Today we visited the towns of Intercourse, Paradise and Bird-In-Hand Pennsylvania to take a closer look (and learn a little) about the Amish people (no, I don't know the origin of those names but thankfully I did manage to resist making school-boy jokes about them). But to be honest we became more perplexed the more we heard about the Amish way of life. For example we saw many horse carriages with steel tired wheels running down the highway and were told that the Amish are not allowed to use motor vehicles or vehicles with rubber wheels. But when we visited an Amish farm we saw modern tractors, modern fork lifts and a variety of rubber tired trailers and trollies.

We were also told that the Amish don't use electricity, but later learned that this restriction only applied to electricity that came in via the electrical grid. Hence at that same farm we saw a large diesel generator driving a variety of electrical tools including big air compressors which in turn drove air tools.

Telephones. The Amish are not allowed to have phones in their homes, but many houses have a small outside building (about the size of an outhouse) which houses a phone. Incoming callers leave messages which the home owner will later listen too.

We were beginning to think we were missing something obvious; what basic belief structure could drive such apparently contradictory or bizarre practices? We never did get a good answer but we did discover that we were not the only ones perplexed. In one of the book shops I picked up a book the title of which claimed to explain the mysteries of the Amish. The opening paragraph of the introduction made pretty much the point we had been wondering about all day. What set of beliefs allow Amish people to ride in an automobile but not drive one, or allow Amish to use a child's scooter or roller blades but not a bicycle. I regret a little that I did not buy the book as I still don't understand.