A day on the Farmington River



Steering the boat

It’s mid-November now and we have already submitted out financial budget for next year. This brought about a little bit more time to do some activity over the weekend. A few weeks back Patrick who is the controller of the operations here in Liberia and the person whom I report to mentioned that we need to go fishing once the budget is submitted.

Kids from the villages waving at us

It’s also that time of the year when the rainy season is almost past us so the past weekend looked like a perfect time to take the boat out to the Farmington River for the first time this season. The Farmington river snakes along one edge of the concession area that the Government of Liberia has granted Firestone. Our group in addition to myself consisted of Patrick, Ong, Tod, and Aaron and Margie.

We all met up at the guest house and after having our breakfast, we loaded our cooler with some sandwiches, fruits and drinks before driving down to the river where the boat was waiting for us. We rode the river downstream all the way to the confluence of the river with the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way we saw the airport, a dilapidated airport hotel that was stripped to its bare structure during the war and beautiful mangrove lined river banks occasionally dotted by small villages where the kids rushed out of their huts to wave their hands.

Mangrove forest

Chimp on the river's Monkey Island

I took the reins of the boat a short while after we started and steered the boat all the way till the Monkey Island which is a landmark everyone who visits our Liberian operations from the US is well familiar with. The island is actually a small river delta but the reason for the peculiar name is due to a family of Chimps that call this delta their home.

The story of the chimps on this delta is actually more gruesome that romantic. The chimps (or at least the elders of the family) were purportedly used as lab specimen to test for human diseases and their cures. The reason why they are on this delta is to prevent these lab specimens to mix with the wild population since Liberia does have a small population of wild western chimpanzees.

Fanti village settled by Ghanian fishermen

Ong digging for crabs

One of the bigger ones we caught (and let go)

Without being a hypocrite, a part of me felt sad for these chimps but then at least they are not caged and even though that delta is no comparison to living in the wild, they at least have decent space to stretch about. They are also fed regularly so I don’t know if they would prefer the wild lifestyle over the easy one they have now.

Trying my hand at a canoe

What I am not sure of is their long term future; as the chimps mate and their population increases. I wonder if they would then be let go in the wild?...Will the population pressure make a select few to swim across the river to freedom or will they all be eventually killed as there are too many to take care of?

After riding around the monkey island we headed to the mouth of the river where we anchored the boat and just made the most of the beautiful day. Ong was busy digging crabs while the others were either fishing, taking a dip, or just relaxing by the river bank. I even tried riding one of the fisherman’s canoe which is actually pretty light and takes a little practice to control.



Chimps looking at funny looking creatures on a boat

On our way we rode by a second monkey island before casting our fishing line one last time to catch a decent size fish.

Our only catch...a small Barracuda

Alas! The only thing we have to show for is a picture of a small barracuda. I guess it was too early after the rainy season to catch any fish but none the less we did come back with 2 big fresh groupers albeit bought from the local fishermen. I have never been too much into fishing so it did not matter as long as I had a wonderful Sunday afternoon by the Farmington River.