Working with and for the batwa/pygmies

Working with batwa is an amazing experience I have had since child hood, but again the misery and horror I have grown see the batwa live in brings me heads down.

The batwa in kabale district live in basically eight villages but our little service organization was registered to reach out to only five of them. It’s approximately 51/2 hours of hiking to reach the first village and about four hours drive from this village to last village. So we voluntarily hike to the villages, then we use our motorcycle to link from the first village to the last.

Its heart breaking to hike this earthly paradise only to find misery and horror about the way the batwa are treated and live.

It had become “common wisdom” that the batwa are not actually human beings and hence it became some sort of taboo or crime to associate with them……reason they are smaller than the rest!

Therefore since they are not human beings (read this with all the sarcasm you can ever think of) they were often hunted like game animals in the forest and eaten, as some thought that eating their flesh conferred magical powers.  Can you imagine living where your neighbors wanted to hunt and eat you because they thought you were magically delicious?  

Okay, deep breath and more fact...    

The tribe I'm talking about lived in the forests of Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo for thousands of years just collecting honey and hunting small game, but over the years they've become slaves in Rwanda, hunted in the Congo, and in 1991 the Ugandan government kicked them out of the forest because they wanted to create game reserves and a "conservation program" - even though the Batwa did NOTHING to destroy the forest...  

So, they remain here... Kicked out of their land and squatters on someone else's property and they can't go home, can't move forward, and are stuck in this hellish purgatory...

Taking an assessment of the area one comes to a hut with a man inside said to be over 100 years old.   owner of the land allows  him to stay in the hut in exchange for one potato a day - the farmer would harvest the potatoes and leave them in the hut until he could take them away, and this man could roast one potato a day to survive.  His job at 100+ years old was to chase away anyone stealing from the garden... 

 He has been lying naked in there for nearly 10 years 

Here you have a group of people - not classified a humans - forbidden by the government to return to their ancestral land (they can't even cross the road), with no marketable skills, shunned by the community below just because they are small.  They live on a tiny bit of land given to them by a group from Europe but they can't afford seeds to farm it, so just survive on one potato or a bit of porridge a day  they are basically stuck on this island in the sky with no way off and no means to progress...

They all wear horribly tattered clothes, all about their traditional dress, customs, etc. has fast faded, talk of fading traditions and you get a lost one….their religion was based on forest spirits, but since they are forbidden to go into their forest - their religious customs are disappearing.   They used to dance and play thumb pianos but they had all been sold years ago to buy food.  They used to wear traditional animal skins but since it's illegal for them to hunt they can't wear them anymore.  They used to collect honey in the forest, but once again - can't go in the forest.  Everything was taken from them...  EVERYTHING...  Their food supply, their religion, their traditions, and their hope

I and a few friends have been trying to help the whole Batwa community by starting a service organization, and honestly, my they humble me to no end.  In order for us to volunteer for batwa , we have to hike 5 1/2 hours up hills to reach them, work through the day, and then hike back home - just to volunteer...  If we have something for them -we have to carry it on our backs - and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who works harder to volunteer for their outcast neighbors.  

Thanks to global colors we now have a bike………..

What we are doing with and for the batwa

The old man’s house...  we cleared the land for his hut, and built the hut and moved him to his new home. He is energized and guess what he now looks younger than his age ….he is now being looked after by his niece but we have to provide the basic supplies food, water etc etc

The dancing woman’s hut…. she lived in her old hut with her daughter and three grand kids but now we built her a hut and she now happily lives in it . Great?

The Gardens……oh what do I say? Eh let me see….. with help from seed and light international we were able to acquire vegetable seeds. Then the president of Development in Gardening came and taught us how to utilize literally no space into a wonderful garden, TALK OF SMALL PLOT GARDENING and you will get the expert that is Steve .we established two demonstration gardens for the batwa and helped families begin theirs and they overall remark after harvest was…..they are so good and we need much more and to get much more they saved seeds…I was personally impressed by this.

Then with Global colors again… we planted new potato seeds for two villages….they were weeded recently and we eagerly await nature to favor us and have a good harvest ….possibly this will also make easier for us to feed the old man.

The chicken  project Then our sights were set on the first chicken pen, we had it up, tied together with papyrus, and the mud nearly done...   added the tin roof, chicken wire, door, and create the floor...  So close...  :-) we had 100 chickens put in and they are wonderful….will be laying eggs in July.

We will be teaching interested farmers in the surrounding communities how to raise chickens profitably. Chickens, which are in short supply in the region and can be difficult to raise, are a valuable contribution to the food supply this Poultry House, is a demonstration training center and a model poultry project in kabale

We will train over 100 farmers to produce healthy and profitable chickens for their families and communities..  The project benefits over 500 people. Benefits include improved nutrition, income generation, and byproducts such as organic fertilizer for farmers using the chicken litter on their plantations

The chickens and the eggs are both important in changing lives; through improved nutrition and increased incomes

 Our chicken project continues we have to put chicken in the entire five communities’ ….wish us luck if you can……..

We have also a bee project for the batwa

All in line to achieve is cows for the batwa, restoration of their lost traditions norms, benches and desks for the batwa primary school( we will use bamboo trees, ropes and timber to make them……innovative!

Keep with me as I take you through the life and existence of this special group and this cause………

The batwa problem.

The Batwa/Pygmies have the highest level of poverty in the southern hemisphere. The Batwa (formerly known as Pygmies) are people who live along the edge of the forests surviving on wild honey, fruit, vegetation and wild game. † In 1991 the Batwa were evicted from Ichuya forest on which they depended by the Ugandan government. † No resettlement was made nor was any compensation given, leaving them homeless, landless, diseased, and malnourished and surviving at the extreme edge of life. This expulsion from their forest home made them vulnerable to many forms of exploitation from their powerful cultivator neighbors who turned them into modern day slaves. The Batwa work on their farms in exchange for a small piece of land to put a small temporary hut † they are also at a higher risk of HIV/AIDS infection because they are given food hand outs in exchange for sex.

The Batwa are also facing a clash of generations.† The elder Batwa who were used to a simple conservative forest life are now forced to survive outside the security and safety of the forest they once knew.† At the same time they are challenged with raising their children in an outside environment that is unknown and unforgiving.† The younger generation is at great pains of which life to follow, one of their parents in which they have not experienced or the new life that they have been forced into.

They are no strangers to hunger, with the current worldwide food shortage driving up prices, the Batwa have been hit hard. Without any food production, the problems will continue. The Batwa are a people in crisis, their life expectancy is 36 years due to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, exacerbated by poverty, and ironically they receive the least attention to alleviate their suffering. Questionable government policies have ostracized these under served people and they are finding themselves more and more marginalized as the hardships of day-to-day survival become increasingly insurmountable.  Long-term solutions require an investment in education of all forms and local food production.  Providing the training and resources will strengthen the Batwa’s ability to provide for themselves. CCEBRU has set itself to address the above challenges