5 iconic telenovela women that 90s Ghanaians can never forget

TV culture in Ghana really took off in the 90s and carried on into the early 2000s, and for many homes the evening telenovela was the one programme nobody was allowed to miss.

Homework had to be finished before it started, the whole family gathered in front of one television, and the next morning everyone at school or at work had something to say about the episode.

Years later, these are the women from those shows that Ghanaians still talk about.

1. Esmeralda (Esmeralda, 1997)

When TV3 brought Esmeralda to Ghanaian screens, it swept through the country in the early 2000s. Leticia Calderón played Esmeralda, a girl born blind and raised in poverty after she was swapped at birth with a baby boy, José Armando, who grew up in her place in a wealthy family. The two fell in love without knowing the truth about their births, and the lies and family pride that followed kept viewers glued to their screens every evening.

2. Paola and Paulina Bracho (La Usurpadora, 1998)

TV3 also gave us La Usurpadora, where Gabriela Spanic played twin sisters who could not have been more different from each other. Paola was the rich and cruel one, and Paulina was the sweet-hearted sister she tricked into taking her place in her marriage and her mansion. The show was broadcast in more than 125 countries, and many Ghanaians still remember how one actress made them love and hate her at the same time.

3. Rosalinda (Rosalinda, 1999)

Thalía’s Rosalinda was another TV3 favourite. She was a poor young woman who married a man of high status and had a daughter, Erika, with him, but her happiness never lasted long because Valeria, her stepmother-in-law, kept scheming to split them up. Many viewers suffered right alongside Rosalinda, waiting for the day she would finally get some peace.

4. Juana Pérez (Juana la Virgen, 2002)

Daniela Alvarado played Juana Pérez, a bright 17-year-old with a scholarship to study journalism in the United States, whose life turned upside down when a mistake during a routine hospital checkup left her pregnant through artificial insemination. The father turned out to be Mauricio de la Vega, the wealthy owner of a fashion magazine whose stored sample was meant for his wife, Carlota. The scandal forced Juana out of school and into a job at Mauricio’s magazine, where the two fell in love while Carlota did everything in her power to keep them apart.

5. Valentina Villanueva (My Sweet Fat Valentina, 2002)

Natalia Streignard played Valentina, the kind, overweight young woman who lost almost everything after her father died and she was sent away. She came back to Venezuela under a new identity to take revenge on Olimpia, the family’s manipulative matriarch, and win back her inheritance, while her cousin Orestes, the man she loved, secretly became a masked vigilante.

*Bonus: Ara Garcia (Sana’y Wala Nang Wakas, 2003)

Not every great love story on Ghanaian television came from Latin America, and Kristine Hermosa’s Ara came to us from the Philippines in Sana’y Wala Nang Wakas, known internationally as Timeless. Ara fell in love with Christian (Jericho Rosales) while the two were stranded on an island after an accident at sea, but their parents’ old sins kept tearing them apart, and Ghanaians followed every heartbreak until the end.