Pygmy Village and Bright's Village

Today we had the opportunity to visit the Batwa, who are also referred to as pygmies. Our day began very early because to get to the pygmy village we traveled about forty five minutes by boat across the lake and then hiked for thirty minutes up from the edge of the lake to the village. When you are at Lake Bunyonyi all of the hikes seem to go up from the shoreline, so be prepared for challenging hikes when you come to visit! When we arrived at the village, we were greeted with a welcome dance from the adults and children. The pygmies were all very welcoming and we enjoyed dancing with them. Afterwards, we were given a tour of their houses. A pygmy house was very simple and small considering that six people lived in it. Historically the pygmies lived in forests, as the term pygmy refers to the ancient dwellers of the forest. However, in Uganda with the formation of different national parks, such as Bwindi and Mgahinga, the Batwa were evicted from the forest. The Batwa who are now located in villages along Lake Bunyonyi were displaced with the formation of the Echuya Forest Reserve in the Kabale and Kisoro districts. With the relocation, very few Batwa own agricultural land, which for many has resulted in extreme poverty. As a result, in conversations with the Entusi staff, we learned that the pygmies struggle with food security.  Tourism has become a main source of income to help feed their families. One source of income is from selling crafts and gifts to tourists. After our group purchased different crafts we also gave the chairman and chairwoman a ride in the boat to the nearest market so they could purchase food. Depending on tourism alone will not lead to a sustainable existence for the pygmies. Donations are a temporary fix; however, it is crucial that other solutions such as the teaching of farming techniques are explored to help the pygmies become self-sufficient.

After visiting the pygmy village, we had the opportunity to visit a local primary school which has classes ranging from nursery to P4. The school is community funded and it educates the pygmy children and other local students. With the geography of Lake Bunyonyi students would need to travel a significant distance to access a government funded school, hence the creation of a community funded school. During our visit we were able to walk through the classrooms and talk with the teachers. We observed a similar trend to what we had seen at other schools in that class sizes decreased significantly as students moved up in grade levels. Since the school is community funded they rely in part on donations, so we contributed funds that would be used to purchase roofing material for the new P5 classroom (the school is adding one grade level a year).

To conclude our day we visited Bright’s village. Bright was our activities coordinator at Entusi and he accompanied us throughout our stay at Lake Bunyonyi. To reach his village we embarked on a fifteen minute boat ride followed by a ten minute hike. The school and church for the village had a beautiful one hundred and eighty degree view of Lake Bunyonyi. It was absolutely stunning! At the school we were able to play a volleyball game with students, which we lost by quite a lot, and we played our final soccer game in Uganda.