Nevada County has a strong connection with one of the oldest people groups in Africa who dwell in southwestern Uganda on the edge of the Rift Valley—they are the Batwa. The Batwa lived for millennia in the area that is now the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. They were skilled hunters and gatherers who used every part of the forest, including bark for their clothing and trees for protective shelter.
The Batwa depended on their ancestral home until 1991 when they were displaced from their native forest as the area turned over to wildlife parks, primarily for the protection of rare mountain gorillas. The Batwa were given no land or compensation; they strove to survive in an unfamiliar region with unfamiliar resources. Dr.
Scott Kellermann and his wife Carol traveled to Uganda and were so moved by the beautiful country and the needs of the Batwa that when they returned to Nevada County, they had the idea of returning to help the people. “My wife and I went over in the year 2001. We had gone over initially to do a medical survey on the Batwa pygmies.
That’s essentially our focus group (and) still is,” Dr. Kellermann said. “When we came back the wife was so moved from the needs there, and felt like she actually got home in that region which is beautiful.
It’s breathtakingly beautiful.” The high mountains—some which are 14,000 feet—lie alongside volcanoes and thick jungle, like you would imagine in the movies, according to Dr. Kellermann.
“I closed my medical practic.
