Scarf and Beads at Kitchario

I started this painting as a class demonstration when I was teaching at the "Ocean Sands Watercolor Workshop". This lady is a Battwa (commonly known as Pygmies). April and I stayed with the Battwa in 2004 and with the Dr. Scott and Carol Kellerman who are medical missionaries. Scott and Carol are the main source of medical assistance to the Battwa.

This woman was at a clinic that Dr. Scott did at Kitchario. Kitchario is in the Western mountains of Uganda, on the border with Congo. The plight of the Battwa is dire ever since they were thrown out of their traditional homeland to make a "peace" park for the mountain gorilla. They have become an endangered species in their own right. The world community, in it's efforts to protect the mountain gorilla, was trying to train them to be farmers. They are a people of hunting and gathering with no apparent future tense in their language. Planting for a future harvest is a concept quite foreign to them.

This painting is 15"x22"on a half sheet of 200# Waterford, St. Cuthbert's mill, Cold Press, my favorite sheet paper.