Yesterday, we SOOPers and the members of the Carlsbad Mennonite Church sat around tables in their fellowship hall and shelled and cleaned pecans. It's pronounced Puh-cahns here, not pea-cans as it is in the East, apparently. We worked at that for a few hours and then had a soup and relish (pickles, cheeze, crackers, etc.) supper.
We spent the morning yesterday at a thrift shop unbagging, sorting, pricing and displaying used clothing. Those of you who have worked with old clothes at the Clothes Basket, for instance, will know what that was like. There are a lot of poor people in Carlsbad, and the place is busy, even on a Monday morning.
Tomorrow, Jason Stolzfus is going to guide us through a visit to Seminole, Texas, a place where Mennonites from Mexico have settled and have quite industriously built up what was a disappearing community. Our plan is to visit a cotton gin and a peanut processing plant, both in operation and to eat in a Mennonite restaurant in the area. When we get home, we'll be participating in a pot luck meal at the church, a biweekly event for the SOOPers and the church. As you may already have guessed, this is a very sociable community.
On Thursday afternoon, Ernie Good is taking Bruno, Rudy and me golfing. I am assuming that borrowed clubs, a desert climate and the newness of everything here will work some kind of a miracle on my game, which has never been better than mediocre.
Plans continue for the weekend trip to the Mexican Mennonite colonies, and we're looking forward to that.
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