Huh! Challenges……

These are inevitable realities in life. The question is: How can we take advantage of the situation to suit ourselves?

Five months ago, I would have called you “delusional” if you tried to encourage or tell me that living in a local community where you neither comprehend nor speak the language was a possibility and something I could do.

Before deployment to my community of service in the Volta region, I had other minor challenges like religious differences and being far away from home. However, language was the biggest challenge of all.

I had never heard anyone speak the Ewe language until during my CorpsAfrica Pre-Service Training and Community-Based Training. It was all weird.

When I tried speaking basic sentences, my tongue would fight with my teeth. It was just difficult.

All these made me wonder to myself ” Rahatu, how would you spread the CorpsAfrica Message, how would you get these people to win your trust and how would you even survive without effective communication?”

When I got to my community, one thing I kept in mind was, that the only way to get my community to accept me was at least trying to be like one of them and that is by starting with the preliminary thing i.e. language.

I started with greetings in the Ewe dialect, and migrated to sustaining conversations like ” Where are you going? What is your name? You are welcome” etc.

Through this little effort, I put in, I realized that most of the community members would laugh at my accent and mistakes, but they would then go ahead to correct me in the long run.

They also became very comfortable with me and would even rattle the language when they started conversation as though I was a native.

Gradually, I started building a strong relationship with them. I told them that yes, without a doubt, I did not understand the language, but they could help me to comprehend whatever they were saying by using sign language.

You will not believe how this approach worked like magic.  

Initially, during my public meetings, I needed an interpretation of whatever message that was given, and I felt tension within me as well.

However, the little errors I made ensured a lively facilitation and encouraged everyone to share their opinions.

When I entered my community, I just watched people move their lips when talking with zero clues. Fortunately, when I came to this realization, the language barrier I considered a great challenge was suddenly an opportunity for me to build a strong relationship with my community members. I leveraged that to put measures to improve.

Here I am five months down the road sustaining conversations in Ewe, speaking with my community members without being tenacious, and above all, building stronger relationships with them.