Desert flower… it's a poetic name comes from the far away Somalia. A young girl got it in the mid-1960's. She inherited a "fabulous destiny" too. Waris is now a super model, nevertheless she is more known for her extraordinary past, which has touched us. Do you want to know one of the most marvellous and hard stories?

Child of the desert
Waris Dirie was born in the Somalian desert, in a tribe of herdsmen. With her eleven brothers and sisters, she lived between camels, giraffes and zebras, crossing the desert and drinking camel's milk everyday. From an early age, she took care of the family's goats. Life in the desert was very hard and basic: they lived from day to day, never thinking about the past or the future. There were no hours, no timetables. Nobody spoke about sad things : to resist, they had to be strong physically and morally. Waris was considered as a rebel in the family: namely, she stabbed her brother Ali because he had eaten her last slice of rice.
Becoming a woman
When she was six, her parents called an old woman to circumcise her. It is a very usual tradition in many African countries. The aim of this genital mutilation is to guarantee virginity to the future husband. Without it, the girls can't be married, "the bad thing between her legs"(Waris) had to be removed, then, they were sewed up. And there isn't any place for an unmarried
woman in this society. Girls lose all their "value". Before being circumcised, Waris didn't know anything about this "operation". It was so misterious for her that she really wanted to know what it was to be a "woman" in Somalia.
A cruel mutilation
The operation took place in the desert, with a rusty razor blade and
acacia's thorns, without any anaesthetic. Then, Waris' legs were tied so she couldn't
move for one month. Nevertheless, after the old woman sewed her up, the only opening left for urine ( and later for menstrual blood) was a tiny hole of the diameter of a matchstick. She nearly died from infection, as one of her sisters and two of her cousins had done.
Get married or run away
She was around thirteen when her father announced to her she would get married in a few days with a sixty year old long-bearded man. He wanted to exchange her for five camels (an enormous wealth).In the evening, Waris whispered to her mother she wanted to run away, to go to Mogadishu (to join her sister who had escaped to get married with a man). While the family was sleeping, her mother woke her. It was the beginning of a long emigration.
Objective : London
She walked for a long time in the night. Her father tried to follow her, but frightened, she ran faster. Alone in the red desert, she walked for days and days ( she only ate once, when she stole camel's milk to a herdsman). She was nearly eaten by a lion, nearly raped twice... She went to her uncle's house, her sister's, ... and ran away each time. Until she arrived at her aunt's, who found her a work as a maid for her uncle, a diplomat in London. He put her alone in a plane, with a false passport.
A foreign white
When she entered the plane, everybody looked at her because of her clumsiness. She sat on the first free seat she saw. It was just near a white man, the first one she saw. After 12 hours of flight, she arrived at the airport of London, where a driver was waiting for her. She was very scared about everything around her, from the "sickly faces" of the people to the snow on the ground.
A young maid
Her hard life as a maid in the house of her uncle started. In fact, early in the morning she woke up at 6.30am for her uncle's breakfast before taking care of her aunt and the children, 5 in total. Everyday she was working in the house, polishing, dusting, …until mid night when she went to bed at last. Waris became a sort of slave. Instead of earning money and living better, she had to work hard, without any holidays.
During summer 1983, her young cousin came to live with them. Since that day, every morning, Waris had to take her to school. One morning a strange man fallowed Waris. He was saying something in English, she didn't understand (she didn't speak English). He gave her his card and, at home one of her relative translated it in Somali : the man was a photographer.
The evening, her uncle announced the family they would go back in Somalia. Waris wasn't excited to go back home : she wanted to return to Somalia wealthy and successful. Nevertheless, she had saved only the few money she won from her wages. Therefore she decided to stay in England and to keep her freedom, she buried her passport in the garden so that nobody could find it. Until the day of departure she didn't realise they would leave England without her and she would stay alone.
Alone in London
She was now, without any place to sleep, without anybody to help her. She decided to go in the town centre. In a shop, she met a Somalian woman who lived in a room of the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). Waris wanted to join her but she had to paid the rent. This friend suggested her to ask McDonald's on the other side of the road.She started to work cleaning the kitchen. At the same time she began to learn English in a free language school.
When she started out
One morning she took off the card of the photographer she had since she had worked for her uncle. She asked a friend to phone him since her accent was still not very good. The next day she went to Mike Goss' studio. Waris was made up. She felt different, as transformed. Mike gave her the photo, instead of Waris the maid, she was Waris the model. To travel (and work), she had to have a English passport so, with the help of a crook lawyer she get married with a cynical man and had papers for a short time. Later a woman who had seen the photo, sent Waris for the job casting of the Pirelli Calendar. The famous Terence Donovan was the photographer and he wanted to make the calendar with African women only. Waris was chosen. She began to work in Paris, Milan and New York and became more and more famous.
A serious problem
But, a few days each month she couldn't work. Her period was always a nightmare. The tiny hole the circumciser had left her didn't allow her to urinate easily : it took about ten minutes! She went to bed hoping that the pain would stop quickly. Besides, she was allergic to the birth control pills which had been given by many doctors she saw. However, one day, she decided to see a specialist. She explained her problem. He wanted to operate her as soon as possible. And it was what she did.
Success in New York
Waris couldn't bear her "husband". Besides, she didn't find any work in London. In 1991, she took the plane to New York. She joined her agency to find a flat. Although, her false husband but real tyrant followed her, he came back to England. However, despite this undesirable man, Waris became more and more famous, from the photo's for Levi's or Benetton to the video clip for Revlon (playing a role with C.Schiffer, C.Crawford,...). She travelled from London to Milan or Paris.
"To be or not to be"
To be black in a job where most of the super model are superb white-skined women with long hair falling over their shoulders, is being someone exeptionnal. Always running between two castings, she has always hated the photographers who wanted her to be another, a European woman (they put white make up on her face...). They don't respect her nationality, her character. She also had problems with her dislexy, and with timetables. Her legs tracked of blow and her scars on her foot, symbols of her old life, made sometimes the photographers refuse her.
Come back in Somalia
In 1995, the BBC proposed her to make a documentary about her life.In exchange, they would find her mother and meet her in Somalia with Waris. It is what they did, thanks to an old man who belonged to the same tribe as Waris (but not without any problems). She also met her little brother,Ali.
Ambassador to the UNO
One day, a journalist from " Marie Claire " came to make an interview about her life. The article struck many readers. Some UNO's members read it and decided to propose her to be the Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation. She accepted the challenge and joined this fight. Waris Dirie, to fulfil her mission had to travel a lot. However, it's an old tradition in Africa and some people don't agree with her, that's why she's scared of fanatics who would try to kill her because of her point of view. She knows her dangerous work but she says " God saved me from a lion. I felt he had a plan for me , some reason to keep me alive ".
Differences of traditions...
When she worked in London, she only spoke Somali because she didn't meet other people than her family. Then, when she escaped, she tried to learn English. Her biggest problem was the circumcision because she suffered a lot, and she realised she was an exception : at first she thought every girl was like her. In Africa, you don't speak about that problem to white people.
Better life but worse culture
Waris had to live like other Europeans, but she still speaks Somali (she has forgotten a bit), and she tries to help Africa progress: she works to stop the female genital mutilations. In her most famous photography, she is wearing traditional African clothes (see the photo). She went back to Somalia: she wanted to find the desert, the sun, nature, her mother again. Everything she had left a long time ago. She is really proud of her old life, her culture : she doesn't regret anything (without being circumcised). She prefers the nature where she grew up to the north artificial word; the family links, the solidarity, the courage of Africa. There, the rain was a pleasure, a joy. She learned to live happily without having much…

 

Perhaps, we hope, you will understand better the difficulty of being born in a poor country. Waris is an exceptional woman. Have you ever seen Claudia Schiffer in the desert, alone, at the mercy of a wild lion? From a poor nomadic girl, the courageous Somalian has become a well-known top model, UNO Ambassador, but she never forgot her origins and works now to stop female genital mutilation. Do you know any people like her?
Neither do I.

Lise-Marie, Anne, Sarah

 

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