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In February/March 2008 I went together with Cassandra Vugts (interviews, articles and sound recordings) for the English NGO Forest Peoples to Rwanda in order to make a photographic feature on the living conditions of the Batwa people with emphasis on their pottery skills. The Batwa only consists of 1% of the population of Rwanda (next to Hutu’s 84% vs Tutsi’s 15%). Where to start writing an article on the Batwa population when it is even forbidden to talk about Batwa people since the arrival of President Paul Kagame, who called all the ethnic groups “Rwandese people” after the genocide of 1994. Since 1994 all inhabitants of Rwanda call themselves Rwandese although the Batwa are called the social and economically marginalized people. The genocide took its most victims among the Batwa people (30% vs 14%) but because this group only consists of 1% of the total population, they are never mentioned and live totally neglected and solitary at the border of the forests of Rwanda. Most of the memorial sites don’t even pay any attention to the cruel massacres these people had to face. How does a sub-culture, which apparently has little right of existence, survive and how do you visualize such a group in order to make them visible to the rest of the world? One of the tools Forest Peoples Projects (FPP) provided to the Batwa people is the Dancing Pots Centre in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. Batwa are originally the best potters of Africa so FPP created a store and a pottery-workshop-place where Batwa from different destinations around Rwanda are able to share their pottery knowledge and improve their skills on the hand wheels, also provided by FPP. The hand-made products are bought by FPP and are for sale in the store. The revenues of these sales are used for improving the living conditions of the Batwa. Cassandra and I followed seven Batwa groups and we created a photojournalistic feature. Besides the process of making pottery, we also visited a healthcare centre and a primary school. The whole story is integrated and gives an overview of the current state of living of the Batwa communities. |
Batwa
in Rwanda