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!