Eva and the forest

The green canopy goes on for miles and miles. Those trees are thick and so neatly packed that they look like they have been knitted together by someone’s grandmother. I guess that should be crocheted, why do they serve us those foreign books?

Do forgive me, but after so many years of looking at photos of old ladies knitting sweaters or socks with cats by their feet, the picture comes naturally.
This picture perfect canvas of rich greenery rising and falling as the hills and valleys that make the forest, however is at the far end of South Western Uganda, in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Standing on one of the hills and looking down, you will find yourself nodding in agreement at what a perfect name this flora (I have always wanted to use this in a sentence) has. Gladly, with a group of journalists under the Conservation Media Camp, we managed to penetrate parts of the forest. The adventure of hills and valleys took us to the Batwa community. It is here that I met Eva. She was clad in a long brown dress, her head covered with a scarf and she wore thin slippers.

The 20-year-old smiles very shyly and yet will boldly tell you some surprising things. On hearing about the deprived livelihood of this forest tribe, one would think a young woman like her will seek solace in a good marriage. But no, Eva through an interpreter, tells me she is not ready for marriage yet and she has barely had an education.

She wants to make a life for herself and right now that means perfecting her tailoring skills. But where do you get clients? I ask her, for the forest settlements look so sparsely populated that we had driven for two and half hours into the forest and walked some more to find her community.

“The Bakiga around here bring their clothes or I will sew for the organisation,” she says optimistically. The organisation she speaks of is Change a Life, whose programmes coordinator, Tinah Katushabe, tells the team that the body empowers the Batwa through training and supporting them in bee keeping, community tourism and craft making.

We see a couple of baskets each with a small hand written paper indicating the name of the weaver. I search through the pile for Eva’s small baskets and get immediately captivated by their beauty, a result of the natural dye extracted from the forest.
“The forest is everything to us,” Eva tells me, and then like her father, who I later met, laments about how hopeless life is now that his community can no longer live in the forest. It is illegal and one can be killed for crossing the designated boundaries into the deep of the forest. In her voice you, can read the deep attachment.

To test her, I ask cheekily, “What if a man came from the city or Kabale town and wanted to marry you and take you to live in the city.” What! Never! Anger flashed in her eyes as she said she will never leave the forest. She would marry her fellow Mutwa and build her family there. Looking around at how much the community lacked, and yet all they felt they needed was the solace of the forest was humbling.

Eva spends her day relaxing with friends and doing a few house chores or her tailoring and this gives her contentment. Like many rural women, she has learnt how to manage and survive on the bare minimum and even deal with menses in a situation where pads are a luxury.

When you see Eva and her kin, you will feel sorry for them immediately, but when you speak to her, the pride she holds in who she is will instead fill you with admiration. She and her kin may not have much, but the contentment they feel from being themselves enables them hold their heads high day by day.
Adapting to a new life without the solace of their beloved forest is what they have to come to terms with but even then, life is simple and goes on day by day.