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!)