Juliette, a pygmy woman in her 50s with scars and a huge abscess on her sword, came for an examination at a newly opened clinic in the village of Sakoungou, in the Central African Republic’s tropical forest, where traditional and modern medicine coexist.
This clinic in the confines of the tropical forest was installed nine months ago by Senitizo, a small American specialized NGO.
Far from abandoning their ancestral rites, the Aka, a pygmy nomadic people from the forests of the southwestern Central African Republic and the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, come to this place to receive free care, affected by viruses or bacteria that come from a modern world that the older ones have only recently known.
Over time, some settled in cities and towns, sometimes to flee deforestation and violence, in a country where many armed militias rule the law and where conflicts between communities are sometimes bloody.
In Sakoungou, some 200 km southwest of Bangui, the capital, the Lobaye prefecture area is not yet affected by the violence.
The reddish dirt track that leads here crosses abundant vegetation.
The brick houses of the non-pygmy inhabitants are next to the shelters made of dry branches, next to the forest, by the Aka, who still suffer discrimination and contempt throughout the country.
Near the clinic one of the few posters in the town reads: “Pygmy people, let’s protect our minorities.”
According to UNESCO, the Aka –also called Bayaka– are considered to be the first inhabitants of the Central African Republic.
However, the Pygmies are outcasts and are ostracized and exploited by other communities. They are the poorest in the second least developed country in the world, according to the UN.
The country has been in civil war for more than eight years and depends almost entirely on international humanitarian aid to feed and care for almost 5 million inhabitants.
“Discrimination against pygmies is found everywhere in Central Africa,” Alain Ebelpoin, an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, told AFP.
They have “very low wages, do difficult jobs… they are victims of humiliation and are considered as servants by the rest of the population,” he adds.
But the pygmies are musicians – UNESCO classified their polyphonic songs in 2003 as a World Heritage Site – as well as hunters, gatherers and fortune tellers-healers, Ebelpoin said in 2012 in an essay on the subject.
“I live between the forest and the village,” says Juliette, dean of the Sakoungou aka, with a smile on her lips despite the ailments she suffers. In addition to the abscess on her back, she has chest pain, vertigo, and parasites.
He never resorted to modern medicine before the installation of the clinic.
“The Aka have many more health problems than others and their life expectancy rarely exceeds 40 years,” explains Jacques Bébé, a doctor at the center.
“They consume non-drinking and even stagnant water, they do not have solid shelter, blankets, mosquito nets; they are not used to taking medicine properly and attend to traditional medicine. When they arrive at the clinic, sometimes it is already too late,” he says. the doctor
Jean-Claude, in his 30s, came to the medical center to look for medicine, before going into the jungle in search of bushes “to cure headaches or backaches”.
In the waiting room, Gaspard, in his 40s, says that “he has nothing against modernization, but he is afraid that one day our traditions will disappear.”
bdl / gir / eg / pc