Remembering the Day I Met Dear Fatima

“I am from Ghana. We were very poor and I grew up in the dirt. My father had four wives and we were fourteen children. We were taught to hate. At age twelve my family packed a small bag and I was given to an elderly man to marry. I can still see him shuffling across the floor to take me with him. Very soon after we married I ran away. I made a living on the city streets.”