Ruhija, Uganda
We stayed for two nights at the Gorilla Safari Lodge in Ruhija, and enjoyed walking through the village and visiting the local orphanage. We were also introduced to a local family of Batwa Pygmies - people who were displaced from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest when it was turned into a national park in 1991. Traditionally semi-nomadic hunter/gatherers, the Batwa's lineage is reportedly traceable for 500,000 years! Now unable to hunt in the forest, and shunned by much of the community, their existence is severely threatened.
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Batwa Dwelling
The next stop on our tour was a visit with a Batwa pygmy family. Reportedly, Batwa ancestry can be traced back 500,000 years! When the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was gazetted into a National Park in 1991 to protect the mountain gorillas, the Batwa people were ejected from their ancestral home. The government gave them small plots of land on which to live, but not large enough to farm. As semi-nomadic hunter gatherers, their way of life appears to be at an end. The tour they provided was highly orchestrated to show how they used to live.
20181113LeslieRichterPhotoLRZ2938Batwa PygmiesPygmiesRuhijaUganda
