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Something extraordinary happened to me last week, quite possibly due to this personal blog I began to write, exposing myself in the process.

I went to Rwanda to collect a bunch of Dutch business people, 7 entrepreneurs successful enough to be members of EO, a global peer-to-peer network that connects owners and founders of companies grossing at least US$1 million a year.

The funny part was that they didn’t know I was awaiting them at Kigali Airport, nor where I was taking them, nor what the other four days of Uganda were going to look like. It was a surprise trip organised by Inez van Oord, an activity her club does regularly.

Inez had approached me with an enticing request: prepare something that would get the travellers out of their comfort zone.

What about a lunch date with Batwa “Pygmies”?

Inez loved the idea and even declined my offer to bring some foldable chairs for the guests. She wanted them to sit on the ground like everybody else and be part of the community.

And so we travelled, in two minibuses through the lush hilly landscape, on perfectly smooth tarmac, past many Freisian cows, for hours. “This is so green, I didn’t expect that!” said Gert Eilander of Laspartners Multiweld, a welding company, who had been to Kenya before. “I don’t want to sleep, I just want to take this all in,” added Ben Kerkhof, the owner of Compare Group, an internet business.

“If you were woken up right now, not knowing where you are, would you guess you are in Africa?” I asked them. No, they agreed.

At Muko Campsite, at the northern edge of Lake Bunyonyi, we met Inez and the eighth visitor and sat down for a cup of coffee. This is our standard location where we mentally prepare visitors for what they are going to witness. The cozy wooden roadside restaurant, a couple of steps away from where the only river leaves Bunyonyi and starts flowing towards the rainforest of Bwindi, is merely a quarter of an hour away from Echuya Forest. From the Batwa.

Above all, visitors have to be ready to meet the poorest of the poor. They should also not expect the Batwa to still live in the forest, or to be exceptionally short. But most importantly, they need to understand the idea of the visit – we are bringing them to our Batwa friends as guests, not as tourists, and the emphasis is on conversation.

The minibuses then continued on the winding road to where the pretty forest with broccoli-like treetops begins, and then turned off onto a dirt road.

This is where the views of Lake Bunyonyi become breathtaking on the left while a bamboo bush reigns on the right. When we parked at the Rwamahano trading centre, the Batwa leader John Kanusu was already waiting. He was excited to see me after a couple of months, so he gave me a big hug.

When we do our regular Batwa Today program with him, Kanusu first leads guests into the forest for up to two hours of a nature walk and impresses with extensive herbalist knowledge. This time, however, the visitors were hungry, so he gave them the special Batwa bamboo walking sticks and led them up the steep hill to their settlement.

My co-organiser Owen was behind, there was nobody to translate, but each time I visit Kanusu his English vocabulary is a little bit bigger. With simple words he managed to present his home compund to the Dutch, before continuing to where his people were gathered.

There’s one part of the experience that never fails to move. When 20 to 50 Batwa move towards visitors, singing and shaking hands, any barriers crack. During a standard Batwa Today program this leads to introductions but Inez, Owen and I had ordered lunch for everyone. And there it was, sitting under the bright skies in small and big pots: groundnut sauce, cooked cabbage, potatoes and rice. Simple but tasty and enough to feed everyone present, perhaps 80 people.

It was late afternoon already and the weather was brilliant. Imagine coming from a flat country lower than the sea to have your lunch above countless brown and green hills with a blue lake beneath them like a giant snake, in a colourful “Pygmy” company…

Kanusu introduced some members of his community and then our entreprenours presented themselves. They were fabulous; humorous, provocative, simple. The fact that Pieter Bas Boertje said that he would invite Batwa to Europe to dance at his parties might haunt me for a while but, hey, it was fun and, hey, we can haunt him as well until he keeps his promise. His company Deschesne & Boertje is the #1 event company in the Netherlands.

There were some questions from the Dutch, there was a demonstration of making a fire without matches, and then we were already out of time! The guests had to reach Mutanda Lake Resort before it got dark, track mountain gorillas next morning, then fly to Kidepo Valley National Park – their itinerary was packed.

So, in short: we had lunch, we talked and danced a bit. Couldn’t be more simple. Yet it was also a fantastic couple of hours, because of the people, the setting, the weather. How little we need as humans to be profoundly happy… And sad.

“Can you please tell them not to do that again?” Inez asked me. She was referring to her friends distributing little gifts that were causing commotion. “They need to stop feeling like they are some white gods giving things out!”

You have to love Inez, don’t you?

I assembled the Dutch and told them that was wrong. Any gifts from then on should be by the group to a group – just like the clothes they had prepared for the Batwa.

Our hosts asked Owen and me to stay behind and help them fairly distribute the two plastic bags of children’s wear. I took the Batwa to a meadow next to the trading centre and began by asking how we could avoid the chaos of gift giving next time. They said visitors should refrain from distributing things that way and chose an older man to be responsible for crowd control if it ever happens again. I also explained what kind of money I was giving to Kanusu for what purpose, to help the community avoid corruption.

There, sitting in a circle above Lake Bunyonyi, I knew the Batwa were my team. I usually find it difficult not to roll my eyes when they sing songs about me or thank me excessively. I hate praise, I hate being in the centre of attention. But that evening I knew I was part of them and they were part of me. I shed my usual sarcastic layer and allowed their gratitude to reach me.

Kanusu gave me a bow and three arrows as a sign of appreciation. As Owen and I walked down the motorway that late evening, waiting for any vehicle to collect us, and I held the traditional hunter’s weapon in my hands, my life felt profoundly beautiful.

text: Miha Logar