They arrived in Bolivia during the fifties, coming from Canada, Mexico or Belize, where their lifestyle was being threatened. In Canada the young people wasn’t taking the right path, and then the government banned their education system. That was enough for leaving the country, and so a group of them went to Bolivia invited by the government with the promise of land and religious freedom. Nowadays in Bolivia, there are more than fifty thousand Mennonites, or Menonos, as they are called here, although the exact number is difficult to know as many of them are living unregistered or with foreign passports. They still live as their ancestors did on the S.XVI Germany, without cars, electricity, telephone, and extremely isolated from the local community.—Jordi Ruiz Cirera
Jordi Ruiz Cirera is a Spanish documentary photographer based in London. Featured is a selection of work from his long term project documenting the lifestyle Bolivian Mennonites.
This post was contributed by photographer Alex Potter
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