Broken Destiny

Part One

Do you know how it feels like to be an orphan? With no one to look up to... no one to call mother or father... and with no one to understand you?

Well I do. My name is Ewoenam, and this is the story of my life.

My parents died a year after I was born, and I was raised by my grandmother for the first 12 years of my life.
It was pretty cool actually, for grandma had found other orphaned children just like me and had raised us all together and even though times were hard, we were always happy because we had each other.

Life in Accra, the capital was so difficult that to even afford two square meals a day was a problem but somehow, we made it work. The troubles however started on the day grandmother passed away. I remember that day very vividly.
Edina, Kwame, Pamela and myself had gone to school, I was in class six then, trying very hard to understand English since I had been in the village for a very long time before we moved to the city, and all throughout the day, I had this very bad feeling that just wouldn’t go away. We closed from school around 3:30 pm and arrived home only to see grandma lying in a pool of her own blood. Honestly, nothing can erase such a sight from my eyes.

With loud screams and sobs, we got the attention of our neighbours who quickly called the police to the scene. We didn’t know who had done it, and knowing Nima, the scary suburb we lived in, it probably could have been anyone seeking money or possessions and it was sad to note that they had truly come to the wrong place and harmed an innocent woman who simply didn't have anything to offer.

We were all scared, so we answered the police’s questions to the best of our abilities in that state and I realise now that that was the worst mistake we were to have ever committed, for the police realised that we kids were not related. Then came all the processes that led to our placement in the foster care system. Suffice to say, that was the last time I was going to see my “siblings" in a very long time.
For the first three years, I was moved from house to house... but none could keep me for more than six months and in the space of three years, I had been constantly abused, raped and starved and with each house I was taken away from, I left a piece of my spirit... so much so that by the time I had moved into a temporary orphanage awaiting my next placement to a new foster home, I had nothing else to live for.

I was going to end my life and I would have succeeded too if it hasn’t been for one of the orphans who had seen me before it had been too late.