Desert Flower

Hi :))

Today I want to tell you something about one of my favourite books.

When I read Desert Flower for the first time I was deeply shocked by the history of Waris Dirie, but I was also impressed because this woman was so amazingly strong. Later I also saw the film and I was excited once again. 

Waris Dirie was born to a nomadic family in Somalia, who is used to move through the desert with all their cattle. At the age of six, Waris - the name means desert flower - starts to guard the whole flock, which consists of seventy sheep and goats. 

When she is five years old the young girl makes the worst experience of her life – Waris is subject to female circumcision in the middle of the desert without any anesthetic or antiseptic, as it is the custom in her village. At thirteen, her father arranges a marriage for her with a sixty-year-old man for the price of five camels. Waris doesn’t know what to do and so, one night she runs away from her family. 

She runs for days through the desert without anything to eat or to drink till her feet are bloody. During her trip she has to fight several threats like a big lion or even all the men who try to rape her. Finally, she arrives in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where she tries to live with her sister, but there Waris is not welcome. After a short stay at her uncle she at last finds a sister of her mother, who is ready to give Waris a home. One day the husband of another sister of her mother, visits them and tells her that he wants to go to London as a Somali ambassador. Waris sees her chance to leave the country and to discover a new world and asks him to take her with him to London as a maid. So the sixteen-year-old girl goes to London, where she works very hard as a servant, often till midnight. One of her tasks is it to take the little daughter of the family to school. Every day a man is waiting in front of the school, who wants to speak with Waris, but because her English is so poor she doesn’t understand him and runs back home. So one day the man follows her to the house and Waris finds out what the man is interested in: His name is Malcom Fairchild and he wants to take photos of the Somali girl and gives her his phone number.

After four years in London the ambassador decides that the whole family should return to Somalia, but Waris refuses to go back and decides to stay in London on her own. To earn some money Waris begins to work at McDonald’s and to attend a school for foreigners. One day after she has finished her work at McDonald’s she meets the photographer Malcom Fairchild again, who is still interested in her. From this moment on Waris’ life changes enormously because the young Somali girl wasn’t aware that she was a dark-skinned beauty and that she had a wonderful profile. At eighteen she lands her first job as model, a shooting for the Pirelli-calendar with the English star-photographer Terence Donovan, who is really patient with her, because it is not easy for Waris to take off her clothes and to be naked on a photo. This is how Waris’ career as a model begins. 

Later she decides to fight against genital mutilation and gives a journalist of “Marie Claire” an interview in which she speaks about her story for the first time to the whole world. The story is called "The tragedy of female mutilation". In the same year she becomes UN ambassador for the abolition of female genital mutilation.

What is FGM ?! Femalie Genital Mutilation is a destructive procedure in which the female genitals are partly or entirely removed or injured. The aim is to prevent sexual pleasure of women. The mutilation usually takes place before puberty, often on girls between four and eight years, but sometimes also on infants, who are only a few days, weeks or months old.

>> According to the estimate of the World Health Organization (WHO) at least 150 million women worldwide are affected and every year another three million girls become victims of mutilation. 500 000 girls and women in Europe have been mutilated or are at risk of FGM.

In my opinion Waris Dirie is a great woman because she fights against this horrible procedure. I can't understand why little girls or women should live under such lethal circumstances and I really hope that anytime this nightmare will find an end.