Diary Entry
In this part of Africa, a few minorities still live according to their customs, but not undisturbed by civilization. I experienced the incredible moment with a group of gorillas in the jungle, but civilization is not far away from these animals and already has a strong influence on their lives.
Uwe and I drive just a little further. Not far from the gorillas live the Batwa. This tribe belongs to the pygmies and the people are incredibly small. A guide accompanies us and translates for us. We also have a soldier with us again – we have no idea why.
We visit a Batwa village and meet a king, a chief, warriors and children. The first two men to introduce themselves are over 70 years old and were born in the jungle. The Batwa were actually nomads, but at some point the government forced them to leave the forest and settle down.
However, this has also doubled people’s life expectancy. Today, they have to manage the balancing act between their tradition and integration into modernity.
If you force nomads to settle down and their life expectancy doubles as a result, is that reprehensible?
Echuya Batwa – pygmies
Echuya Batwa, commonly known as Pygmies, are an endangered ethnic group in the Echuya Forest Reserve in the Kisoro and Kabale districts of southwestern Uganda. The Echuya live in the Albertine Rift region, which is considered an important ecoregion. The Batwa are believed to have migrated from the Ituri forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo to hunt wild animals, hence the name Kisoro, which literally means “the area inhabited by wild animals”. The Batwa live in small huts made mainly of sticks and grass, and according to a 2014 estimate by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, there are 6,000 people living in the Echuya Forest Reserve.
Wikipedia
The Batwa welcome us and show us their traditional hunting techniques. These include traps for small animals such as rodents, but also larger animals such as wild boar. The men also show us their spears and bows.
The Batwa used to be nomadic people who evaded game. Now that they have settled down, they only need these techniques to demonstrate them to tourists.
Want to see more of my trip through East Africa? Check out my full route!
We visit a Batwa village that is part of the “Batwa Empowerment Village” project. A young lady named Deborah is part of an NGO that helps the Batwa to find their footing in modern times. The children go to school while the adults sew and show tourists their culture.
In the long term, the Batwa are to become autonomous, but I doubt whether anything of the culture will remain once this autonomy is achieved. Adults and children already face daily discrimination from their neighbors.
The village is like a living museum. We see how people lived, but we also know that there is no way back to that way of life. I really hope that the Batwa find their place in modern times and manage to adapt without their history being forgotten.
We are now leaving the region around Bwindi and starting our journey to the neighboring country of Rwanda. It is already late in the day, but we want to spend the night near the border so that we can take the bus from there to Kigali tomorrow morning. Another long drive through the mountains in the rain and darkness lies ahead of us.
