Sierra Leone’s present beauty and past pain are intimately bound. A journey from the West African country’s jungles to its jade-green shores reveals a nation with its eyes fixed on the road ahead.

The three chimps at forest school are some of the newer arrivals to the sanctuary, an oasis for more than 100 of our closest relatives inside Sierra Leone’s Western Area Peninsula National Park.

Occupying the seaward nib of a forested peninsula, the port city will serve as our base as we explore the islands of the Sierra Leone River and the coastal communities of the wider Western Area ...