NARRATOR: No one knows how long these people have lived in the rainforest. Ancient Egyptians recorded contact with them two and a half thousand years before the birth of Christ. Europeans who explored this region four thousand years later called them ‘pygmies’..But they call themselves ‘Baka’ – a word of unknown origin with just a ghost of a meaning….’Free like a bird’. The Baka believe they were thrown out of heaven for being too noisy, and sent to live in the forest.

MAN: When are we going to dance. I’m ready to dance..! Come on I’m tired of waiting!

MAN WHITE SHIRT: First I must put on my shoes and trousers. I must fix my collar and comb my hair so I look handsome!

MAN: And then we can party!

NARRATOR: Africa’s huge rainforests straddle the equator. This corner of South East Cameroon is part of the central Congo basin – a region with year round heat and humidity. These are Africa’s most ancient rainforests. This is the place the Baka call home. A semi-nomadic forest people, the Baka traditionally lived across huge territories. Then in the nineteen-sixties, life changed. The Cameroonian government encouraged the Baka to move out of the forest. In return for settling in roadside villages, the Baka gained access to schools, medical care and the chance to trade…

It seemed like a good deal. For some, like Armand Bamisso, life in the village of Bosquet offers the best of both worlds.

ARMAND: We can send our kids to school and build houses.. We breathe easily as there are still trees around all us.

NARRATOR: Armand has lived in Bosquet since the village first came together in nineteen-seventy-two. He can’t remember things any other way. But some can recall a time before the red dirt highway. Like Jeanne Bejo – at sixty-eight, she is the oldest woman in Bosquet.

JEANNE: We would walk through the forest stopping wherever we liked. We cut leaves and sticks to make temporary shelters. We ate plants and fish and the men looked for game. But now we stay here…for 2 to 3 months at a time.

NARRATOR: The surrounding trees are more than just a backdrop to village life. In all of the most important respects, the old ways still live on. The rainforest may look like the Garden of Eden but it offers precious little in the way of food. There are more than eight thousand plant species in a Cameroonian forest…most are inedible to all but the most specialized foragers. Black and white colobus monkeys feed mainly on leaves, foraging high up in the forest canopy. A low grade food, this foliage doesn’t offer much in the way of nutritional value. In order to survive, each colobus must eat a third of its own body weight in leaves each day.

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