Visit to the Batwa Village

I had wanted to write more about our visit to the Twa village last week. The Rwandan government calls these people “the community of potters” (because ethnic terms have pretty much been outlawed), but they have also been called “the people who were left behind by history” and “the people who have been here from the beginning.”

The Batwa people are the descendants of pygmy tribes that used to live in the rainforests in the south of Rwanda. But when the government claimed that land for national park use, they moved north toward Kigali and have been living on the mountain where we met them for 30 years.

Getting to the village was an adventure in and of itself. We hadn’t gone too far on the main highway – maybe 20 minutes or so – when we turned off onto a dirt road. Then we spend another 20 minutes bouncing around in our little van until we decided it would just be safer (and faster) to get out and walk. The landscape was breathtaking and it was nice to have some fresh air (they’ve been burning plastic near St. Paul’s, and the fumes are not pleasant). We walked in single file along a small footpath – taking great care to watch our step as the way was rocky and several of us were wearing flip flops – until we spotted some small huts over the next ridge. I was in high spirits; it felt like quite an adventure and some people were singing songs from The Sound of Music. As we descended upon these mud and stick huts (the Twa village), we were greeted by the village chief. He was a tiny old man with a huge smile who embraced each one of us. Then some of the elder women came up to greet us, and hugs were given all around. (Note: the Twa are not nearly as short as I thought they’d be… the chief was probably around 5’2’’). We were then lead down the hillside until we ran into a small group of other Muzungus who were walking up the hill. We ended up forming a circle on the slope and listened as the leader of the group, Dr. Karl, told us about the Twa people and his work in their village.

Facts:

The child mortality rate in the village is 47%. Dr. Karl says lots of children get worms (because they don’t always wear shoes) and that they are severely malnourished/don’t get enough protein. People do raise goats, but rather than using these animals for food, they sell them for money—with this money, they can buy food for a week (sweet potatoes and cassava). The health center is only two miles away, but it takes an hour to walk there across the rough terrain. When Dr. Karl taught a class on hygiene, no one knew what soap was or how to use it. Water is so scarce that they can’t afford to bathe. It takes an average of two and a half hours to get water every day. They walk to a spring which is so weak that they can only collect it one cup at a time.

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We didn’t take a tour of the village because a baby had died early that morning and the community was making preparations to bury the body. Dr. Karl said that if the baby’s mother could have been transported to the medical clinic, they could have saved the child; but how is a pregnant woman supposed to walk 2 miles while in labor?

Anyway, we started to head back to the bus and I saw an American participant hand a bottle of water to a child. I immediately reached for my bottle as well, but made eye contact with another US delegate (we had talked about the politics of giving earlier in the week) and decided to ask Dr. Karl if it was okay. He took the bottle out of my hands, thought for a moment, and then handed it back and said “we’d actually prefer it if you didn’t – unless you have 150 bottles to give out.” So I walked away with this full bottle of spring water, and just started crying. An immense feeling of guilt and helplessness overwhelmed me – it was so easy for our group to turn around and walk away, but the Twa were stuck there for good. We were headed back to Kigali where there were showers and bottled water and grocery stores. And then I thought about how in a couple days, I would head back to the United States where I’m even more spoiled. The contrast between my life and the lives of those in the Twa village was so evident, so absurd. It didn’t help that I couldn’t get the images of dirty, skinny children in rags out of my head.

I apologize for sharing such a depressing story – take comfort in the fact that Dr. Carl and his team are working to improve the lives of these individuals. They were recently able to provide shoes for the children in the village, and they are currently helping to build terraces on the hills which should reduce soil erosion and increase agricultural productivity.

For more information about the Batwa, visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQSGEzrO1EM&feature=PlayList&p=EE8545F0720BF74B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=35