Why Eight Mennonite Families Left Mexico for Angola

Not long ago, the field where Charlotte Itala picks corn with her friends was a hunting ground where people in her small African village caught antelope, boar and forest buffalo.

Now that land has been plowed over by her new employers, a group of Old Colony Mennonites.

The Mennonites, adherents of a Christian sect founded in the 16th century, number nearly 60 people in all, most of whom set out from Mexico almost a year ago to establish a settlement in northeastern Angola. As part of an agreement with a diamond mining company, they have cleared and cultivated nearly 2,000 acres, hoping to build a community that other Mennonites from the Americas can join.

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A map of Angola locating Cambanze in Lunda Norte province. Luanda is also shown.

The new families, who use shipping containers as makeshift homes, have impressed some Angolans but raised fears among others. In Ms. Itala’s village, Cambanze, some worry that the Mennonites may be just the latest outsiders to move in with little regard for the people who live there.

“If they take our land, we won’t be able to grow our cassava — and then what are we going to eat?” said Ms. Itala, who makes $2.50 for seven hours of work in the Mennonites’ field. The money does not make up for the loss of her village’s hunting ground, she said. “We are worried for our future.”