Following the government orders in 1991, the Batwa were displaces from their initial home where they lived as food gatherers and hunters (Bwindi Impenetrable National Park) they were relocated to a free land in Buhoma, this came after the UNESCCO approving Bwindi as a World Heritage site and so by protecting the forest as a national treasure because of the rare mountain gorilla the Batwa were forcefully evacuated from the forest to reserve the eco system.
After their struggle to learn behaviors in the community, they claimed for a private land as a platform to keep their culture in progress, they were given a part of the forest next to the community and that’s
where tourist will always find them to show case their ancient forest culture.
At the demonstration forest you are welcomed by representative of the Batwa family who will take you around with the help of the community guide translating during the entire activity.
In this place you enjoy the cool temperature from the forest for there are small tributaries of river Munyaga passing in the middle of the forest, there is a lot to admire from the red tailed monkey that are much friendly to the batwa and once you enter the forest you start hearing welcoming calls or even they come much closer to your hanging and jumping in tree branches.
Just moments of pleasure from the word go, these people lived an interesting life for sure the forest life is such amazing and touching, we started with visiting the man hood tree that is near the entrance we used to the forest, the guide narrates that during the time in the forest, work was communally done where by women could gather food and men would go hunting and protect the families but at any scenario when these men would go out for hunting and at the end would come back with northing they would go to this Viagra tree cut its skin and cued it as a result to increase their sexual desires to satisfy their wives and make them forget about the missing hunt and so as a compensation.
They would distribute work evenly like making fire for warming and roasting meat, they get a piece of dry stick rub it to one another with much energy and as a result of friction fire is produced and one major task of fire was honey harvesting, after finding the bees like in ant hills or in the middle of dry tree branches, an expert would climb the tree and them smoke or even burn the bees when then they die or get suffocated then honey is harvested but all this takes few minutes because bees are territorial and they will always want protect themselves by stinging .
In their free time they would go dancing drumming as by any community with norms otherwise if they lost a member they would look for trees with huge buttress and dig a hole beneath to bury the dead, after a burial they would practice some culture behavior to prevent to dead spirit from coming back to the community.
However they now stage all this in one place as a demonstration platform to showcase their life in the forest, they participate in weaving, and making different craft works that they sale to visitors who go visit them and appreciate their effort in Bwindi also as a consolation after the forest; otherwise the government still cares and keeps inspecting their way of life with free health care from Buhoma community hospital.
To note! Despite the fact that Batwa were driven out of the forest and now mixed with the community in bwindi, they have intermarried with the other race so the real Batwa are perishing and that’s why you will find some Batwa taller than before as the real pygmies. If he is one he called Mutwa if they are more than one they are Batwa if not called Batwa they are Pygmies in English or short people; however whenever you thing of gorilla safari trek you also remember visiting the Batwa community for a magical bush experience in Bwindi national park.