Mbayo Ekota, Bakoyo, RDC

posted on saturday | 05 aug | 2006

12.08.05 One year ago in the pygmy village of Bakoyo, province d’Equateur, RDC

MBAYO EKOTA, Bakoyo, province d’Equateur, RDC - August 2005

The pygmy village of Bakoyo, in the Equateur province of Northern Congo (some 800 km up the Congo river from the capitale Kinshasa) counts 100 inhabitants, who belong to seven families. People live in traditional mudhouses made of a wooden structure filled with mud. But their traditional life has changed a lot in recent years. Known as the first inhabitants of the Congo forest, they are now employed as cheap labour by the major ethnic bantou tribe of the area.

Miss Mbayo (left) is in her thirties. She doesn’t know her precise age. She was married when she was about 15 years old, and she has 4 children. Two boys of 12 and 9 years old, a daughter of three and a recently borned baby. She has lost two babies. A 17 year-old girl from a neighbouring village is helping out taking care of the children.And her brother, who lives in the next hut, replaces the husband, who has left to look for opportunities in the neighbouring small town of Boteka.

Her day starts with a 1 km walk to fetch water at a nearby river. For 30 Congolese Francs (7 US cents), she crops in a field which belongs to a member of the Bantou ethnic tribe, with the help of her children, who do not attend school, because of lack of money. For the same amount of work, a member of the Bantou tribe receives 50 Congolese Francs.

Men in the village cut wood, for a local Bantou businessman. They receive 25 US cents per tree cut. As payment, they also receive pieces of loinclothes that they can only sell at a cheap price.

Some children go to hunt with bows, arrows and machetes, accompanied with a small dog that helps tracking the prey.

That day they caught a small forest antilope. But they didn’t get to taste the meat. It will be sold to neighbouring Bantous. Nowadays, in this area, the pygmies only get to eat fruits and manioc.

Some other pygmies go on canoe and fish in some tributary of the Congo river. They also sell their catch to ethnic Bantous.

Mbayo gets back home at the end of the afternoon. She then cooks and wash her children. In the evening, families meet up to discuss the daily problems and sometime to dance on the sound of drums.

Because of a lack of means, pygmies have no access to education and health care. The infant mortality rate is over 30 % in the villages of this area. They are submitted to the Bantous. They have no access to land ownership and have no hunting or fishing permits that are sometime required by the local authority. Mbayo says that Bantous treat pygmies like slaves.

That day, in a neighbouring village, a 4 year-old boy is burried. He died from a malaria. His brother is still at the hospital but parents have no means to pay for medicine and fear for his health. Pygmies are victims of discrimination and they struggle for survival.