Pygmies have a long a history of being abused and enslaved by the Bantu, due to their small stature and lighter skin. There was even a heartbreaking example of a pygmie being brought to the Bronx Zoo in 1916 or so and he was put in a monkey cage. He eventually committed suicide. I didn't know what to expect when I saw them, but an acquaintance had visited a tribe (there are multiple pygmy tribes, numbering something like 13,000 inhabitants in all of CAR) that were doing really well because they were under the care and protection of a catholic nunnery. I honestly didn't expect their living conditions to be this lacking.
When we arrived, there were some villagers standing around these really dismal huts and I thought to myself.. "when are the pygmies coming?!" I guess I was expecting something bizarre, perhaps a very teeny person like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But these villagers WERE the pygmies, I figured it out when one lady smiled - some of them file all their front/visible teeth into sharp triangles and let me tell you, it is a scary thing to see - something out of a fantasy film.
Maybe it's because I'm short, but I didn't think they were noticeably small. Not that this is even a reason to be discriminated against, but the difference is literally something like 3 inches or close to that. But this isn't something new in the various continents where shades of skin can be the distinguishing factor between a Brahmin and a servant.
This particular pygmie tribe was nomadic, traveling from area to area in search of larvae, fruit and vegetation to eat. They did not farm, raise animals or participate in anything that would force them to be sedentary. There was a particularly beautiful woman here with tribal scarring and her teeth were filed into points. Perhaps she was the wife of warrior pygmie.
But their lives are just so difficult. I thought I saw poverty in Kaga Bandoro. Malnourished children, skinny, young moms, skinny old moms that probably were much younger than they looked, walking dozens of kilometers for food and water. But this type of poverty.. oh my god. They didn't even wear traditional dress, they literally wore RAGS. Children had no underpants and sat on the earth (there were ants and bugs on the ground, mind you) on their bare bottoms. Babies being held in the mothers' laps peed right into their laps.
It was a difficult day witnessing what one can only describe as abject poverty. UNICEF was working in cooperation with an NGO called Coopi to assist in obtaining rights to medical care and citizenship in CAR. Due to the unofficial existance and lack of settlement, many born to these tribes fail to have proper birth certificates or registration, adding to the problems of an already tenuous existence.
Everything stunk no matter where you went in their village. I didn't see water anywhere. And the worst part is that they obviously felt scared and dejected because they had lived most of their history being subjugated and not knowing how to fight for themselves.
So Coopi is there to do the very, very basics. They come to encourage them to become registered and have their children's birth registered so that they can have the same rights as everyone else, such as attending school or getting medical care or voting. The sad thing is that none of these (except for voting, perhaps) are free. Pygmies live a purely sustainance-only way of life so extra money is unheard of. But the problems in undeveloped parts of Africa are actually MAGNIFIED here (if somehow possible, defying the laws of reason).
But all this absolutely pales in comparison to the interview we were about to have later with the Mayor of the town that this tribe resided near.
Here are notes I jotted down during the interview with the mayor. The goal was to understand the causes of discrimination and what the sentiment was towards possible improvements in attitude towards this very marginalized community.
Can you describe any discrimination against pygmies either now or a very long time ago?"
No, pygmies are never discriminated against, OK maybe a little bit, but now they sit side by side with us in churches, schools. There is a pygmy becoming a priest - isn’t that wonderful news?!
Okay.. forget pygmies. Does it concern you at all that out of 280 births in your town over the course of a year, only 86 of them had birth registrations?
We have a book that tells them it is mandatory. And pygmies, if they get this birth registration, it is a piece of paper to them, they will lose it in the forest!
Rebecca asked what he would ask UNICEF or Coopi to do to help end discrimination. He finally gave up his true feeling and said the following... "We have written to the EU and UN many times to ask them to build a separate village for the pygmies. This way they will not be discriminated in terms of wages and be taken advantage of - they can work for each other! And this way we can keep an eye on them so they won't steal our crops and animals. They are thieves! They always move around from place to place so we can not catch them!"
I wish this were not a true story, but sadly.. the mayor of Mbaiki wants to create a Pygmy reservation..
