Desert Flower by Waris Dirie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Desert Flower by Waris Dirie - Essay Example II. Plot Summary Waris Dirie was born into a nomadic tribe in Africa and deserts of Somalia were her playgrounds in childhood. Life there was a tough option but with no other alternatives she continued to live there, working and tending cows and she grew into a tough individual. She was a victim to the superstitious traditions of genital mutilation, but she had no knowledge about its true significance at that young age of 5. She was given to understand that it was an inevitable procedure to become a woman. Her mother was a party to that cruel exercise on her body and a professional killer woman knifed the outer portion of her genitals and then sewed it up. That was known as the procedure of circumcision, she survived it but some of her close ones, like sister Halemo and two other cousins had died. At the age of thirteen she ran away from the house to stall the efforts of her scheming father who wanted to give her in marriage to an aged individual. She reached Mogadishu to join her si ster Aman who had also escaped from the house. She stayed with her sister and aunt and then reached London with her uncle who was an Ambassador, as a maid to his family. She took education and soon came to realize her inner potentialities. She wanted to transcend from her status as a nomadic woman and achieve something tangible in life. She was in London for 4 years and when it was time for her uncle and family to return to Somalia, she insisted on staying back. She led a solitary life with none to support her. She got acquainted with Malcolm Fairchild, a photographer and then succeeded in getting some jobs in London. She married her friend Marylyn’s brother and got a passport. Opportunities fell to her lot to travel to different countries for modelling and soon she became a... Center of discussion in this paper is â€Å"Desert Flower†, the memoir of Waris Dirie. It is the story of how a nomadic girl from a backward country, Somalia, rises to become an internationally known super-model and then takes the top assignment as the UN Ambassador for the cause of women. She is a remarkable beauty with extraordinary courage. Her march from the village mud roads to the fashion runways of Milan, Paris and London reads like fiction. The name of the book is â€Å"Desert Flower†, but actually the author deserves that name. Cathleen Miller is the ghost writer of the book but the facts and the emotions of the content belong to Waris. The sum and substance of the book according to her own understanding is: Everything decided for her by God and she is just doing the work allotted to her by Him. Birth and death are in the hands of God and none has say on that issue. She will continue to take chances and she does the same throughout her life. During her run, she is nearly eaten by a lion, but the lion somehow spares her. About that encounter she writes, when I realized the lion was not going to kill me, I knew that God had something else planned, some reason to keep me alive. "What is it?" I asked as I struggled to my feet. "Direct me.† Some individuals are the victims of destiny; some are the creators of their destiny. Waris belongs to the latter category and with her fighting qualities, grit and determination she turned every situation to her advantage.