John and Stella's Journey to the Batwa Pygmy Community

Located in the southwestern region of Uganda, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an area now inhabited by a scattering of Batwa pygmy communities. The area is located on the perimeters of the Bwindi Impenetrable Park, home to almost half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas. In the 1990s, the Batwa pygmies were evicted from their homes within the park’s perimeters when the area was designated a national park to protect the gorillas. Though the pygmies had lived as hunters and gatherers and shared land with the gorillas for centuries, they were suddenly forced to leave without compensation and find their own way. They now live on the outskirts of the park and have urbanized to more modern ways of living.

IHA’s interest in these pygmy communities was prompted by a promise and a night-time dream followed by a series of synchronistic events in waking life. This dream and these events have ultimately led to IHA’s newfound connections with the pygmies.

Though the IHA/EWB team had already left to return to The States, John remained behind to complete some additional project visits with Stella, the first being this particular visit to connect with the pygmy communities. After an exhausting 10 hour drive, the last 40 miles on a winding mountain dirt road, John and Stella reached the Batwa Community area and the Batwa Development Office (BDO). BDO is the non-government organization that is helping the pygmies. The office is located near the entrance to the Bwindi Impenetrable Park.

After meeting with officials, John and Stella, along with Reverend Enos–the BDO director–took off for yet another hour’s drive on windy, bumpy, try-your-patience mountain roads to the PRES PRIMARY School. The school provides education to approximately 200 children, including 30 Batwa pygmies. There they met the director and several teachers, and talked about IHA’s plans for helping the community. Our main goal thus far is to bring solar power to the community, so they planned the solar power installation for the school and hired a local technician to do the wiring.

Next the team visited a member of the pygmy community and donated a “power pot” for use by her and her neighbors. “Power Pots” are pots that when you heat them, the power created can be used to charge devices such as a cell phone. IHA also donated over 100 pairs of eyeglasses for distribution throughout the community. Our future goals with this are to continue to provide more solar power to the schools, as well as equip at least two schools with laptops. After concluding with these communities and thanking Reverend Enos for his support, John and Stella embarked on the long, long, and long journey back to Kampala.

If you are interested in reading a little more about pygmies, Wikipedia has a decent overview. Click below to read more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples