After spending 3 weeks in Cameroon and Gabon in May and June, I found myself planning yet another trip to West Africa, to honor a promise I made to a very special person several years ago. Like most Americans, I knew very little about Sierra Leone, except there had been a brutal war there for years, where rebels chopped off hands of villagers, including young children, in a reign of terror.  I wasn’t even quite sure where Sierra Leone was, except it was somewhere on that western bump of the African continent (see map).

But in 2001 we met Bala Amarasekaran at a PASA (Pan African Sanctuary Alliance) meeting in Cameroon.  Bala was on the pre-conference trip to Yaoundé and Mefou as part of a small group of sanctuary founders, directors and supporters.  Steuart had just had knee surgery, so the PASA hosts graciously made sure he had the front passenger seat for all the long rides we took around Cameroon.  The rest of us were relegated to the back seats of older, typically African vehicles, where space was at a premium and you ended up getting to know your neighbor quickly through proximity and bumpy roads.  Bala and I ended up crammed together on more than one occasion, and instead of complaining, we tried to make each other laugh, and we quickly bonded.

Bala’s a quiet man of immense strength and dignity (shown left with oldest son, Sachin).  An accountant by trade, he found himself running a sanctuary for chimpanzee victims of Sierra Leone’s bushmeat and pet trade. During the height of the brutality of the war itself, he and his amazing staff saved the lives of several chimpanzees and people, who might have otherwise perished like so many others, were it not for their compassion and bravery.  See www.tacugama.com for details of the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, which we’ve featured on the Gorilla Haven website in the past – especially regarding Pinkie (photo right), the amazing white chimpanzee featured in documentaries airing on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, the BBC, etc. Click here for more on these documentaries.

Bala has visited Gorilla Haven twice in conjunction with primate or conservation conferences – once, I drove him to Florida and another time to South Carolina, keeping with our tradition of being stuck in vehicles with each other! Bala would ask when we’d come to Sierra Leone to visit Tacugama.  But there are no gorillas in Sierra Leone.  A big drawback for me, especially .  But Bala’s wife, Sharmila, runs SAB Technologies in Freetown (photo left) and they assured us that Steuart would have internet access, so he could keep up with his 365 day job answering business emails, so I convinced Steuart to join me.  On July 7^th I confirmed our flight to London and on to Freetown, just as news of the London terrorist bombings came over the wires. Friends were telling us Freetown was still a war zone, the US State Department was warning US citizens from traveling there, etc, etc.  I think Steuart was a little nervous, but since I knew Bala better than he did, I wasn’t concerned the least bit, and kept repeating to Steuart “But Bala’s going to be there to take care of us, so we couldn’t be in better hands.”  How true this statement was! We flew to Sierra Leone with a quarter ton of supplies and gifts including many veterinary supplies generously donated by our vet Frances Cipullo of the Appalachian Animal Hospital and Butler Animal Health Supply, our vet supply company. The photo on the right shows former volunteer Asami Kabasawa, Bala, and the first full time Tacugama vet, Rosa Garriga, with some of these vet supplies.

Bala seems to know everyone in Freetown, a city of about a million people, on the Atlantic Ocean.  Everyone knows and respects him too. As its name would imply, Freetown was founded in the late 1700’s by freed slaves returning to Africa after the US War of Independence, many coming via England and Canada.  The cotton tree (photo left) was already tall when the freed slaves arrived and used the majestic tree as a meeting place to give thanks for their restored freedom. Today it’s surrounded by the city buildings of Freetown, but the tree itself still has an aura about it, as a very special place.  Throughout the city and environs, wooden raised houses remain (most were destroyed in the war, but some survived like the one in photo right), built by the slaves returning to Freetown from the American South, including Creoles, who influence the flavor of the city to this day.  Sierra Leone was a British Crown Colony until 1961, when it gained independence.

The horrible war began around 1991, with the original aim, apparently, to overthrow some corrupt government officials. But soon it became obvious that the looting and pillaging of the riches (diamonds, gold, etc) of Sierra Leone was big business, and mercenaries from outside the country (including neighboring Liberia) took over and continued the war, and no one really knew what it was all about anymore.  Bala had rescued a chimp he named Bruno in 1987 and soon discovered so many chimps tied up in horrible conditions around Freetown that he and others established the Tacugama sanctuary, with land donated by the government, just outside the city of Freetown in 1995. Eventually, with donations from a variety of conservation agencies (photo left), Bala and his staff were able to build large forest habitats for the chimpanzees (photo right).  During the height of the war, most foreign nationals (Bala is originally from Sri Lanka, but considers Sierra Leone home, as he’s lived there since his parents immigrated there when he was a boy) had to be evacuated, as rebels entered Freetown in an operation called “no living thing!” …

While Sharmila and family remained safely in London, Bala returned to his beloved Freetown to make sure the chimps at Tacugama were safe from rebel bombs and attacks.  In order to get to Tacugama from his home in Freetown, Bala would have to pass several rebel-held check points, and talk or charm his way past soldiers with no mercy or compassion, to get to his chimps.  When rebels and the military junta overran Tacugama, stealing all the material possessions they had there, Bala and his staff pleaded with them to take whatever they wanted, but to leave the chimps and the care givers alone. Thankfully, some of the former soldiers who were part of the rebel gangs had visited the sanctuary before the civil strife and been exposed to Tacugama's education workshops and law enforcement programs. They also pleaded with the rebels to spare the chimps and staff. They listened...and spared the lives of the Tacugama residents but sadly, they continued to chop off hands and murder the innocent villagers near the sanctuary. In the mean time, The West African peace keeping forces, headed by the Nigerian army and pro-government forces learned that the rebels had entered parts of the Tacugama forest reserve and started launching heavy artillery and bombing by the alpha jets to defeat the rebels. Bala had to make many high level contacts to assure them that although rebels had visited Tacugama they were not digging in around the camp and on their advice Bala painted "Tacugama Chimp sanctuary" on roof tops to give the exact location of Tacugama with the hope that pilots of the jets and helicopters would be able avoid bombing the reserve (you can still see the letter 'C' on what is now the floor of the Resource Center - photo right), so rebel planes flying over would bomb elsewhere.  Staff, including Willie and Dauda (photo of staff and volunteers, left), would hide in the forests near Tacugama and sneak in, past rebel lines, to take care of the chimps, giving them food and water, knowing full well that if they were caught, they, like so many others, would have their hands cut off or worse …

Many of Bala’s dear friends and Tacugama supporters did not survive the war.  Most of the chimps did, but not without enduring suffering including mental illness. In one of the documentaries on Tacugama, you’ll see a tall, skinny, bald chimp named Little Boy (photo left), who was literally driven insane by the mortar shells and bombs going off around the sanctuary during the height of the war.  Bruno, the alpha male chimp, and Julie and Augusta, Phillip, etc, all seemed to know something was wrong with Little Boy and they would calmly tolerate his tantrums or meltdowns, as if they knew he needed extra patience and love.  When the war ended, most of the chimps slowly reverted to their old playful selves, but Little Boy never got over the trauma, and began to suffer seizures (from stress, perhaps?), which eventually killed him.  Bala’s life story and that of his staff should be a movie, like “Gorilla in the Midst” was for Dian Fossey … he’s an amazing and inspiring person, we’re privileged to call our friend.

Besides Pinkie, the wonderful white chimp, Tacugama is renowned for being the only sanctuary I know where wild chimpanzees try to enter and join the captive chimps!  Miss Congo, is one wild chimp, who is often seen around Tacugama … somehow she jumps into the hotwired enclosures and joins the other chimps, before jumping out when she decides her visit is over.  Escapes from Tacugama usually entail the rogue chimp jumping out of the hotwire, but hanging around, making nests in the trees nearby, before deciding to return (or being darted).  Once, a chimp named Gorilla (gotta love that name!) and Miss Congo had a secret rendezvous, which resulted in a baby for Miss Congo. Since that time, vasectomies and implants have been implemented to stop a baby explosion at Tacugama.  Still, nothing works perfectly and there have been babies born, defying the odds. 

Bala was juggling about a gazillion things from a newly confiscated chimp baby (Natasha - photo right with volunteer Unni) to a presidential visit to Tacugama in honor of their 10^th anniversary celebrations, to our visit.  The day before the celebration, Bala was called into President Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s office to discuss protocol and security issues while the president was at Tacugama with all his top officials and ministers.  The president wanted to chat longer than Bala had planned, so Bala phoned us to say he’d be about 15 minutes later than expected. Other times he’d say he needed to run in to do some errand and would be back in 5 minutes.  The actual waiting time was more like an hour or two, but it never mattered, since there was always a great story or reason to go with the delay and we were certainly never bored.  Apparently Bala had to explain to the president that he had very important international guests he needed to take care of … “who could they be?”, we wondered. “Us???” we cried in disbelief when Bala came rushing back to the office to apologize for being late, but hey, how often are you made to wait for your friend who’s in talking to the nation’s president?  It became a running joke. Bala would try his best to be on time, but “five minutes” became synonymous with at least an hour or more, as the gap between African time and western time became more and more apparent .

The day of the celebrations at Tacugama, October 6, 2005, Bala got a call from staff around 9 a.m. saying that Bruno, the alpha chimp (photo left), refused to go across to the far enclosure away from the Resource Center where the festivities would be held. Bruno and Bala are a special pair and it was clear that Bruno knew something big was up and he wasn’t about to go to his 12 acre enclosure and miss out on the party.  Phillip had done the same thing a few days earlier, insisting on staying high up in a tree to “supervise” the construction workers frantically trying to finish a building on time. But Bruno is a brilliant rock thrower, and everyone knew having him so close to all the visiting dignitaries would be flirting with disaster, so the staff began early to get Bruno over to the far enclosure and well beyond his rock throwing abilities.  But Bruno knew something was up and he refused to budge.

I’d befriended Bruno days earlier, thanks to Bala’s help and my offer of a tomato and cheese calzone from the airplane that I’d saved for him.  Bruno often doesn’t like strangers, but he was grooming my hand thru the mesh of his night quarters one night and was utterly charming when we were alone and there were no distractions.  So  Bala asked me to come with him to help convince Bruno to move to the other side of the sanctuary. Sure enough, Bruno followed us as we ran towards where the other chimps were already waiting.  But Bruno refused to enter the mesh tunnel leading to the other enclosure, and there was nothing Bala or I or anyone else could do to convince him.  I think Bruno might have had a stomach ache later that night, since we bribed him shamelessly with peanut butter crackers, soda, papaya, etc.  He’d sneak into the tunnel and a couple times into the enclosure and run out again before the staff had time to lock him in.  Since Bruno considers Bala his father, we even had one of the staff fake-attack Bala, hoping Bruno would run into the tunnel to save his friend.  But Bruno was too wise for that ruse. He threw a rock at the offender instead.  It wasn’t funny, but we all had to laugh and respect Bruno’s keen intelligence.

So we gave up and decided to let Bruno stay in his night quarters, just below the Resource Center, where the president was due within the hour. We convinced Bruno to come in and locked him in the building, and put up plywood and a tarp, so Bruno couldn’t throw any bodily functions at the visiting dignitaries as they walked up the stairs near his cage.  Bruno was quite happy with this arrangement, and Sharmila, was there to keep him company, as well as old friends, so Bruno got to be at the party, as he wanted all along. A couple times during the speeches, Bruno would whoop it up, creating many laughs, as it seemed he was commenting at the right times.  Mama Lucy’s group of young chimpanzees from the quarantine area were next door to the festivities and all behaved wonderfully, as over 150 people attended the talks and about 500 people visited Tacugama, including school children from the area, who sang and danced for the president and his entourage.  After the speeches, the president officially opened the brand new Quarantine Laboratory, which I call the Pinkie Lab, since it’s where Pinkie’s old cage used to be. Then he visited Jaguar’s group before leaving Tacugama, where the festivities continued into the afternoon.

We were invited to speak just before President Kabbah (photo left with Bala) gave the keynote address. Steuart gave our speech, which we both worked on together. I’m always deemed too outrageous, since I say what’s on my mind, which isn’t always the most politically correct thing to do.  We were impressed that the President of a country with so many obvious problems and priorities, felt it so important to personally attend Tacugama’s anniversary celebration, and I wanted to make a crack about wondering if my own President would find time to attend any conference supporting conservation, which got knowing chuckles from the people we ran the idea by.  But it was decided with the U.S. Ambassador in the audience, it was probably not the wise thing to do .  Instead, Steuart brought up famous and revered US Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln … and Theodore Roosevelt, who formed the National Parks Service, setting aside millions of acres for future generations, at a time when land owners and settlers were against the idea, only seeing their own short term profit and selfish interests.  As Steuart spoke, President Kabbah nodded and smiled, exchanging glances with Bala (as the photo on the left shows), since development is quickly encroaching on Tacugama and if it’s not stopped NOW, it threatens the future of this area, which is home to wild chimpanzees, as well as the ones at the sanctuary, as well as the major watershed providing fresh water to the city of Freetown, and hydro electric power possibilities.  Ironically, the new US embassy has shaved down one huge mountain near Tacugama, and while a buffer zone was allegedly promised, new homes are going up right to the edge of Tacugama’s forests with no end in sight.  During the President’s talk, he promised protection for the forest reserve and that the current development would stop. And hopefully it will, although with just a year left in office, it’s unclear if this is a promise that can and will be maintained. Details of the President's speech at Tacugama can be found on The Republic of Sierra Leone website.

Steuart mentioned it was our 23rd wedding anniversary and that got a huge round of applause, and when president Kabbah began his keynote address, he made a point of saying how pleased he was that we had come to Sierra Leone to celebrate our anniversary, etc.   Afterwards, since we were in the front row near the front door where the President and his ministers left from, all the top government officials stopped to shake our hands and wish us happiness on our anniversary as well. It was surreal! We did briefly have a chance to savor some of Sierra Leone's beautiful beaches (at "River Number 2", and the spectacular view of Freetown by the sea from Leicester Peak - photo below left).

In my opinion, Bala is one of Sierra Leone’s most valuable "natural resources" and Tacugama is a shining example of how one person can make a difference, with passion and perseverance.  If they had gorillas there, I’d think the place was paradise!  But I had to wait to get to London for a gorilla fix, at both London and Chessington Zoos, where caregivers and old friends met us for a visit with two great groups of gorillas, before heading back to the States and our menagerie, which includes one more dog – a stray who showed up the day before we left for Sierra Leone … we named him Bruno.

If you would like to make a donation to help Bala with the wonderful work he does at Tacugama, just click here.