Like other Rwandans, the Twa, who make up about one percent of the country's 8 million population, used to own land, but as long as they had the forest it was of little importance and plots were sold off to their Hutu and Tutsi neighbors.
It was only when the forest ban began to be enforced that they realized the importance of farming their own land and then it was too late.
When the Twa here can get work it is usually on their neighbors' land and the pay is a pittance.
"Sometimes I get work cleaning up my neighbor's plot," says Esperance Gashugi, a 50-year-old mother of five children who earns US$0.20 per day for the backbreaking labor.
"I can buy sweet potatoes," she said. "There is never enough for all the children and they go to school on an empty stomach."
In despair and frustration, some Twa have turned to drink.
"The real problem," one non-Twa inhabitant of Bweyeye said, "is that these people don't want farmland, they don't want development projects."
"What they want is to be able to go hunting in the forest again and that's not going to happen."
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