7.30 was when I ordered my breakfast for the next day and at 7.30 they knocked on my door to tell me to come get breakfast, but was there any breakfast to be seen….? No. Grrr. F**king tell me its NOT READY and i can go get a shower and sort myself out instead of stitting there like a TOOL for 20 minutes! Or put it on the table at 7.30 and let it go cold if Im not there. I mean, what was the point of telling them the night before… There was a change of plan in the days routine as apparently the pygmies would be going to the market so we should see them first. Since they try to keep themselves to themselves and apparently have nothing to sell and no money this didn’t make much sense, but I wasn’t going to argue. We set off on the bike with Joseph driving and as nice as the guy is I will still feel bad for stating he is a shit driver. We wobbled and swayed about, the roads were pretty bad but he had no confidence. At one steepish rocky part I suggested I walk and I turned around and he had dropped the bike. I suggested I drive. I did a better job than him and we got up to the part we would walk from no problem. The bike was weird, it was like a moped but with a clutch, so the gear shifts were the wrong way around and caused constant confusion whenever I came to change gear. We walked up through 500 year old lava fields towards the village of the pygmies, looking at birds on the way as Joseph recounted various facts and touristy information. After a bit of a hike we made it up to the ‘village’, more a collection of huts. The Batwa (as they are local known) are indigenous forest people but have bee evicted from the jungle over recent years and now hold themselves seperate from the local population, living on land donated by sympathetic people and growing some small crops and keeping a few animals. They live in mostly tradition houses and they were shockingly poor. The kids were running around in rags and no shoes and they had tiny filthy huts. Joseph showed me around and said that when they die they are buried in their huts forcing the survivors to build anew. Other people arrived from nearby and they did the usual expected tourist thing and put on a bit of a song and dance for me. I have no idea if it was traditional or real, but they seemed to enjoy it and all worked up a sweat. The local ugandan boys who looked after the cattle watch in amusement as their batwa friends danced. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable situation to be in, the poor people dancing for the rich white tourist, but what could I do? ‘I guess I’ll take some pictures then…’. They danced and sung for a good 20 minutes while the ‘chief’s wife banged a drum made of an old metal tin with some leather strapped on the end. Of course I had the usual problem of hw much should I give them. I had to give them someting, and there were a lot of people there, i guess… you can only believe what the person who speaks english tells you, but I dont think it was a scam. I gave them 50,000, since I didn’t have any twenties, about £14, which was probably 50p each. I dont know if it was too much, they seemed very happy with it anyway. They all started dancing again and all the men shook my hand. Was pretty sad. I wish they could all just go back into the forest and everyone would leave them alone. Including me. We hiked back down to where we left the motorbike and i gave Joseph a 10 minute lesson on how to take a photograph. He kept taking ‘a good one’ but since I put the flash on and hadn’t seen it was taking nothing at all. For a guide with lots of experience you would think he would know how to push and hold a button…

t be continued



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