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Creative Blacksmith
WE LEFT the Pygmy village and returned along the long trail back towards our camp in Rubugiri. A couple of hundred metres along the trail we saw the three small boys we had seen earlier, holding a couple of water bottles they no doubt had for sale.
Children following us back to the main village |
On the way back I started to get to know our guide Peter. He is not a pygmy even though he was very short. He did seem a bit racist in the tone in which he had said they spend their money on boozing. We all discussed their obvious signs of a drug problem, and that they seemed to have no idea on how to live outside of the jungle. It seemed very sad that they would have been very successful in their lives in the jungle and yet they were doing so poorly here. That sounded very much like some of the Australian Aboriginal communities I have heard about. We had tried to assimilate them into the Western mind-set, but that had failed miserably. The same seemed to be happening here.
Children in the village |
We crossed over the little short cut and around the next two gullies until eventually returning to the main village. As expected there were eight children very keen to see us, including the little boy who kept repeating “hello” at the top of his voice no matter how many times we said hello back. One of the girls was holding a baby. She couldn’t have been any more than ten years old.
Now that we were back on the road, we followed it down from the village centre for a hundred metres before turning off to the right and following a narrow path between the mud houses. Some of them had an obvious framework of sticks somewhat similar to the construction of the cow dung huts of the Masai, though a little more elaborate.
At the blacksmith's |
We walked around one house and saw four three men sitting in front of a small fire. There were a number of small pots and other metallic things around. This was the local blacksmith. They were all wearing black apart from the man who started a presentation to us. He was wearing a white shirt.
One of his assistants leant over his small fire and put a piece of metal bar in hammering it into shape. His baggy hat hid his head. The presenter told us he was making a spearhead. He produced one on a two metre long pole. The spear was sharp. He then showed us all sorts of other things they had made, everything from a small mattock to watering cans and cooking pots. They were all crudely made, but fully functional. They would have been pretty impressive in this village.
Children hiding behind the house |
Behind us around the corner of the house were about ten children staring. I’m not sure if they were watching the presentation or just staring at the pale strangers in their midst. Every time we turned around whenever they made a sound, they would all run away behind the house. Then they would tentatively come out again.
The old man in the daggy hat then stood up. He was quite old and wrinkled. He had a small stringed instrument with a small hollow drum in the end and what looked like a small hacksaw. He scratched away a tune and started singing a folk song. It was a lot happier than the sad songs of the pygmies.
Blacksmith performing on one of his musical instruments |
He then produced a much larger instrument made of wood. No doubt this was also unique to his invention. He performed another scratchy song on the larger instrument.
We returned uphill to the road, and then continued walking along it. The road made a good downhill walk to warm us up for the gorilla trekking tomorrow. We walked past women and children and even a few cows perambulating along the dirt road.
Finally we were back in civilisation. We were at the main village again. There were shops and even a church. There was even a bank – the Rubuguri Co-operative Savings Credit Society Ltd with a bakery next to it. The village was very quiet. No doubt everyone was still out at work.
Farewelling Peter |
We arrived back at the Wagtail Eco-Safari Camp, our eco lodge. There I posed with Peter, the tour guide of the day. I had initially thought he was a pygmy, but he was just a short man. He didn’t like the pygmy, and I now assumed that it was because he was so short that a lot of people in the past had ridiculed him to that effect and he now disliked them.
Tired from the long walk this morning, we returned to our tents for nearly half an hour before lunch. Everyone else was already there when I arrived. We sat down and ordered a large spaghetti bolognaise served by Emma.
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