Ashawo Diaries (Author’s Note)

This book is important to me on many levels. This is because it honours someone who blessed me with her presence; someone I met when I was a teenager struggling to live not just for me, but for my family; someone whose outlook defied everything I was taught but influenced me positively on the haunting backstreets of Accra, someone who died when she was barely 15…
Hawa was her name.
I have grown to believe that everyone I encounter in this life is part of my story. Hawa’s life, however, requires a whole story on its own. This is because the teenage me who witnessed her beautiful soul in her ugly but short life, needs to honour Hawa, while pacifying herself with the thought that she has at least, mourned the only true friend she had on the street.
Putting this story together was exacting. It was an emotional drainer, with a series of give-it-up moments.
I felt there was no point in writing about a “prostitute” who was wronged and killed both for her soul and her body. Redemption for this project came when I took one good and long look around this thing we call life. In a world where you can still lose if you choose to act or not, I decided to let my imagination take wings and fly.
Will my effort help to clean up a little of the mess in our world? Will the national policy actually rescue the vulnerable? Will the street girl in our community be protected? Will the next Hawa be saved? The answers are in the winds.
I am grateful to D’Akpabli Publishing and their creative and efficient team. I am so pleased with the outcome of this book and hope readers enjoy the story. Beyond that, if the reader pays attention to the victims of the Underworld, the many who die like fowls and are buried in the stomachs of vultures because of poverty; and the many who cry out from the dark pits of despair without a response, I would have succeeded.
I hope, above all, that readers will re-examine themselves and get to know how they can better themselves for a better world, a better world deserving of generations to come.
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia: Author.
Cover Credit: Nene Buer Boyetey II. Book due in June 2020. For pre-orders (which start on 25th May 2020) contact via WhatsApp or call: +233 24 5275 981 or Booknook Book Store on Facebook. Book will also be available on Amazon.