Outamba Kilimi National Park

As promised, I am now posting a positive experience of being in West Africa. While in the remote Northwest region of Sierra Leone I got to go visit the Outamba Kilimi National Park. The park is home to elephants, duikers, antelopes, monkeys, chimpanzees, and hippos among other things. I was fortunate enough to visit the Park twice and see hippos!

I also saw a cute little monkey eating a mango

and some gigantic ants that form a highway of sorts.

The park is located close to one of the communities where I am working and where we did the last workshop so the second time I brought some of the workshop participants, who came from further away and had neve been to the Park before.

They were very happy to see the hippos and had a fun time.

The weather turned at the end of our visit and a huge storm rolled in...made for some dramatic pictures.

Walking around in the forest and seeing wild animals and huge trees or swimming in the ocean and seeing wildly colored fish and corals, these experiences are some of my most enjoyable and memorable. Visiting Outamba Kilimi National Park and seeing hippos swimming about is definitely one such occasion. Visiting the Chimp Sanctuary and seeing chimps, although not totally in the wild, was also a memorable experience. Being in the forest of the sanctuary, where the only noises are natural ones, was calming and beautiful. It is for this that I come to Africa and for this that I work to try to help protect these natural resources. It makes it all worth while...(until of course some new gross thing happens to me and then I wonder what I'm doing here!)

Do Not Scroll Down if Squeamish!!!

When I think of West Africa, I think of the beautiful nature and wonderful music, the warm and lively people. However the reality is all that and much more...the day to day life here is hard, not just for the poor, struggling to eke out a living on a dollar or two a day, but for anyone. The heat, the illnesses, the dirty cities, lack of electricity and running water, all make for a sobering experience. A few weeks ago, my life was at a low point. I had been travelling for a month straight, hitting three remote regions in Guinea and one in Sierra Leone plus visiting Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. I was exhausted. When I say remote, I mean the middle of nowhere...the area I went to in Sierra Leone is called Tambakka. It is not too far from the border with Guinea but the roads are so decrepit that it takes about an hour and a half to drive (in a 4X4 truck) twenty miles. There are quite a few river crossings where you have to literally pull yourself across on a barge (see pic) and crevices in the road so deep that only a heavy duty truck can pass through.

Yet time and time again, I see old recylced cars, packed to the brim with people, animals, sacks of rice etc. traversing this crazy terrain. More often than not, I see these cars stuck either with engine failure or some other car trouble and people lying about waiting for a passing truck to take them (this can take days) or for the car to be fixed and then they can continue on their way (this can take days too). The patience that is necessary to live and survive here is enormous! Everything is more difficult.

Just going to buy some food at the market is an exercise in strategy. How to avoid the muddy market floors which double as drainage for the flow of water from all the rain, while looking at the produce, and haggling with the vendor...its stressful, there are tons of people pushing to get by through narrow corridors of stalls.

But the worst part of living here is the illnesses that exist. I haven't had malaria yet as I'm taking anti-malaria pills but the digestive issues are problematic. Fever and nausea coupled with the flip flop constipation/diarrhea, this occurs all the time. Its almost impossible to pinpoint what causes it...could be something I ate or drank. All vegetables have to be washed with a bit of diluted bleach to kill any bacteria. And then you have to contend with the mosquitos and other gross things that seem to find their way into or onto your body. If you are squeamish, do NOT read on! A few weeks ago, I found two big pimple like buttons, one on my butt and one on my side by my ribs. After a few days they started to really sting and turn white. I asked around and someone finally figured out what it was....WORMS GROWING IN MY BODY! EEEEEWWWWW!!!!!

I had had my clothes washed while in one of the remote villages and apparently, while clothes are hanging outside, flies deposit eggs that then find their way under your skin and grow into little white worms. That is why everyone here irons their clothes because the heat will kill any eggs that have been laid. The flies seem to know which articles of clothing are underwears and bras to inflict the maximum pain and suffering. Anyway, the first picture above was the worm in its developmental stage and here is what came out...the white worm thing next to the keys. That's how big it was!!! SO GROSS!

This was quite painful as the worm eats your flesh to grow into its final stage. That was what I felt as stinging. When the worm is in about day 2 you can feel it moving and then after about 4 days it starts to want to come out. That is when you carefully squeeze it out. The whole thing has to come out or else it will burrow further into your skin and then you have real problems!!!

This problem was then followed a few weeks later by a trail of big pink dots that ran down my ribcage on one side. I feared it was the worms again but since the worms show up only as one pimple like thing in the beginning this had to be different...someone guessed it could be the urine from a spider that leaked down my stomach...YUM!

All this to say, the realities of living in Africa are harsh and sometimes painful!!! But there are positive things to being here, like anywhere there are plusses and minuses...the fun exciting things will be in the next posting!

Interesting Developments

I've now been in West Africa for two months and have been very busy travelling in both Guinea and Sierra Leone. I have also been busy in Conakry trying to establish an acceptable living situation. As I'm staying here for about three and a half months, instead of the intended three weeks, I had to find an apartment and I finally did so a few weeks ago. With a stroke of amazing luck, I found a small house in a very quiet and calm neighborhood. The latter is almost impossible to find here as everyone lives outside...they cook, clean, hang out, play outside while making as much noise as possible it seems. Anyway, I only have one neighbor who is an elderly lady and her daughter and grand-daughter and they are nice and peaceful. I even have a view of the ocean from my small terrace which is a big bonus!

Other developments are that I was finally able to see some chimpanzees!! I went to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and visited a chimp sanctuary, where captured chimps are taken before they can be re-introduced into the wild. They are kept in large forested areas enclosed by electric fences until they can form social groups that would allow them to survive in the wild. A lone chimp cannot survive very long in the forest and needs a family of sorts to protect onself and to gain territory where it can live.

And after having travelled five days out of each week for four weeks straight I got to get some relax time in by going to the islands just off the coast near Conakry. Although it rained, it was nice to be in a boat, sleep on the beach and have a barbecue. Unfortunately, on the way back we had to stop to pick up a young kid that had sliced his pinky finger almost completely off...it was literally hanging by a thread of skin...our boat was faster than the one he was on so we took him with us back to the city. I can officially say the sight of blood does not make me faint but it was difficult to see him in such pain.

On a lighter note, during my many bumpy road trips throughout the interior of the country I have seen some interesting sites...the craziest perhaps was a recycled sedan packed with people inside and on top of the roof of the car, loaded with many other baggages, driving down a bumpy road at night, with the driver holding onto a FLASHLIGHT thru the windowless front of the car! I did a double take when I saw that one.

Why Are Chimps Important?

I've learned quite a bit about chimpanzees and their importance to humans while working on this project. Some of the stories about chimps told by the para-biologists and villagers are incredible! The latest story I heard was that chimps are liked by pastoralists (cattle owners) because when a cow is about to give birth, if chimps are nearby,they will "notify" a nearby village by making loud vocalizations that attract the attention of villagers. They also stay near the cow until humans come to protect it while its at its most vulnerable state. I also heard a story about how a male chimp literally jumped in front of a female to protect her from a hunter who was aiming his gun at her. Chimpanzees are 98.4% the same as humans. They have emotions similar to our own and use tools for gathering food. They are important to the health and survival of forests as they disperse tree seeds and help in forest regeneration. They are also an indicator species of habitat health. Today, the chimpanzee population is in the thousands and threat of extinction is real! They are only found in Africa and Guinea has one of the highest populations of wild chimps but this means only a couple thousand exist. It is difficult to estimate entire populations of chimps as they are not static animals but it is clear that they are severly threatened due to loss of habitat (farming and forest fires from slash and burn agriculture practices), capture for sale to foreigners (both for zoos, scientific purposes and also for pets) and the bushmeat trade.

Knowing where chimps exist is based on what they leave behind, notably nests, dung, and knuckle prints. Chimps build new nests every night out of leaves and branches that they place in trees. The picture at right is of a day old nest. My guide was one of the para-biologists. He took me on his motorcycle deep into the bush to try and see chimps. Its very difficult to actually see them as they are very weary of humans and can detect them coming from a long way off. We rode on the motorcylce for about an hour on tiny goat tracks with major crevices and holes and tried to avoid as many branches as we could. I am not the best bicycle or motorcylce rider and so i was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone but we finally arrived at the base of a mountain and began our search. After two hours of climbing up and down steep slopes of two mountains, we saw at least 15 nests and some prints but no chimps. As the sun was starting to set, my guide needed to pray and so we left the forest and headed back to the village. Most of Guinea's population is muslim and so they must pray five times a day, starting at around 6 am as the sun rises and ending at around 7 pm as the sun sets.

As we arrived in the small village at the base of the mountain, we were informed that chimps had just been heard on the third mountain over. So at least I was in their midst!!! I'm going to keep trying but I think the best way to see them will be to camp out in the mountain for a few days near a water source or near fruit trees. It is currently mango season and about 75% of trees here are mango trees due to the fact that villagers protect them as they are an important food source. Chimps love to eat mangos too so its a good time to try to find them by hanging out by mango trees. I can't tell you how many mangos I've eaten but let's just say a lot! They are so abundant they're literally rotting on the side of the road. Everyone and their grand mother is selling them, eating them, carrying them in bowls on top of their heads.

Fruit gathering, as well as water and firewood gathering is primarily a female activity, as is child carrying! Little girls care for their younger siblings and are seen clutching them to their backs usually wrapped around by cloth. There are children everywhere and how they love to have their photos taken, especially when they realize I have a digital camera and that they can then see themselves. The photo blog will be next!!!

So What Am I Doing Here?

I came to Guinea to work on the Chimpanzee Conservation and Sensitization Program (CCSP). In addition to an extensive public awareness campaign about the importance of chimpanzees, the CCSP includes a sustainable development component which is what I and my colleague Jim Tolisano are working on along with JGI staff here in Guinea and Sierra Leone. This component has three phases that focus on natural resource management and planning as well as small business development. The areas where we work have high chimpanzee populations that are threatened primarily by loss of habitat from farming and forest fires. The goal is for communities to learn how to collect data and analyze information on the state, use and importance of their resources, and to prioritize them so as to better manage their resources for the long term. Additional activities that reduce the agricultural pressure on the land are encouraged through small business incentives.

The first phase was a workshop training community leaders (aka para-biologists) and other villagers who had a basic reading and writing skills (very very basic) to collect data on their natural resources using surveys and transects. This occurred in two counties in Guinea and one in Sierra Leone. The para-biologists interviewed people from surrounding villages to find out what resources they use and their overall condition, resources that used to exist but are no longer found, socio-economic data, and also info on chimpanzees. They also went into forests and did transects. Last year, I came here for the second phase and lead workshops on how to develop an Eco-Development Plan, which builds on the data they collected and elaborates the natural resource management goals, activities, opportunities, needs and risks of participating communities.

This time around, I am leading workshops in small business development. The project has financing for micro-enterprises and the best projects submitted by the communities will be funded. People working on development or conservation projects are often discouraged due to lack of results, over ambitious projects, lack of funding etc etc. I am very happy and proud to say that I think this project has been successful. In this last workshop, I asked the Para-biologists to tell me what they had done since the last workshop. They elaborated how they had reunited the community leaders of their villages and surrounding villages to discuss the management goals of the community. Having surveyed the land and people, both the para-biologists and the communities had a better understanding of what resources they had and their condition. After discussing the wants and needs of the communities they were able to prioritize the resources important to them and in some cases chose areas to reforest that would serve as chimp habitat. Others talked about how the Eco-Development process was in and of itself a type of public awareness campaign and changed people's attitudes about chimpanzees. Still others talked about how the process reinforced linkages between communities and strengthened intra-personal relations. The para-biologists are all agriculturalists and they either farm or have cattle. They all have a direct impact on the land around them and are the only ones that can initiate and enforce change in land use. I'm happy to say that they are doing so despite confronting difficult obstacles. I am optimistic that with the small business and community projects that this will continue with direct benefits to the community as well as to the chimps.

Chimp Land

As the calls for prayer from the mosque next door are sung, I am sitting here in the hot, humid air trying to not let my sweat drip onto the keyboard! I am in in Conakry, Guinea in the Jane Goodall Institute office. This is the second time that I've come to Guinea. However, this time around I passed through Dakar, Senegal to see Sarah Leddy! One of my best friends from childhood, Sarah works in Dakar quite a lot and I was able to coordinate my schedule with hers to do a stop over there for about five days.

It was a nice way to reintroduce myself to Africa. Dakar is fairly metropolitan (its all relative) and has quite a few good restaurants, bars etc. Courtesy of the US government, I stayed with Sarah at her very nice hotel in downtown Dakar. The pool was definitely the best part!! While in Dakar I was able to go diving, which was very cool. That is the water was a very chilly 65 degrees which compared to the warm 84 degree waters of the Caribbean that I am used to the experience was chilling! But it was also exciting to see a fairly different underwater ecosystem. There are no corals here because the change in water temperature is too great but the sea floor was covered in sea fans and sponges. I saw fluorescent green moray eels and big schools of fish! The greater size of the fish is immediately evident compared to Caribbean fish. We also saw some sting rays and gigantic orange starfish.

Unfortunately, my stay in Dakar was short...there was work to do in neighboring Guinea!

So early Saturday morning I arrived at the airport to catch my flight. For some strange reason, the flight to Conakry is at the ungodly hour of 3:45 am. Since efficiency is not expected, its best to get to the airport with lots of time so I got to the airport around 2 am. The flight didn't leave until 4:30 and thus began my completely messed up sleeping schedule. Lack of sleep is something I can deal with a few nights a week on weekends or what have you. But I've been in Guinea three weeks now and last night was the first time I slept straight thru the night and also the first time I got 8 hours of sleep. The primary reason for lack of sleep is heat.

Its the beginning of the rainy season and so it is excessively hot day and night. The only respite is when its raining...or when there is a fan directly in front of my face/body. You would think that wouldn't be difficult to arrange but it is! For the past three to four years the supply of electricity and water to the capital has deteriorated to the point where some neighborhoods have neither. Where I live, we have electricity one night every two to three days. I haven't figured out the water schedule but that is about one night a week. I don't expect electricity and plumbing when I go to the interior of the country and am in villages but in the capital??, I MEAN, come on! Is there any other capital in the world (not in a war torn country) that doesn't have electricity at some point during the 24 hours of day or night. What is even harder to believe is that many West African rivers originate in Guinea and with the mountainous terrain, are well suited for dams. The dams that were built have broken down and money to fix them has been "eaten" as they say here in French. The country is extremely poor with per capita income is under $2500.

If you can measure development or wealth by the models of cars in a country then Guinea is about in the 1980's. This scene of a man pushing a car on the highway is pretty common. I continue to be amazed at the varying states of vehicles that are driven on the streets and roads of Guinea. What looks like a completely stripped car ready for the junkyard is likely a taxi with six to seven people in it riding down the street. Recycling is not a concept that needs to be introduced here. It is part of every day life.

Guinea is one of the most corrupt countries in Africa. The president is old and sickly and for the past three years the country has been run by his "advisors" whose only work seems to have been to enrich themselves and the President's family. The Prime Minister was sacked almost two years ago and another one was never named until about a month and a half ago. This was after the entire country went on strike, led by the unions in Conakry. The strike led to martial law and over one hundred people were killed, women were raped and the population in general was agravated by the military roaming the streets enforcing the "rule of law". The major strike was last February and culminated in the naming of a new Prime Minister. However the first candidate named was a long time friend of the President and this caused for rioting in the streets. To quell the anger and destruction occurring all over the country, the President finally named a Prime Minister that the people were able to accept. He has begun to make some changes and is seen as the only person who can and does go against the President. The situation has calmed down quite a lot but the people have finished accepting the status quo. Just last week, a military officer denounced the corrupt practices of the officers who for ten years had been stealing soldier's wages and other funds. The soldiers started rioting just outside of the city and the situation was tense but the prime minister called in rangers and red berets trained by various international countries and order was restored.

Its an interesting time to be here. At the lowest level people are demanding change. In one of the larger cities in the interior of the country, the motorcylce taxis association gathered together to demand to know where their contributions were going to since they were not seeing any results from the association's supposed activities. When I came here last August, the students and teachers of the university were striking. That led to the full fledged strikes in February and goes to show you that smaller scale activism does work to promote and initiate change!!!