Sanctuary! or, Lucky Little Monkeys

It is a rather happy coincidence for monkeys in Ghana that many of the forests in which they live are considered to be sacred. What this means in practice is that killing monkeys who reside in a sacred grove is unlucky and will bring ill upon the perpetrator and upon the nearest village. Without this protection system in place, I daresay there would be few monkeys left in Ghana. It also makes for a natural fit with ecotourism projects such as the one found at Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary nestled in the transitional landscape (where forest meets grassland) of the Brong Ahafo region. We stopped at the sanctuary's guide office after driving from Techiman, and after paying a modest guide fee, our guide jumped in the van with us and off we went.

By the time we pulled into the village and parked the van, there were already a dozen or so Mona monkeys making their way towards the van, some of which had newborns clinging on for dear life. We bought a couple of bunches of bananas from a conveniently positioned village seller and the games quickly began. As humans have never posed a threat to these monkeys, they are very comfortable with people and were soon taking bananas from the children and climbing into our van to be certain we weren't withholding any offerings (it truns out we were and that was soon rectified!). We then made our way into the forest, that reminded us of a few of the hikes we've done in BC, particularly in the coastal rainforests of Vancouver Island. The Mona monkeys were our constant companions (lest we produce more bananas) as we began to feel smaller and smaller as the trees became larger. There were some stunning examples of strangler vines or killer trees that gradually consume much larger trees and choke them out (at which point I start having rather twisted visions of one of the Evil Dead movies--I'll spare you if you haven't seen it!).

In keeping with sacred aura of the sanctuary, it is one of the few places where two different species--the aforementioned Campbell's Mona monkey and Geoffroy's Columbus monkey--live in absolute harmony with one another. The Columbus monkeys tend to be a little more shy and don't have quite the same relationship with the villagers, but they are no less revered and protected for it. As I recall, our guide said that the monkeys were long ago discovered to be the children of the community's god and were to be treated as equals. As such, when the monkeys die, they are buried in a cemetery very near to the village and it is said that they come down from the trees and die very close to the community to be found. The funeral rites for the monkeys are the same as for the people and there are priests and priestesses buried alongside the sacred monkeys. It is believed that when the monkey populations are prosperous and healthy, so too are the people. There is true and basic environmental wisdom here.

The kids decided that this gift shop would be a very authentic and memorable place to buy some souvenirs, so Bronte and Cohen each picked out a mask and Carmilla and I opted for a hand-carved salad bowl. These sorts of shops are rarely the least expensive, but it is quickly evident that the money is going towards development, village projects and the artists themselves. In the city, the village artists see very little of the money from their wares. There is a nearby waterfall that we didn't get to on this trip, so it gives us a good excuse to return. The forest was certainly the one of the most impressive and pristine we have seen, aside perhaps from Kakum National Park, and we could easily have spent a day in the shady coolness of its canopy and the pleasant company of its monkey population.