I had a wonderful experience working as an anthropology consultant and translator on documentary mini-series about the BaYaka. It is called"Extreme Tribe: The Last Pygmies", and you can click here for an online stream.

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One of the most important lessons I took from this experience is that it can be very challenging at times to reduce complex issues to a single phrase. Or to leave certain phenomena unexplained, and let the viewer make up his/her/their own interpretation solely.

 

While translating and interpreting, I had to bear in mind that I need to speak to the "masses". Not to the anthropologists or other social scientists only, as I was used to. This was an amazing exercise in building abilities to translate my understanding of the BaYaka to a non-anthropological audience.