If in March I spent the most of my time in Nakuru, April has been totally opposite. I guess I’m just so used to live with people around me, that the company of my small radio didn’t keep off the feeling of walls of my small house falling on me. So I’ve been escaping the reality and work to Tanzania, Mau forest and somewhere in between for the most of the month.
But at least all the travels weren’t just for fun, especially the one to Mau. The week before the Easter Ermis organized a workshop there for five different forest dwelling communities: The Batwa from Uganda, Sengwer from Cherangani in Kabolet forest, Yaaku from Mukogodo forest and Ogieks from Eastern Mau and Mount Elgon. (The Mount Elgon Ogieks called also as Chepkitale) Mamas, bwanas and youth all present. The issue was to bring all hunter-gatherers together and for the Kenyan communities to present for Ugandans how they had used mapping as a tool in their land campaigns and community mobilization.
I had barely arrived from my first travel when I was told to pack up again and prepare myself for sleeping a week in a tent at the Nessuit primary school compound, a place for the meeting regarded as freezing cold for camping. But hamnashida. Catherine equipped me worryingly with the warmest clothes she could find and a double sleeping bag – and I couldn’t have felt better! Chilly bright mornings, full moon above high cypress trees and smooth hills surrounding the landscape reminded me a lot of the nature back home in Lapland.
Unfortunately the Lapland-like feeling faded quickly when exploring the forest outside the school compound closer. I can’t even call it exploring, so narrow was the stripe of trees in front of the devastated landscape of grey dry field growing only stamps. There’s indeed hardly anything left of Mau forest to argue on, but they won’t stop. The farmer-settlers who’s legal rights to any land is absolutely unknown, big economy-boosting and employing land owners, environmentalists willing to conserve vulnerable habitants for wildlife and wildlife only, list goes on..
No wonder why hunter-gatherers saw it so important to share their history of land campaigns thoroughly: discrimination, objection and disappointments after disappointments. It definitely took the fair share of the whole meeting, so some other previously planned activities like group discussions of youth, women and men separate, to improve participation of marginalized groups within the communities, had to be cancelled. In the end the whole wamama-issue was actually brought up shortly by Julius and not the community members themselves.
“Women’s indigenous knowledge? Nobody has studied that.” Chris, a Scottish anthropologist and the worker for the Batwa through Forest People’s Program told me: “I came here to study Indigenous knowledge, too, but it failed. There was so much more important work to do..” referring obviously to the poverty and discrimination that all Batwa are facing regardless of sex or age. But at least I was not the only one interested. Grace pointed out, too, how Batwa women seem so empowered and outgoing compared to our previous experience with the Yaaku for example. Chris told again that the most of the pygmi communities are egalitarian, non-hierarchical. People have different tasks but none of them is of higher value than the other, and people, too, are valued according to their skills in their task whatever it be.
That sounded extremely interesting and I can only hope that in future meetings also such issues could be exchanged between the communities. What matters now is that we had the meeting in the first place. The people had their chance to share the issues they themselves saw relevant as much as they wanted to. Their debate reached from different sweetness’ of honey to Ogiek holding aerial photos and what in earth is an aerial photo anyway. And it was the community members to speak, nobody else.
Of course the big 3D Model of the Ogiek, their ancestral information as a tangible, appreciable form seemed to interest and inspire the participants a lot, too. Map is a strong tool in defining the home of the nation: who does the land belong to and what in there is relevant or important..The communities know this, too, and I believe the Batwa would now like to come together to collect, discuss and present their knowledge the same way, too. At least the knowledge will not die away with the elders now when it can’t be practiced through livelihood without an access to the forest. But I do wonder would it still be valuable for urban-oriented youth, who are in final responsibility of the future of these cultures?
This was yet to be found out, and I know I could have just asked anyway. Instead I ended up using tiring work and my small Kiswahili as an excuse to pumzika during breaks. But at least the language excuse didn’t work for very long. I happily noticed how the elders came talking to me patiently long complicated Kiswahili sentences with lots of hand sings for assistance.
For once I didn’t need to worry neither for being an outsider or not understanding what was going on around me. All the organizing worked very smoothly and I was happy to sneak behind the crowd with my teacups and camera, enabling the others to come together from my own small part, meanwhile learning myself from them, too. Especially much I enjoyed my role as a mediator of their message to outside world with both photographing and filming. It was the first time for me to hold the video camera and I noticed that filming helped me to concentrate on Kiswahili speakers and their message, too. So I really felt being in the right place and right task.
According to both Julius and Francis, our workmate in Ermis who also defined himself as now-retired-professional-Ogiek-activist, these kinds of cross-community meetings are not common. I’m not surprised and it seemed very important experience for the community members, too, to see that they’re not alone with their campaigns and non-recognition. Just coming together and sharing with others of similar experiences is enough to empower anybody, and I want to believe that the people returned home much heads full of future plans for common action.
