A Week With the Pygmies

This was a special week at CEFA. A group of 20 Bayaka pygmies came for a week long seminar at Somongue. One of the reasons for the Somongue farm, is to provide a place to train, and give hands on experience to groups like this.

Many of the lessons happened out in the field where everyone could see and touch what was being taught. 

One of the staple foods for the Bayaka is manioc. This is a field of high yield, and disease resistant manioc. The demonstration was on proper spacing and planting technique. 

Knowing which side of a cutting is up is very important when you plant a field full of them. 

One of the youngest of the group napping. 

We drained a fish pond one morning, and the whole group came down to watch. 

Looking at the fish

A eel being taken out of the pond.

The Bayaka are known for their love of honey. They go to extremes to raid wild hives to get it. So one day I got to do my first seminar on bee keeping. 

Despite being rained out, we were able to do some activities inside. The smoker in particular was a point of interest to them, as they use fire to kill the bees instead of smoke to just calm or confuse them.

Friday was all about different ways to plant. Here the assignment was to plant a bed of okra.   

Somongue has a few hectares of improved varieties of palm nut. This variety can have up to 13 heads of good quality nuts, compared to the 2 or 3 heads that the regular trees produce. 

An important part of gardening is in knowing how to keep a nursery. Here every one took turns filling sacks with the right kind of soil, and then planting in them. 

The Bayaka love to sing and dance. They showed up singing, and left singing. During one evening, they got the drum, a few buckets, and had a dance party. Because of low light, I was not able to get any photos of the dancing. 

Each adult to attend was given a shovel, machete, a 100 meter string, and a file for sharpening tools.  

We will see how they use these skills and ideas they have picked up this week.