August 24 - Batwa People and and Anniversary

Today we are off to Mgahinga National Park.  The drive gave us good views of Lake Mutanda,

the potato and banana fields

and Muhavura Mountain (a major landmark of the area that can be seen for miles around).

We drove by a very interesting area of rocks that looked like a quarry.

The jungles of the Mgahinga National Park are known for gorillas, golden monkeys (found nowhere else) and the Batwa people.  The Batwa are a jungle dwelling people who were relocated as part of conservation efforts in the area.  They were formerly known as pygmies (considered to be a pejorative term).

We arrived late morning and immediately headed to the park where we thought we were visiting the Batwa Village.  Turns out Francis changed the itinerary a bit.  Instead of the village we had a Batwa “experience”.  The two of us headed off into the hills with a guide, two men with guns to scare off any buffalo and elephants (in case any decided they didn’t want us there), four Batwa men, two porters (for Paul and Mary), and a man carrying a backpack full of props for the Batwa men.  That was 10 people for the two of us. 

The hike was rather hard and the entire trip took about 3 ½ hours.  There were muddy stretches, steep “steps” of rocks to navigate and the altitude.  We huffed and puffed a lot and made liberal use of the porters to help us on the bigger steps and uneven terrain. The hike was at a high elevation - it started at 7,700 feet and ended at 8,530 feet.

Every 15 minutes or so we would stop and the Batwa men would show us something in regards to how they lived in the forest.  They demonstrated how to make fire (exact same way that we saw in Australia with the aborigines).

Then they set up tiny "tripods" and roasted "meat" (greens) and pretended to eat.

They demonstrated how they set traps,

Mimicking being captured by the trap. 

how they hunted,

and they also played some music on a flute type instrument.  It was accompanied by chanting and clapping.

They also showed us the "plates" they used for food,

pointed out medicinal plants and how they stripped bark from a certain tree in order to make rope.

Sometimes they were so funny as they very dramatically acted out scenes…pretending to be an animal that trips a trap and gets captured.  Or eating some bark that then make them vomit in order to get rid of a poison.

At one point during the walk we came across a gigantic worm.  The guide said that it's official name was "Big Ass Worm".  How funny.

Also saw a small chameleon.

The entire walk was interesting and educational but, unfortunately, really hard.

We stopped at a Batwa cave 

where some of the Batwa women sang and gave a performance.  The cave was a meeting place for the Batwa people of Uganda and Rwanda, who would meet occasionally to discuss items of interest.  The cave even had a "chair" for the overall chief to preside from.

When we got to the top of the hill near a village they had a small pavilion where we rested while the people performed a few dances.  

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Video of Batwa dances
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The people did not seem so terribly short (especially to Mary) but guide indicated that many had intermarried with other tribes so not so many of them were so short.

And then we needed to check out the woven and carved wares they had for sale.  Mary bought a couple of small baskets for gifts. 

Then we trekked down the hillside and through some farms and fields 

to catch our ride with Francis to our new lodgings, Mount Gahinga Lodge. 

Just before dinner Hillary came down and asked us to accompany him to the lodge as he had something for us.  It turns out that they had an anniversary celebration for us.  Our anniversary isn’t for another couple of weeks but apparently it was close enough. 

We were given lengths of twin to tie around each other’s wrist to represent the joining of our lives.  

And they had a tray with 4 items to taste…sour (lemon), bitter (vinegar), spicy (a spicy paste) and sweet (honey) to represent the aspects of married life.  And they had a great big cake.  We decided to save the cake for our dessert.  It was all very sweet.

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Video of our anniversary celebration
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