After two years I can finally reveal that the undisclosed country we have been living in is Sierra Leone. I can now finally reveal this because we have left. I assume anyways. By the time this gets posted I will have written it two years ago, so hopefully I got like two years of posts saved up because I figure it is better to write about these things in real time so they’re fresh-seeming and then post them later so I can build up the content. I hope it’s been a good two years!

Anyways, one of our first big adventures here in Sierra Leone was visiting Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary! These weren’t the first chimps I ever saw but they were the first chimps I ever saw with my super amazing wife. Tacugama wasn’t actually that big of an adventure. It is essentially in the middle of Freetown which makes it relatively easy to access. It was like a 30 minute drive, tops. The most difficult part is that the visitor’s center is at the tippy top of the hill and the road up it was unpaved, single-lane, and kinda steep. At least it was in the far distant past of August 2023. When we were heading up they had plans for a nice new visitor’s center and a paved road, so maybe more recent visitors have gotten to partake in those luxuries.

During our visit we had two major activities. The first was a tour of the facilities. We were led around by our very friendly guide Sulayman who was eager to tell us chimp facts. There were various helpful signs around the place. Tacugama’s main raison d’etre is rehabilitating chimpanzees that people have kept as pets. It is illegal to keep a chimpanzee as a pet in Sierra Leone, and honestly it is my understanding that chimps make terrible pets anyways, but some people just aren’t satisfied with a cat. When Tacugama finds out about someone keeping a chimpanzee as a pet they kindly ask that person to turn the chimpanzee over no harm no foul. If the person refuses they’ll get the authorities involved but like all organizations like this one a big focus of their mission is community outreach so they try to be nice.

Once a chimpanzee is taken in by the park it goes through three stages of rehabilitation. At first the chimpanzee is quarantined as chimpanzees are susceptible to human diseases and they want to ensure it won’t bring anything bad to the group. Once the chimpanzee is done with this hurdle it is introduced to the Stage 2 group. This stage is about the chimpanzee learning how to interact with other chimpanzees and be part of the group. They are carefully monitored and fed regularly.

The guy in the foreground was the current leader of the group. He really didn’t like us watching the group and kept throwing rocks at us, which honestly was totally fair. Besides him though it was cute to watch all the rest of the chimpanzees hanging out and climbing around. There were two little babies that kept swinging around and having a grand ole’ time.

After Stage 2 the chimpanzees are sensibly moved onto Stage 3. This is more of a wilderness type setting. It is still enclosed and the whole scenario kinda gave raptor pen vibes because it was this electrified fence surrounding pretty dense jungle and you were just told that there were animals in there somewhere. Potentially dangerous animals too. Apparently the chimpanzees test the fence sometimes and they have escaped before. Like I said raptor pen vibes. But in the large enclosed space there are plenty of fruit trees and the chimpanzees mostly fend for themselves though they do get fed regularly, just not as often as in Stage 2. They prefer living in the jungle anyways. They’re chimpanzees after all.

Unfortunately so far there has never been a Stage 4, which is releasing the chimpanzees back into the wild. Maybe this problem has been solved in futuristic 2025, but in 2023 there is still a lot of habitat loss and poaching of chimpanzees in the wild, despite chimpanzees being Sierra Leone’s national animal. Tacugama is afraid that if they release the chimps into the wild they’ll just get poached. Very sad but as I said before Tacugama is big into community outreach and does a wide range of educational and developmental programs for people surrounding the park and throughout Sierra Leone in order to protect the wild chimpanzees along with the other wildlife in the area.

But enough about animals! After the tour the next big thing we did was go on a hike. We went on the waterfall hike. This was very picturesque. It was the rainy season so everything was lush and green and very wet. Clouds often kiss the hilltops and the jungle roars with life as water cascades down the hills. The below picture is actually of a reservoir that apparently dries up in the dry season. That’s how wet things were.

The hike itself was very pleasant. The guide warned us we would be out and about for three hours but I think it was closer to two. I think mileage wise we didn’t go very far but we worked our way down the hill along a river as the guide stopped to explain various bits of infrastructure and what Tacugama was doing to protect the park and try to preserve swaths of jungle. People are of course hungry to make a livelihood and send their kids to school so it is a balancing act for them. The sort of finale of the hike was being led across a rope and wood plank bridge to get a good view of the below waterfall. As I was looking at it I was thinking about how one of the first things we did in the Peace Corps was visit a waterfall, and now here I was doing the same in Sierra Leone. Peace Corps was a hoot, so I guess this is an auspicious way to start a new adventure in a new country. I hope so anyway. I’ll know how it turned out by the time this is posted.