Today we spent the morning visiting a Mennonite school, museum, church, having lunch in a Mennonite home, and being served a Mennonite family style dinner by our hosts here at the RV Park.
What is amazing is that we are in the middle of several hundred thousand acres of Mexico that is not like Mexico at all! As we drove by modern western style homes, several John Deere farm equipment dealerships brimming with large new tractors, and several North American style family restaurants we began to understand the extent of the Mennonite settlement in the middle of the State of Chihuahua in northern Mexico.
The trail of Mennonite pioneering in agrarian development leads back to moving from the Dutch and German low country to the Prussian Delta in the 1500's, on to Russia in the 1700's, Canada in 1870, and finally to Mexico in 1923. In all instances the Mennonites chose to move if they were not assured of three personal freedoms, religion, private schooling in German for their children, and freedom from conscription into the armed forces. In the case of Canada it was a national requirement for English schooling after WWI that brought on the move to Chihuahua. After three years of research President Ortega of Mexico signed a personal guarantee of those rights for the Mennonites.
The children you see in the photos entertained us with songs and group reading all in German and got rewarded with our group singing the "Hokey Pokey" in exchange. 
Dinner this evening was delightful and followed by an extensive briefing as tomorrow is the big day! We will leave early for a short drive to La Junta and then load our RV's on the Copper Canyon train in preparation for departure Saturday morning. After loading is completed we will spend the evening having dinner in La Junta and sleeping in the motorhome on the train in the loading area.
