Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Today in the morning we went to a Mennonite community half an hour away from Charles City, which was very interesting and new for us. We visited a Mennonite school and watched the kids for a while during classes until they started to sing songs for us. After they finished we also showed them a German nursery rhyme called "Auf der Mauer auf der Lauer sitzt 'ne kleine Wanze".
The Mennonites still live a bit like in the past, they do have electric constructions, running water, telephones and cars but they abstain from computers, televisions and radios because they want to keep out the "evil" of their lives.
They also dress a bit different than we do, the girls all wear dresses and braids, the boys shirts with suspenders.
The Mennonite community we visited includes about 120 families which may not sound that big, but most families have more children than we normally have. So it isn't extraordinary if a child has about 7 siblings.
In the break at school, we played baseball with the kids but they were a lot better than we were... we were already happy when we hit the ball and didn't miss it... For the others who only watched the others trying to hit the ball this was very funny ;)

Be at the bat... 

...hit it...

...watch the ball...

...and then...

...RUN!!

The Mennonite school we visited includes 8 grades, so after grade 8, you are done with school and start to work on your family's farm or in your family's business. The Mennonites are famous for their wodden workings, for examples cabinetry. A lot of people in and around Charles City have cabinets that are built by Mennonites.
You can also become a teacher after school: the teachers who taught the kids today weren't much older than we are, one of the teaching girls was only 19 years old.