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Children emerge. Yep, they’re short. But they don’t seem that short, especially when they’re standing next to each other. We follow a long, winding path to a collection of small, crumbling mud huts some might call a village, standing like an island in the middle of a sea of scraggly tea bushes. Men and women track me, intrigued. Eric has been visiting this village since he was a child, so I am welcomed and ushered into a tiny round hut made of straw and sticks. As men pack into the space, I’m introduced to the chief, who is dressed in pleated pants and a grungy T-shirt. At first we speak in generalities about the impact of war on the village: looting, rape, and the budding sense of security post-elections. The chief is blunt, “If you have sugarcane, you can leave it for us.”

Gimme a little sugar, huh? As in, cash please.

“I don’t have any sugarcane,” I tell him.

Most people would stop there. Eric is far too polite to imply a donation is expected, so I’m free to do as I please, even offend. Maybe it’s the clean forest air, but I’m feeling emboldened, so I add, “I could give you sugarcane, but then I would be taking your dignity. I believe in self-sufficiency.”

Uh-oh. They are soooo not impressed.

The chief signals an abrupt end to our meeting. I emerge from the hut to find the village women sitting on the ground, glaring at me. Who knew? A little travel tip, apparently lost in some early 1990s printing of Lonely Planet Zaire: When visiting Pygmies, never refuse the ritual love-offering of sugarcane.

I ask Eric to find an older woman who might remember life in the forest. Within a few minutes, two women settle together onto a small bench on the periphery of the village. Sifa, fifty, and Cecile, sixty, each have a scar running from their foreheads to the center of their noses. I turn on the video camera, then I ask about it, “You both have a mark here?”

“It is for beauty,” Sifa says in a gruff voice. She launches in, “Life was wild. We didn’t have food. We were living just like animals. The white man named Adrien conducted us out of the forest. He promised to put us in better conditions. We came here, where we are not as comfortable as we were expecting.”

Sifa is one decidedly salty lady. She rages against the white-man machine with a long list of grievances, clapping her hands in time with each item, almost rhythmically. “We have no farms. Nowhere to cultivate. We still live like wildlife. We have no source of income, no animals. He didn’t give us a place to stay because the houses are not enough for all of us. He didn’t keep his promise because we don’t have our own village. We cannot live with Bantu people because they cannot accept the mixture. We spend our days here. To get food, we work on Zairian farms. We have no other people we rely on. We are not protected in our houses. We need money to start small businesses to get animals for husbandry. Look at the way we are skinny,” she says, pushing up her sleeves, grasping her thin arms. “It’s because we have a wild life. Poverty.”

I love Sifa’s sassy, direct approach. “We also have the problem of clothes,” she says. “We thank Eric’s organization so much for thought of our children’s education. We are grateful the park has given small jobs to our husbands. But that’s not enough. Up until now, we women are still idle. We would like to start small businesses, just like other women around. Like in Kavumu, women go to sell. We also need to go for supplies to sell like other people. We would be very happy to be active like other women in Kavumu or Bukavu.”

“What is stopping you from doing that?” I ask.

“Only Eric comes to visit us. Other people don’t think of us.”

“I’m planning to give you each twenty dollars,” I say. “Let’s get that out of the way. Have you had problems in the village because of Interahamwe?”

“We were in serious trouble because people were being killed. Sometimes they were coming. . . .”

“When was the last time?”

“Yesterday they visited the other side,” she says pointing away from