[imagesource: Jake Michaels/Setanta Books]

Spending time in a conservative Christian community in Belize, photographer Jake Michaels discovered a world frozen in time.

Far away from the American Midwest and bygone times are 12 000 of the world’s most conservative Mennonites who shun technology, and sometimes electricity, in favour of a simpler way of life.

Michaels’ photographs capture the pastoral scenes of families living by lamplight, with women in bonnets and men in straw hats riding horse-drawn carriages, which CNN notes can be hard to believe are from the digital age.

The Protestant sect’s members have moved around the world since the 16th-century, when they were in Europe, searching for isolated farmland and an escape from persecution or attempts to integrate them into wider society.

The specific community in Belize dates back to the late 1950s when a group of over 3 000 Canadian Mennonites immigrated from Mexico.

Since settling, they have made their mark:

Their arrival followed an agreement with the Belizean government, which offered them land, religious freedom and exemption from certain taxes (and, as committed pacifists, from military service).

In return, the country has enjoyed the fruits of their agriculture. Today, Mennonites dominate Belize’s domestic poultry and dairy markets, despite representing less than 4% of the population.

Enter Michaels, who visited three Mennonite colonies in Belize’s north (Indian Creek, Shipyard, and Little Belize) in the hopes of documenting their unique way of life.

Perhaps surprisingly, they were welcoming to Michaels, who learned to interact with his subjects before just snapping pics of them.

Free from the trappings of modernity, Michaels said his “whole practice shifted as the days like went on”:

“My mind slowed down, and I was more present in the surroundings,” he said.

“I’m not trying to say that their lives are simple, but I think it, for me, it just allowed me to slow down and be more present.”

His photographs hint at an idyllic life centred on family, but the reality of the remote way of life, which he tried to not romanticise, comes with its downside:

“There are good aspects to life, and there are hard aspects to life,” the photographer added.

“At the end of the day, people are still making a living … people still have jobs. So, I think it was important to show the whole spectrum of life.”

Michaels shows this side of things with community members sorting beans in a dimly lit room:

Others show the reality of working in a papaya-packing factory or clearing land for farming.

Additionally, because the communities are mostly reliant on commercial agriculture, the colonies are organised around family, religion, and labour, which puts a proper education on the backburner:

Permitted to run their own schools, Belize’s Mennonites have literacy rates significantly lower than the country’s other ethnic groups, with just 5% completing formal secondary education.

Some Mennonites work closely with the Belizean people, so they are aware of the outside world and what’s going on.

In the more progressive homes, cellphones and cameras, which make occasional appearances in some of Michaels’ pictures, are allowed.

One of Michaels’ “favourite [photographs] from the whole trip” depicts this contrast:

“Everything about it seems as if it’s a photo from like the 1950s, but then there’s a modern camera in her hand,” he said, adding that the gradual creep of technology was not necessarily perceived as a threat.

“They’re far away in the rolling hills of Belize, so it’s not like there are (competing lifestyles nearby).”

It is of a young woman in traditional clothing with her own small digital camera:

We’ll end off with a picture of an autumnal horse and carriage for good measure:

And just like that, I feel inclined to take a weekend trip to McGregor or Montagu soon.

[source:cnn]