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It takes 5 1/2 hours to hike from the bottom of the valley to the top of the hill where the first Batwa camp is located, and then you arrive at the top to be heartbroken by how they live.
Since they aren't human (read that with enormous sarcasm), 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 we're working with 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."
So, here they remain - kicked out of their land and existing as squatters on someone else's property. They can't go home, can't move forward, and are stuck in this hellish purgatory...
Here you have a group of people (but not classified a humans) forbidden by their government to return to their ancestral land, with no marketable skills, shunned by the community below just because they are small. They live on a tiny bit of land but they can't afford seeds to farm it, so just survive on one potato or a bit of porridge a day. I learned that the dream of the adults is to be able to provide an egg a day for their children to get protein, and 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, so I started asking questions about their traditional dress, customs, etc. and I was told that their religion was based on forest spirits, but since they are forbidden to go into their forest - their religious customs are disappearing. I was told that 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.
With your help, our goals are to build large chicken coops and buy chickens to grant the wishes of the parents to provide an egg a day to their children. Clear land and buy seeds and seedlings to get their garden up and running (cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, spinach). Buy new dresses for the women. Buy thumb pianos for the men to regain their music. Pay for the materials to build 20 traditional bee hives to place at the edge of the forest to regain their custom of collecting honey. Build benches in their school so the children don't have to sit on the ground. Cows. Yep, I'm asking for cows again... There are basically five Batwa villages in the area and no one owns a cow for milk - a cow or two per settlement could do wonders for the kids nutrition.
So, that's my plan, and if you'd like to help with any of these things - click on that donate button. Everything (except the dresses and thumb pianos) will help this community to become self-sustaining, but I also think that having the women feel good about themselves and for the men to play the music is important too.
We are mid-way through our program, but still need many things to help these people, a few of needed items are listed below:
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