Fiema and Kintampo trip
By Lindsay Ann Jopes (USA)
This last week I began my new goal, giving special attention to the struggling students. Basically, I’ve found my nitch. Since this type of teaching is related to my future career goal(speech pathology) I’m glad I’m having this opportunity. I’ve found that in this type of situation I’m much more patient and organized. The students are also much more focused and I can visually see the change in their attitude. In just one week they’ve all made significant improvements in their comprehension of the material. Every night I look forward to evaluating their performance and planning the next lesson. I really feel helping these four students graduate with their peers is why I came here. I feel this is where I’m making the most impact. Despite the fact that it’s only four students, the spark in their eye the second they grasp the concept is indescribable.
After such a productive and promising week Katie and I set off on our journey north to Fiema and Kintampo. We left Friday at eleven and arrived in Fiema around 3:30. In taxi this trip would’ve taken half the time but we were in a trotro on unpaved road, not the most comfortable transportation. Once in Fiema we walked through the forest to get to the Guest House. These accommodations were minimal but decent. There was a both a bucket shower and bucket toilet. When we finally got settled in it began raining pretty hard, but Katie and I were not deterred. We went frolicking through the forest in the rain for about an hour looking for monkeys.
On Saturday we woke up at seven, ate breakfast, and once again set out in search of monkeys. After walking for about a half hour, we found a group of children washing their clothes in a watering hole. They laughed when we told them we were looking for monkeys, apparently we’d walked a half hour in the wrong direction. They then walked us to where the monkeys were. One word to describe our sightings was, amazing! I love monkeys so to see them in their natural habitat so close was beautiful. They were jumping from tree to tree, being so playful. We took pictures of the two different types for about an hour and set off back to the guest house.
We then decided to head to the Kintampo waterfalls, about an hour north. This took about two hours, thanks to Ghana time. Once we were at the waterfalls the extra hour made no difference. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was like a enormous staircase with water cascading down. Katie and I went under the waterfall, clothes and all. During my photo-op I feel down a slope and slid down a natural waterslide, it was amazing.
Our trip back to Kumasi took about five hours but the trip was well worth it. We decided after entertaining travelling and beautiful sightseeing, that it’s both the journey and the destination that matter. This weekend we will head to Mole where Katie promises I’ll see elephants, monkeys, warthogs and many other memorable sights.
