West of the River Paraguay lies the dry and torny Chaco. It covers 61% of the country and still there live only 5% of the Paraguayan population. Chaco is a fascinating land with large, untouched areas. It is streched from Asunscion to the Bolivian border.

Until 1927 there had lived only some Indian tripes in this area, e.g. Pampidos, Nivacle, Lengua, Toba and Sanapana. They lived on fishing and hunting.

Then some Mennonites colonists had come down mostly of Dutch origin some from Canada or Russia (baptists with German origin) and built villages and farms. There are still about 10,000 Mennonits in the Paraguayen Chaco, living still on cattle-breeding and farming. They have their own banks, schools and hospitals. Their daily language engenders their german-dutch origin with a German dialect, "plattdutch" (with Flemish and Dutch influences).

Dieter and I went to Filadelfia, the largest town in the Chaco area for a one and a half week. The town was very distingtive with wide long dusty roads, which almost looked abandond. If you were not in the actual center of town it was a bit of a ghost town to look at.

Filadelfia is inhabited by the Mennonites. The Mennonites are white people and I was thinking, entering Filadelfia in the bus, that we would easely blend in, get close to the people, get to know somebody - But boy was I wrong. Everybody stared at us like nobody have ever stared before. I'm used to beeing stared at, beeing in a wheelchair, but this was extreme.....! Some of the Mennonittes would hardly look you in the eyes when talking to them, nevertheless smile. The Mennonites lived in a very closed community, not used to tourist hanging around.