Desert Flower Waris Dirie Pdf Download
Fredericka Mote
Inspirational, dramatic and extraordinary - the autobiography of a Somalian nomad circumcised at 5, sold in marriage at 13, who became an American model and is now at the young age of 30, the UN spokeswoman against circumcision.
Waris Dirie (the name means desert flower) lives a double life - by day she is a famous model and UN spokeswoman on women's rights in Africa, at night she dreams of her native Somalia. Waris, one of 12 children, was born into a traditional family of desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree- racing camels and moving on with her family to the next grazing spot - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision. Waris suffered this torture when she was just five years old. Then, aged 12, when her father attempted to arrange a marriage with a 60 year old stranger in exchange for five camels - she took flight. After an extraordinary escape through the dangerous desert she made her way to London and worked as a maid for the Somalian ambassador until that family returned home. Penniless and speaking little English, she became a janitor in McDonalds where she was famously discovered by a fashion photographer. Her story is a truly inspirational and extraordinary self-portrait of a remarkable woman whose spirit is as breathtaking as her beauty.
Waris Dirie is an internationally renowned model. In 1997 she was appointed by the UN as special ambassador for women's rights in Africa, in its efforts to eliminate female genital mutilation. She lives in New York with her son. The film rights to her story have been sold to Elton John's production company, Rocket Pictures.
Somalian nomad girl and model, Waris Dirie, can be credited for bringing female genital mutilation to the attention of the rest of the world. Currently living in Austria having founded the Desert Flower Foundation, which aims at ending FGM with a focus on Africa, she has four books and one film which tell the amazing story of her life.
When Dirie was just three, her sister bled to death after being circumcised; no one spoke of her death. Dirie herself was circumcised when she was five, before she even knew what sex was, just that uncircumcised girls are dirty. She underwent infibulation circumcision, where both the labia minora and labia majora are cut away and the wound is stitched up, leaving only a tiny hole. Other girls she knew died from hideous infection after their circumcision, but an uncircumcised girl could not get married.
Dirie was first raped aged four, but was unable to fully understand what had happened. In her first book, there are three other cases of attempted rape upon her and there may have been more. Six out of eleven of her siblings died and each time her mother gave birth she would go out alone in the desert, returning with the new baby afterwards. Furthermore, if a woman died in childbirth, she died alone; the family would have to find her body days later. Finally, when Dirie was 13, she ran away from her family after her father arranged for her to marry a man aged around 60.
Here, there are some endearingly amusing details about her acclimatisation to British life; she describes how the first time she saw a white person she thought they were ill, how she lost her shoe on an escalator in the airport and how cold London felt.
Before this point there had been little to no word of female genital mutilation in the west and Dirie received messages of support from all sides, as well as letters of discouragement from Somalian people who were offended that she should go against their traditions.
That same year, 1997, Dirie became UN ambassador for the abolition of FGM. It was at this time that she abandoned her modelling career to focus on her cause. She authored her first book, Desert Flower, in 1998 and went on to write three other books, Desert Dawn, Letter to my Mother and Desert Children. A film was later released in 2009 based on the book Desert Flower under the same name and was internationally acclaimed.
As a means of furthering her anti-FGM cause, Dirie founded the Desert Flower Foundation in Vienna, Austria, which both raises awareness for FGM and currently aims at saving girls from female genital mutilation through a sponsorship system.
Waris Dirie very much lives up to her name, as the desert flower is strong and triumphs through adversity and harsh conditions. She continues to fight hard for the lives of girls all over the world to be less punitive and unfair. Many have since joined her in her cause to end FGM and she can be credited with bringing attention to the matter across the west and in countries where many thought the tradition would never change. She remains strong in her convictions and more than those 1115 girls can thank her for her courage.
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