few more photos from Jordi Busque, this time of an Old Colony Mennonite school Jordi visited while in Bolivia. Mennonites are a diverse group. They include everyone from “modern” Mennonites who live in cities and have professional careers, to Old Order Mennonites and Old Colony Mennonites, who live Plain agrarian lifestyles with limited technology in many cases.
Genevieve at prariebluestem.blogspot.com has shared some local insight in a piece about the influx of Amish and Mennonites into the Kentucky community where she lives. Kentucky Plain People In Christian County live not only Amish but Old Order Mennonites, who also travel by horse-and-buggy and share many similarities with the Amish. It seems a wide variety of other Mennonite designations are active in the area…
A link (no longer online) to some nice photos of Anabaptist-related peoples in South America, by Jordi Busque. Jordi says that the family in An Amish family in the jungle moved to Bolivia from Tennessee in the mid-90’s. Apparently they identify themselves as Amish, and Jordi adds that there is another family like them, about an hour’s walk away. Is this family in fellowship with…