Warthogs, Monkeys and Elephants OH MY!

Greetings from Ghana!

School continues to challenge me but is rewarding all in the same breath. My class has increased to now 13 students which has been wonderful and thus bringing on more challenges! There are so many more girls in my class now and they make me laugh just with their interactions with each other. My whole original differentiating plan has now changed as I have added many new students and I have one student, Dora who does not know how to spell her name. I originally was starting to teach them some of the basic phonics still that are taught in Kindergarten in the United States but soon realized that they aren’t taught phonics here for a reason. How they pronounce the letters and words do not match up with the sounds that we are able to produce, so therefore, teaching them phonics has been a bit of a waste, but a nice attempt to see what they can actually do.

So, my new approach has been to do projects with them while teaching them a little bit along the way. Recently, together we chronologically organized what their daily routines are. I talked about ordering and how important it is to look at the activity and then see if it truly is the next thing on their daily routine. We did this together and I wrote it on the chalk board, I still have to do sort of a fill in the blank for the younger kids where I write some of the sentence and then they write the most important words. I allowed the older kids to go on their own and they seemed to do pretty well with the activity. I kept their sheets and we are now in the process of turning them into a book titled “A Day in the Life of ______.” We are writing the book together but the students are each writing their own book. We have been working on writing a complete sentence and they have done well showing me that they can do that! I have been very proud of them! Some of my students, especially the older ones do not understand the whole spacing between words so I have to draw lines for each word to show how the words should be spaced. I am often running around the canopy, not that it’s that big, and modifying for all the students – I love it! After we get done writing I am going to have them illustrate them and I’m going to think of some creative way to bind them and have them take their books home! I think projects like this will be a whole lot more beneficial than attempting to teach them the nitty gritty of our language. If anyone has any ideas – I would love them!

This week I took a long weekend and two other girls (Cat and Piper) and I traveled to Mole National Park. We left, along with Alexa and Isabel at 3:00am Thursday morning on a bus set for Kumasi. It was about a 9 hour bus ride and we arrived in Kumasi at 12:00pm Thursday. After the long trip, Alexa and Isabel decided they did not want to continue the journey to Mole any farther – so we said goodbye to them and waiting for our next bus to Tamale. The man sitting next to me on the first bus, was so nice and helped us find the right place to buy our tickets and waited with us the whole time. I know I say this often, but it still amazes me how out of the way some people go to be nice and help out. I think we could use a little more of this daily random small acts of kindness in America. We finally arrived in Tamale at 11:00pm and had to take a taxi still to our hotel room. Then early Friday morning we got up and finished our long 25 hour journey by taking a final three hour taxi ride to Mole National Park. As soon as we entered the park and started driving towards our hotel we saw a whole bunch of baboons just hanging out in the middle of the road. Right outside our hotel room were warthogs and antelope that we could just walk past and they didn’t care.

Friday afternoon we went to an Eco-Village just a short ways away. This Eco-Village was set up by a Peace Corps volunteer who wanted to give the opportunity to show people the way of life in an African Village. The guide that drove us there, walked around the village and we met the chief, played with the kids, watched a woman make shea butter, climbed on top of a roof and saw the whole village, visited the herbalist and just walked around the village. The village has about 600 people and can run independently off the land. I had several mixed feelings as I was walking through the village. Part of me felt a bit intrusive on their life and made it seem like we were going to a zoo or something. Part of me was so interested in seeing their way of life and how they are content in just living off the land and content with everything they have in their village. It was interesting to see the different roles of the village and who plays which part. Since it is in such a remote area they literally have everything they need right there. Part of me thinks it is incredible that they are able to truthfully live off the land and enjoy their life. However, another part of me is sad, because they have no way of advancing their life either; they have no desire to change any part of their life. I am not saying they should go and become westernized or go and buy cellphones, but even just in cleanliness, they are not allowing their lifestyle to change slightly in order to become more aware of good hygiene. It was pretty emotional as I was walking around and think of all these things – and such a joy to play with the children!
Saturday morning we woke up at 6 in order to be ready for our 6:30 walking safari. I brought along my Keen sandals thinking they would be an excellent pair of walking shoes; however, the guide was not convinced that these would properly protect my feet, so I had to rent a big pair of rubber boots to wear, without socks. That was an experience all in itself! At first we started walking down a small dirt path and the guide was telling us about the park and all that it offers. Then we go off the path and just start walking in the bushes and it was at that point I was so grateful to have on the big boots so my pants wouldn’t get wet and so my shoes were not muddy! We saw a tree full of monkeys and watched them play around for a while, and then saw a small family of warthogs trot on by. Then the guide found a fresh elephant footprint, so we started to follow the path. We started actually tracking down and elephant. We followed the footprints, looking for feces, chewed up parts of trees, and even saw the spot where the elephant has laid down for the night. After about an hour of this, I was getting a little discouraged and we had been walking in circles it seemed. We stopped at a Salt Lake, basically a big mud hole that has natural salt the elephants like to stop there. A bit to the left of the Salt Lake, in the trees, we saw four huge gray legs! Finally we had found our elephant! The guide made us wait and see, and then he took us through the woods so we were about 20 feet from the elephant. She (I’m calling it a she, not sure if it was!) was absolutely beautiful to watch. No this isn’t my first time I have ever seen an elephant, but watching her interact in her natural environment was pretty magical. She would take her trunk and just shed an entire branch of leaves and put it in her mouth. At one point she turned and faced us and it really startled me. I didn’t realize how powerful they truly are until I was standing not behind a fence and right face to face with an elephant! I was able to get some amazing pictures but also just stood there and watched her! Wildlife is so miraculous, especially, in their natural habitat! We stayed and watched her for about an hour and then it was time to make our way up the huge hill right in front of our hotel. It was crazy to think that the hotel was right in the forest below our hotel!

It was a fantastic trip and for sure worth all of the traveling! I am excited to get back to my kids and see them again!

I hope all is well at home! If you get the chance, watch the Lion King sometime, with all this wildlife I’ve been seeing, I have been dying to see it!

Lots of love from Africa!
Steph