The Father Martin Memorial School was founded in 1994 as a memorial to our first Superior, Fr Martin Symons of Ramsgate Abbey. It continues to receive a steady flow of donations from benefactors in the UK and in April we gave £700 from the school fund to subsidise an outing to Kumasi, the second city of Ghana, for almost the whole school. It was the first such outing since 2007. Here the students themselves give an account of the day:
It was Friday afternoon when a bell was tolled for closing. We were all to assemble. After praying and everything else, the Headmaster came out from his office for an announcement. Surprisingly to his announcement he said the school would be embarking on an excursion to Kumasi at four important places like River Barekesse, Kumasi Airport, Kumasi Zoo and Cultural Centre. A very amaze and astonish for the school was that the Monastery Fathers has promised to hire two Yutong busses free for both primary and J.H.S. schools. After his announcement the whole school was like a jubilee house.
On Thursday the teachers in our school closed us early in the afternoon. And our headmaster told us now our dream to go on excursion has come true. We all cheered with our friends and everybody was exited that we are about to go to such important excursion, especially those who had not gone to Ashanti Region before. Then the assistant headmaster added that, you know we have not been closing by this time. The reason why we have closed early is that we want each and everyone here to go back home and wash his or her uniform and iron it. Another teacher added that, by God’s grace tomorrow we are going to take off at 6:00 a.m., early in the morning. Then we all departed to our various homes preparations towards the excursion.
Finally the day came. On Friday 4th April 2014. As early as 5.30 a.m. we all dressed nicely and went to our town park waiting for our busses to arrive over there. We sang many songs and danced with joy. At 6.00 a.m. the busses arrived at where we were. The busses were three: one for the primary pupils, another for the J.H.S. and the third was for our teachers and our luggage. One of our teachers pray to God and asked for God’s travelling mercy. At exactly 6.30 a.m. we began the journey to Kumasi. On the way we sang many and danced until we arrived at Barekesse Dam.
Sir, what was amazing was that when we reached a certain town our bus also overtooked that of the primary pupils and we tooked a certain road. All of us were shouting due to the fact that the road was second class road since we don’t know there we didn’t say anything again due to that fact. I continued the reading of sign boards, what I saw was that they have written ‘Welcome to Barekesse’. The Barekesse dam is the one of the happiest places I visited because that was the first day I saw a canoe and dam.
We were singing and drumming loudly but the moment we got to Barekesse Dam, we gave up singing and drumming. There we were told by one of the workers there that the Dam was built at the era of our former president Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the year 1960 by Russians. And also the main purpose for building it was to generate electricity and also served as a source of potable drinking water for the country especially those in Ashanti Region. And the dam get it source from river Offin.
Sir, we boarded the bus again and we therefore continued our journey from Barekesse. We were given food. From Barekesse we went to main city / capital city of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, that is Kumasi. The first place we visited was the airport. Our bus was first to reach there. I saw an aeroplane landing there off in the air that was when it was too big to fly when it is on the air. You may say it is a bird but it is bigger than even our bus so I was thinking about how it manage to fly in the air over there. When we were standing there it was noisy. Happy because I spoked to an instructor over there and saw an aircraft also.
From the airport we went to Kumasi Zoo. At the zoo gate the tourist guides counted us and charged us an amount, as soon as we paid the levy they group us into two and two men led us. At this stage he explained some habits of animals to us. We asked him a lot of relevant question, he also answered a lot of questions patiently. I saw so many animal like species of birds, an elephant, antelope, tortoise, lion, tiger and that was the day I saw a tiger with my naked eyes. I also saw a monkey which danced “azonto” even than a human being named “Gimi”.
We took our lunch at the zoo, after we boarded the busses again and went to our last place which was Kumasi Cultural Centre.
In the cultural centre they divided us into two groups. First group went to a certain room and the second group also went. I was with second group. A certain man gives us so many history about the Ashanti Kingdom. We went in to saw many tools and equipments used by the Ashantis in the olden days. He also showed us the picture of Yaa Ashantewaa and the picture of Prempeh the III (third). We also saw very excited first car bought by Prempeh the III.
At exactly 6.23 o’clock we took off back to Techiman. I could say Wa ‘O’ because the excursion was interesting and very educative, so therefore our teachers advised us to learn hard and further our education to a higher levels so as to enjoy a brighter future too.
In fact I gained a lot from the excursion because through this excursion I had seen so many animals, cultures and histories which since I came onto this planet I haven’t seen before and also heard before.
Thank you,
Furvour Lord Aryee, J.H.S. Three.
Donkor David, J.H.S. Three.
Bediako Evans, Form Three.
Ntim Widom, Form Three.
Ali Latif, Student
Fr Martin Memorial School, Tanoboase, 14th April 2014.
