She ran from years of abuse in Ghana. Now she runs for the U.S. Naval Academy.

[FSogol]

Need a story about a powerful young woman who never gave up?

Amanda Agana always had an answer ready to go. She would slide off her track pants and knew her running shorts couldn’t hide her past.

“Where are your scars from?” someone would inevitably ask. “Oh, well, I grew up in Africa,” she would say with a shrug. “I fell off a lot of trees.”

She chuckles at it now. Last time she counted, there were more than 100 marks dotting her legs, arms, hands and back. “Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here,” says the 21-year-old Agana, a middle-distance runner for Navy’s track team, her index finger tracing a map of childhood pain along one leg. None of the marks and scars were from falling out of trees.

“What am I supposed to tell these American kids that had never known true pain in their lives? ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I lived three years of my life being beaten every day and being taken advantage of every day,’ ” she says.

Article here: (Warning - powerful description of abuse and neglect, but does have a happy ending)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/she-ran-from-years-of-abuse-in-ghana-now-she-runs-for-the-us-naval-academy/2018/04/26/e39e15f2-44ba-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?utm_term=.7a62232100a7&wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1