Time with Ekua

The Road Less Travelled – Studying Spanish as a Foreign Language

'Sometimes it is the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.’

- Keri Russell

I have come to understand and very well appreciate Keri Russell’s statement above. When we think about it, we realise that every decision we make, no matter how small it is, has an effect or a consequence. Be it deciding to forgo one activity for another or to postpone a task, whatever we decide to spend our time on will yield different results in our lives. One particular decision I made in 2015 as I began my second year as a student at the University of Ghana was to study Spanish instead of French with Political Science. I consider Spanish in this case as the road less travelled because it seems a much more logical option to study French as a Ghanaian student, as it presents more job opportunities since Ghana is surrounded by French-speaking countries. This was the argument presented to me by many people including my parents when I sought their advice. However, after studying Spanish for a year, I was curious to know more and decided to pursue it instead. Looking back after five years, I am glad I decided to go with Spanish.

Perhaps studying French would have given me great opportunities as well but I never expected my study of the Spanish Language to take me on the path that I am on now. After my third year of undergraduate studies, I studied in Spain for a year mostly because initially it was a cool and exciting option at the time. And indeed, it was. To date, my friends and I still reminisce the amazing experiences we had in that one year which even included walking for over 3 hours from the airport to an Airbnb location in Italy in our mistaken attempt to ‘spend only when very necessary’. Upon my return to Ghana, I immediately began to explore ways I could return to Spain because one year did not seem to be enough. Never did I expect that my next visit to Spain would be the next year and would expose me to a whole different aspect of Spanish Culture.

In an attempt to continue to imbibe the Spanish Language upon my return to Ghana during my final year as a student at the University of Ghana, I decided to take part in a micro theatre project called ‘Bajo el mismo sol’ (Under the same sun), organized by the Spanish department of the University of Ghana by Ms Ruth Sara Sanchez (Spanish Lecturer) in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in Ghana. In nine days, we the students as actors and actresses together with the Spanish theatre Director (Ramón Perera), studied and rehearsed four micro plays which took place at the Jamestown café in Accra on 18th December 2018 which also happened to be my birthday. To crown the event and the highlight of my day, I was fortunate to be awarded as the best actress of the project to take part in the ‘FitElx: Festival Internacional de Teatre d'Elx’ (International Elx Theatre Festival) in Spain.

Hence in 2019, I returned to Spain as an actress to take part in a cultural festival. I spent five weeks in rehearsal with other actors and actresses, many of which were Spanish nationals but also included an Argentinean, two Colombians and a Mexican. I believe my level of Spanish increased exponentially within those five weeks of not having a single person to hold a conversation in English with. Also, after answering questions which seemed to refer to Africa as a country rather than a continent, seeing how surprised a number of them were to know that I speak English and that it is the official language of Ghana and asking if I spoke ‘African’ or ‘Ghanaian’ (thinking that there was one language spoken entirely in Africa and Ghana), it was interesting to note how little many Spaniards knew about Africa in general and I was glad to enlighten them in any way I could. It was a very positive experience and I made so many friends, many of which are twenty to thirty years older than I am but I continue to keep in touch with them to date.

I wish I could say that I have experienced all that Spain and perhaps the Spanish Language have to offer but there are still twenty more countries in the world that have Spanish as an official language. I cannot even begin to imagine that I have experienced the most out of Spain because there are still about forty-five provinces out of fifty that I am yet to visit. And while I am very grateful for the experiences and opportunities I have had, I am delighted to know that my knowledge of the Spanish Language continues to open amazing doors for me. I am pleased to say that I have a new and totally different Spanish experience to look forward to later this year and this time with the Basque Country as my destination!

More Information

Fitelx 2019 video: La mujer que mueve el mundo

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B2TyV7znGqc/?igshid=1ol2slrncl1hz

Photos