Transporting back in Time

Every time I take these photos out I am taken back to Uganda and the Batwa.  I am connected to these people and I feel for them.  I felt very honored, like I was in the presence of a rich spiritual tribe, all woven together by fate and circumstance.

Political changes in Uganda in the early 1990's and global initiatives to save the mountain gorillas from extinction were the impetus for the extraction from the forest.  These gorillas are the closest to human DNA and there was concern that the gorillas would be compromised if the Batwa stayed in the forest.  Let's just ignore the thousands of years they lived together harmoniously, let's marginalize an entire culture which is struggling with the same threat of extinction, let's just "take" under the guise of betterment for all. Oh, I digress.  I am speaking ethnocide and this is about the Traditions of the Batwa.  Unfortunately, I have to tell this story here, I believe it would jeopardize our project if political ramblings cropped up and I am not a real politico by any stretch.  Just so you know I found this online at Wikipedia (not always a reliable source), when I said ethnocide to myself . . .  I LOVE GOOGLE!  This actually played out as accurate info: 

Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples uses the phrase "cultural genocide" but does not define what it means.^[4] The complete article reads as follows:

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

This declaration only appeared in a draft. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007, but only mentions "genocide", not "cultural genocide", although the article is otherwise unchanged

Oh, I still digress.

Anyhoo - Back to the history project . . .

When we got to the cultural center the elders, which were three women and one man, took us into a hut where we could rest a minute and hear them speak of their time in the forest.

James was the one to speak to us and Levi was the translator.  James told us about the Batwa's instruments, the drums made from goat skins and wood and a string instrument (which I don't know what it's called) that James played for us while Mangerie danced.

This moment, this resting time, was for me, a brief look into the world of the Batwa . . . a journey with information that I was to carry back with me and share with whomever would listen.