Desert Flower
by
Waris Dirie


WWW.V*R'GO.CO.U

ISBN 1 86049 749:7

AUOBIO(}RAPH

U.K. 5.99*

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DESERT

FLOWER

DESERT

FLOWER

The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad

WAR IS DIRIE

and Cathleen Miller

A Virago Book

Published by Virago Press 1999

First published by Virago Press 1998

First published in the United States by William Morrow and Company
Inc."  New York

Reprinted 1999 (four times), 2000 (four times), 2001, 2002 (twice)

Copyright Waris Dirie 1998

Traditional Somali poem on page v reprinted from Daughters of Africa,
edited by Margaret Busby.  Copyright 1992 by Margaret Busby.  Used by
permission.

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library

ISBN 1* 86049 749 7

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St.  Ives plc

Virago Press

An imprint of

Time Warner Books UK Brettenham House Lancaster Place

London we2E 7EN

www.virago.co.uk

FOR MAMA

I realize that when one travels the road of life, weathering storms,
enjoying the sunshine, standing in the eye of many hurricanes, survival
is determined only by the strength of one's will.  Therefore I dedicate
this book to the woman upon whose shoulders I stand, whose strength is
unyielding: my mother, Fattuma Ahmed Aden.

She has shown her children evidence of faith while staring into the
face of unthinkable adversity.  She has balanced an equal devotion to
twelve children (an amazing feat on its own) and shown wisdom that
would humble the most insightful sage.

Her sacrifices have been many; her complaints, few.  And all along we,
her children, knew that she gave what she had, no matter how meager
without reservation.  She has known the agony of losing a child more
than once, and still she maintains her strength and courage to continue
struggling for her remaining children.  Her generosity of spirit and
inner and outer beauty are legendary.

Mama, I love, respect, and cherish you, and thank Almighty Allah for
giving me you as my mother.  My prayer is to honor your legacy by
parenting my son as you have tirelessly nurtured your children.

Oh, you are a kilt which a young dandy set out to choose Oh, you are
like a costly rug for which thousands were paid Will I ever find your
like you who have been shown to me only once?

An umbrella comes apart; you are as strong as looped iron; Oh, you who
are as the gold of Nairobi, finely molded, You are the risen sun, and
the early rays of dawn,

Will I ever find your like, you who have been shown to me only once?

--Traditional Somali poem

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Desert Flower is the true story of Waris Dirie's life, and all the ew
presented are factual, based on Waris's recollection.  While all people
portrayed in Desert Flower are real, we have used pseudonyms most of
them to protect their privacy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people who helped make this book
possible, not only in its actual production, but also for simply being
a part of my life.

To my Leeki-Leek, what a deep joy to have you in my life.  I'm so
grateful to God that He brought you to me.  You fulfill me more than
words can say.

To my darling Dana, thank you for shining your light around me.  It was
destiny that our paths crossed.  I love you.

To Dana's parents, thank you for taking me in and making me one of your
own.  It's nice to have a family close to me again.  Especially to my
granny, who was there every inch of the way.  I love you more than you
can know.

To Christy Fletcher and her associates at the Carol Mann Agency, for
being the most trustworthy, loyal, and dedicated agents I've ever
had.

To everyone at William Morrow, and especially Betty Kelly, who really
understood and believed in my vision and made this book her baby,
too.

To Cathy Miller, who while trying to get into my mind almost lost her
own.  Thank you for all your hard work and effort.

To Tyrone Barrington, for always taking care of me and supporting me
through all this.

To my right hand, Sabrina Cervoni, I can't function without you.  Thank
you for coming into my life.

To my dearest friend, George Speros, what can I say, but I have nothing
but love for you, baby.

To Barbara Waiters, Ethel Bass, and everyone at 20/20, thank you for
giving me the opportunity to tell my story on your show and for always
supporting me.

To Laura Ziv, who wrote that unforgettable article that touched more
people than I expected.

Allah: "It's the end for me, my God.  Please take me now."

My long journey across the desert had come to an end.  I had no
protection, no weapon.  Nor the strength to run.  Even under the best
of circumstances, I knew I couldn't beat the lion up the tree, because
like all cats, lions with their strong claws are excellent climbers. By
the time I got halfway up BOOM one swipe and I'd be gone.  Without any
fear I opened my eyes again and said to the lion, "Come and get me. I'm
ready for you."

He was a beautiful male with a golden mane and a long tail switching
back and forth to flick away flies.  He was five or six years old,
young and healthy.  I knew he could crush me instantly; he was the
king.  All my life I'd watched those paws take down wildebeest and
zebras weighing hundreds of pounds more than me.

The lion stared at me and slowly blinked his honey-colored eyes.  My
brown eyes stared back, locked on his.  He looked away.  "Go on.  Take
me now."  He looked at me again, then looked away.  He licked his lips
and sat down on his haunches.  Then the lion rose and paced back and
forth in front of me, sexily, elegantly.  Finally, he turned and walked
away, no doubt deciding that I had so little flesh on my bones, I
wasn't worth eating.  He

strode across the desert until his tawny-colored fur was lost against
the sand.

When I realized he was not going to kill me, I gave no sigh of relief,
because I hadn't been afraid.  I'd been ready to die.  But evidently
God, who has always been my best friend, had something else planned,
some reason to keep me alive, I said, "What is it?  Take me direct me,"
and struggled to my feet.

This nightmare journey began because I was running away from my father.
I was about thirteen at the time, and living with my family, a tribe of
nomads in the Somalian desert, when my father announced he had arranged
my marriage to an old man.  Knowing I had to act fast or suddenly one
day my new husband would come to get me, I told my mother I wanted to
run away.  My plan was to find my aunt, my mother's sister, who lived
in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.  Of course I had never been to
Mogadishu or any other city for that matter.  Nor had I ever met my
aunt, But with the optimism of a child, I felt somehow things would
magically work out.

While my father and the rest of the family were still sleeping, my
mother woke me and said, "Go

now."  I looked around for something to grab, something to take, but
there was nothing, no bottle of water, no jar of milk, no basket of
food.  So, barefoot, and wearing only a scarf draped around me, I ran
off into the black desert night.

I didn't know which direction led to Mogadishu, so I just ran.  Slowly
at first, because I couldn't see; I stumbled along, tripping over
roots.  Finally, I decided to just sit down because snakes are
everywhere in Africa, and I was terrified of snakes.  Each root I
stepped on I imagined to be the back of a spitting cobra.  I sat
watching the sky gradually lighten.  Even before the sun came up whoosh
I was off like a gazelle.  I ran and I ran and I ran for hours.

By midday I'd traveled deep into the red sand, and deep into my own
thoughts.  Where in the hell was I going?  I wondered.  I didn't even
know what direction I was heading in.  The landscape stretched on to
eternity, the sand broken only occasionally by an acacia or thorn tree;
I could see for miles and miles.  Hungry, thirsty, and tired, I slowed
down and walked.  Strolling along in a bored daze, I wondered where my
new life would take me.  What was going to happen next?

As I pondered these questions, I thought I heard a voice: "W-A-R-I-S...
W-A-R-I-S..."  My

father was calling me!  Whipping around in circles, I looked for him,
but saw no one.  Maybe I was imagining things, I thought.  "WA-R-IS
W-A-R-I-S .. ."  the voice echoed all around me.  The tone was
pleading, but I was frightened all the same.  If he caught me, he would
surely take me back and make me marry that man, and probably beat me
besides.  I was not hearing things; it was my father, and he was
getting closer.  In earnest now, I started to run as fast as I could.
Even though I had gotten a head start of several hours, Papa had caught
up with me.  As I later realized, he'd tracked me down by following my
footprints through the sand.

My father was too old to catch me so I had thought because I was young
and fast.  To my childish thinking, he was an old man.  Now I recall
with a laugh that at the time, he was only in his thirties.  We were
all incredibly fit, because we ran everywhere; we had no car, no public
transportation of any kind.  And always I was fast, chasing the
animals, heading after water, racing the oncoming darkness to reach
home safely before the light was lost.

After a while I didn't hear my father calling my name anymore, so I
slowed down to a jog.  If I kept moving, Papa would get tired and go
back

home, I reasoned.  Suddenly I looked back toward the horizon and saw
him coming over the hill behind me.  He'd spotted me, too.  Terrified,
I ran faster.  And faster.  It was as if we were surfing waves of sand;
I flew up one hill, and he glided down the one behind me.  On and on we
continued for hours, until eventually I realized I hadn't seen him for
some time.  He no longer called out to me.

My heart pounding, finally I stopped, hiding behind a bush, and looked
around.  Nothing.  I listened closely.  No sound.  When I came across a
flat rock outcropping, I stopped to rest.  But I'd learned from my
mistake the night before, and when I began to run again, I went along
the rocks where the ground was hard, then changed my direction so my
father couldn't follow my footprints.

Papa, I reasoned, had turned around to try to make it back home,
because now the sun was setting.  Still, he would never make it back
before the light faded.  He'd have to run back through the darkness,
listening for the night-time sounds of our family, tracing his path by
the voices of children screaming, laughing, the animal noises of the
herds mooing, bleating.  The wind carries sounds great distances across
the desert, so these noises

acted as a lighthouse when we were lost in the night.

After walking along the rocks, I changed my direction.  It didn't
really matter what direction I chose, since I had no idea which was the
right one to lead me to Mogadishu.  I kept running until the sun set,
the light was gone, and the night was so black I couldn't see.  By this
time I was starving, and food was all I could think about.  My feet
were bleeding.  I sat down to rest under a tree and fell asleep.

In the morning, the sun burning my face woke me.  I opened my eyes and
looked up at the leaves of a beautiful eucalyptus tree stretching to
the sky.  Slowly the reality of my circumstances came to me.  My God,
I'm all alone.  What am I going to do?

I got up and continued to run; for days I managed to keep it up.  How
many days, I'm not sure.  All I know is that for me, there was no time;
there was only hunger, thirst, fear, pain.  When the evening grew too
dark to see, I would stop and rest.  At midday, when the sun was at its
hottest, I would sit under a tree and take a siesta.

It was during one of these siestas that I fell asleep and the lion woke
me.  By this point I no longer

cared about my freedom; I simply wanted to go back home to Mama.  What
I wanted more than food or water was my mother.  And even though it was
common for us to go for a day or two without food or water, I knew I
couldn't survive much longer.  I was so weak that I could barely move,
and my feet were so cracked and sore that each step was agony.  By the
time the lion sat in front of me licking his lips in hunger, I had
given up.  I welcomed his quick kill as a way out of my misery.

But the lion looked at the bones jutting out of my skin, my sunken
cheeks and bulging eyes, and walked away.  I don't know if he took pity
on such a miserable soul, or if it was simply a pragmatic decision that
I wouldn't even make a worthy snack.  Or if God had interceded on my
behalf.  But I decided God wouldn't be so heartless as to spare me,
simply to let me die in some other, crueler way, like starving to
death.  He had another plan in store for me, so I called out for his
guidance: "Take me direct me."  Holding on to the tree to steady
myself, I rose to my feet and called out for his help.

I began to walk again, and within a few minutes came to a grazing area
with camels everywhere.  I spotted the animal carrying the most fresh
milk.,

and ran to it.  I nursed, sucking the milk like a baby.  The herdsman
spotted me and yelled out, "Get out of there, you little bitch!"  and I
heard a bullwhip crack.  But I was desperate, and kept right on
sucking, draining the milk as fast as my mouth could take it.

The herdsman ran at me, yelling, loud and mean.  He knew that if he
didn't scare me away, by the time he reached me, it would be too late.
The milk would all be gone.  But I'd had plenty, so I started to run.
He chased after me, and managed to lash me with the whip a couple of
times before I outran him.  But I was faster than he was, and left him
behind me, standing in the sand, cursing in the afternoon sun.

Now I had fuel in me; I was energized.  So I kept running and running
until I came to a village.  I had never been in a place like this
before; it had buildings, and streets made from hard-packed dirt.  I
walked down the middle of the street, just assuming, this was the spot
for me to walk.  As I strolled through town, gawking at the strange
setting, my head swiveled in every direction.  A woman passed by me,
looked me up and down, then called out: "You are so stupid.  Where do
you think you are?"  To some of the other villagers walking down the
street, she cried, "Oh, my

goodness.  Look at her feet!"  She pointed at my feet, cracked and
caked with bloody scabs.  "Eh!  Oh, my God.  She must be a stupid
little country girl."  She knew.  This woman yelled out to me, "Little
girl, if you want to live, get off the street.  Get off the road!"  She
waved me to the side, then laughed.

I knew everybody heard, and I was so embarrassed.  I just hung my head
down, but continued to walk in the middle of the road, because I didn't
understand what she was talking about.  Pretty soon, along came a
truck.  BEEP!  BEEP!  And I had to jump out of the way.  I turned
around to face the traffic, and as the cars and trucks headed toward
me, I stuck out my hand.  I can't say I was hitchhiking, because I
didn't even know what hitchhiking was.  So I just stood in the road
with my hand stuck out to try and get someone to stop.  A car careened
past and nearly chopped my hand off, so I jerked it in.  I thrust my
hand out again, but this time not quite as far, moved a little farther
to the side of the road, and kept walking.  I looked into the faces of
the people driving past me in their cars, silently praying for one of
them to stop and help me.

Eventually a truck stopped.  I am not proud of what happened next but
it happened, so what can I say, but to tell the truth?  To this day,

whenever I think of that truck stopping, I wish I had trusted my
instincts and not gotten in.

The truck was hauling a load of stones for construction; they were
jagged and the size of softballs.  In front were two men; the driver
opened the door and said in Somali, "Hop on, darling."  I felt
helpless, sick with fear.

"I'm headed to Mogadishu," I explained.

"I'll take you wherever you want to go," he said, grinning.

When he smiled, his teeth showed red, tobacco red.  But I knew that
what made them that color wasn't tobacco, because I'd seen my father
chew it once.  It was khat, a narcotic plant the men in Africa chew
that's similar to cocaine.  Women are not allowed to touch it, and it's
just as well; it makes the men crazy, overexcited, aggressive, and has
destroyed many lives.

I knew I was in trouble, but I also didn't know what else to do, so I
nodded.  The driver told me to climb in the back.  This brought me some
relief, the thought of being away from the two men.  I climbed into the
truck bed and sat down in one corner, trying to make myself comfortable
on the pile of rocks.  It was dark now, and cool in the desert; as the
truck started moving I was cold and lay down out of the wind.

 whenever I think of that truck stopping, I wish I had trusted my
instincts and not gotten in.

The truck was hauling a load of stones for construction; they were
jagged and the size of softballs.  In front were two men; the driver
opened the door and said in Somali, "Hop on, darling."  I felt
helpless, sick with fear.

"I'm headed to Mogadishu," I explained.

"I'll take you wherever you want to go," he said, grinning.

When he smiled, his teeth showed red, tobacco red.  But I knew that
what made them that color wasn't tobacco, because I'd seen my father
chew it once.  It was khat, a narcotic plant the men in Africa chew
that's similar to cocaine.  Women are not allowed to touch it, and it's
just as well; it makes the men crazy, overexcited, aggressive, and has
destroyed many lives.

I knew I was in trouble, but I also didn't know what else to do, so I
nodded.  The driver told me to climb in the back.  This brought me some
relief, the thought of being away from the two men.  I climbed into the
truck bed and sat down in one corner, trying to make myself comfortable
on the pile of rocks.  It was dark now, and cool in the desert; as the
truck started moving I was cold and lay down out of the wind.

The next thing I knew, the man riding with the driver was next to me,
kneeling on the stones.  He was in his forties, and ugly, ugly.  He was
so ugly, his hair was leaving him; he was going bald.  But he'd tried
to make up for this fact by growing a little mustache.  His teeth were
chipped and some were missing; the remaining ones were stained a nasty
red with the khat, but still he grinned at me, proudly displaying them.
No matter how long I live, I will never forget his face leering at
me.

He was also fat, as I learned when he took his pants down.  His erect
penis bobbed at me as he grabbed my legs and tried to force them
apart.

"Oh, please, please, no," I begged.  I wrapped my skinny legs around
each other like pretzels and locked them shut.  He grappled with me and
tried to force them apart.  Then, as he wasn't successful with this
attempt, he drew back his hand and slapped me hard across the face.  I
let out a shrill scream that the air carried away as the truck sped
into the night.

"OPEN YOUR FUCKING LEGS!"  We struggled, with all his weight on top of
me, the rough stones cutting into my back.  He hauled back his hand and
slapped me again, this time harder.  With the second slap I knew I had
to think of some other tactic; he was too strong for me to

fight.  This man obviously knew what he was doing.  Unlike me, he was
experienced, no doubt raping many women; I was simply about to become
the next one.  I deeply, deeply wanted to kill him, but I had no
weapon.

So I pretended to want him.  I said sweetly, "Okay, okay.  But first
let me pee-pee."  I could see he was growing even more excited now hey,
this little girl wanted him!  and he let me up.  I went to the opposite
corner of the truck and pretended to squat and pee in the darkness.
This bought me a few minutes to think of what to do next.  By the time
I finished my little charade, I had formed my plan.  I picked up the
largest stone I could find and, holding it in my hand, went back and
lay down beside him.

He climbed on top of me and I squeezed the stone in my hand.  With all
my strength I brought it up to the side of his head and hit him
squarely in the temple.  I hit him once and saw him go dizzy.  I hit
him again and saw him go down.  Like a warrior, I suddenly had
tremendous strength.  I didn't know that I had it, but when someone is
trying to attack you, kill you, you become powerful.  You don't know
how strong you can be until that moment.  As he lay there I hit him
again and saw the blood flowing out of his ear.

His friend who was driving the truck saw all this happening from
inside the cab.  He started yelling, "What the fuck is going on back
there?"  and looked for a place to pull the truck into the bushes.  I
knew it was over for me if he caught me.  As the truck slowed down, I
crawled to the back of the bed, and poised on the rocks, I jumped to
the ground like a cat.  Then I ran for my life.

The truck driver was an old man; he jumped out of the cab and screamed
in a raspy voice, "You killed my friend!  Come back!  You killed him!"
He chased me through the scrubby bushes for a short distance, then gave
up.  Or so I thought.

The driver went back, crawled inside his truck, fired it up, and
started driving through the desert after me.  The twin headlight beams
illuminated the ground around me; "I heard the roar of the truck behind
me.  I was running as fast as I could, but of course the truck was
gaining on me.  I zigzagged and circled back through the darkness.  He
couldn't keep me in sight, so finally he gave up and headed back to the
road.

I ran through the desert like a hunted animal; I ran through desert,
then jungle, then desert again, with no idea of where I was.  The sun
came up and I continued to run.  Finally I came upon another road. Even
though I was sick with fear at the

thought of what might happen, I decided to hitchhike again, because I
knew I needed to get as far away as possible from the truck driver and
his friend.  What happened to my attacker after I hit him with the
stone, I've never known, but the last thing I wanted was to meet up
with those two men again.

Standing on the side of the road in the morning sun, I must have been a
pretty sight.  The scarf I was wearing was now a filthy rag; I had been
running through the sand for days and my skin and hair were coated with
dust; my arms and legs looked like twigs that might snap in a hard wind
and my feet were covered with sores that would rival a leper's. Holding
my hand out, I flagged down a Mercedes.  An elegantly dressed man
pulled the car to the side of the road.  I crawled onto the leather
seat and gaped at the luxury of it.  "Where are you going?"  the man
asked.

"That way," I said, and pointed straight ahead, in the direction the
Mercedes was already traveling.  The man opened his mouth, showing his
beautiful white teeth, and started to laugh.



GROWING UP

WITH ANIMALS

Before I ran away from home, my life had been built around nature,
family, and our strong bond with the animals that kept us alive.
Stretching back to my earliest days, I shared a common trait with
children the world over: my love of animals.  In fact, my earliest
memory is of my pet goat, Billy.  Billy was my special treasure, my
everything, and maybe I loved him most because he was a baby, like me.
I used to sneak him all the food I could find, until he was the
plumpest, happiest little goat in the herd.  My mother constantly

questioned, "Why is this goat so fat, when all the rest are so
skinny?"  I took perfect care of him, grooming him, petting him,
talking to him for hours.

My relationship with Billy was representative of our live in Somalia.
My family's fate intertwined with that of the herds we tended daily.
Dependence on the animals created our great respect for them, and those
feelings were present in everything we did.  All the children in my
family tended our animals, a task we began helping with as soon as we
were able to walk.  We grew up with the animals, prospered when they
prospered, suffered when they suffered, died when they died.  We raised
cattle, sheep, and goats, but while I dearly loved my little Billy,
there was no doubt that our camels were the most important animals we
owned.

The camel is legendary in Somalia; Somalia boasts more camels than any
country in the world; there are more camels in Somalia than people.  In
my country we have a long tradition of oral poetry, and much of it is
devoted to passing along the lessons of the camel from one generation
to the next, telling of its essential value to our culture.  I remember
my mother used to sing us a song, which basically said, "My camel has
gone away to

the bad man, who will either kill it or steal it from me.  So I'm
begging, I'm praying, please bring back my camel."  From the time I Was
a baby, I knew of the great importance of these animals, because
they're absolutely gold in out society.  You simply cannot live in the
desert without them.  As one Somali poet put it:

A she-cared is a mother

To him who owns it

Whereas a he-cared is the artery

Onto which hangs life itself... And it's true.  A man's life is
measured by camels, with one hundred camels being the price for a man
who has been killed.  A hundred camels must be paid by the killer's
clan to the surviving family of the victim, or the dead man's clan will
attack the killer in retribution.  The traditional price for a bride is
paid in camels.  But on a daily level, the camels kept us alive.  No
other domestic animal is so well suited for life in the desert.  A
camel wants to drink once a week, but can go as long as a month without
water.  In the meantime, however, the female camel gives milk to
nourish us and quench our thirst, an enormous asset when you're far
from water.  Even in the hottest temperatures,

camels retain liquid and survive.  They graze on the scrubby bushes
found in our arid landscape, leaving the grasses for the other
livestock.

We raised them to carry us across the desert, haul our meager
belongings, and pay our debts.  In other countries, you might hop in
your car and go, but our only transportation, other than walking, was
our camels.

The animal's personality is very similar to that of a horse; a camel
will develop a close relationship with his master, and do things for
him that he wouldn't do for anybody else.  Men break the young camels a
dangerous practice and train them to be ridden and follow a lead.  It's
important to be firm with them, because otherwise, when they sense a
weak rider, they'll buck him off, or kick him.

Like most Somalis, we lived the pastoral lifestyle of herdsmen.  Even
though we struggled constantly for survival, our large herds of camels,
cattle, sheep, and goats marked us as wealthy by the standards in my
country.  Following tradition, my brothers usually tended the large
animals, the cattle and camels, and the girls watched over the smaller
ones.

As nomads we traveled constantly, never staying in one place for more
than three or four weeks.

"his constant movement was driven by the need lo care for our animals.
We were seeking food and water to keep them alive, and in the dry
Somalian climate these necessities were seldom easy to find.

Our home was a hut woven from grass; being portable it served the same
purpose as a tent.  We built a framework from sticks, then my mother
wove grass mats that we laid over the bent twigs to form a dome about
six feet in diameter.  When it came time to move on, we dismantled the
hut and tied the sticks and mats, along with our few possessions, to
the backs of our camels.  They're incredibly strong animals, and the
babies and small children would ride on top, while the rest of us
walked alongside, herding the animals to our next home. When we found a
spot with water and foliage for grazing, we'd set up our camp again.

The hut provided shelter for the babies, shade from the midday sun, and
storage space for fresh milk.  At night, the rest of us slept outside
under the stars, with the children cuddled together on a mat.  After
the sun went down, the desert was cold; we didn't have enough blankets
for each child to have his own, and since we had very little clothing,
we used the heat from our bodies to keep us warm.  My father slept off
to one side, as our guardian, the protector of the family.

In the morning we got up with the sun.  Our first chore was to head out
to the pens where we kept the herds, and milk them.  Wherever we went
we cut saplings to make pens for the animals, to keep them from
straying at night.  The baby animals were kept in a pen separate from
the mothers so they wouldn't take all the milk.  One of my tasks was to
milk the cows, taking some of the fresh milk to make butter, but
leaving enough for the calves.  After the milking, we'd let the babies
come in and nurse.

Then we had our breakfast of camel's milk, which is more nutritious
than other animals' milk as it contains vitamin C. Our region was very
dry, without enough water to grow crops, so we had no vegetables or
bread.  Sometimes we followed warthogs, large wild African pigs,
tracking them to plants.  They sniffed out edible roots, digging down
with their hooves and snouts to feast on them.  Our family shared in
their bounty by taking some home to add to our diet.

We looked at slaughtering animals for meat as wasteful, and only
resorted to this in case of emergency, or for special occasions, such
as a wedding.  Our animals were too valuable for us to kill and eat, as
we raised them for their milk and to trade for the other goods we
needed.  For everyday

sustenance, we had only camel's milk for breakfast, and again in the
evening for supper.  Sometimes there wasn't enough for everybody, so we
fed the smallest children first, then the older ones, and so on.  My
mother never took a bite of food until everyone else had eaten; in
fact, I don't remember ever seeing my mother eat, although I realize
she must have.  But if we didn't have anything for supper at night, it
was no big deal, nothing to panic about.  No need to cry or complain.
The little babies might cry, but the older children knew the rules, so
we just went to sleep.  We tried to remain cheerful, kept calm and
quiet, and tomorrow, God willing, we'd find a way.  In'shallah, which
means it will happen 'if God is willing," was our philosophy.  We knew
our lives were dependent on the forces of nature, and God controlled
those forces, not us.

A big treat for us as people in other parts of the world might regard a
holiday feast was when my father brought home a sack of rice.  Then
we'd use the butter we made by shaking cow's milk in a basket that my
mother had woven.  Occasionally we'd trade a goat for corn grown in the
wetter regions of Somalia, and grind the corn into meal and make
porridge, or pop it in a pan over the fire.  Or, when other families
were around, we always

shared whatever we had.  If one of us had some food dates or roots or
maybe killed an animal for meat, we'd cook it and divide the meal among
us.  We shared our good fortune, because even though we were isolated
most of the time, traveling with one or two other families, we were
still part of a larger community.  On the practical side, since there
were no refrigerators, meat or anything fresh needed to be consumed
right away.

Each morning after breakfast, it was time to take the animals from
their pen.  By the age of six, I was responsible for taking herds of
about sixty or seventy sheep and goats into the desert to graze.  I got
my long stick and headed off alone with my herd, singing my little song
to guide them.  If one strayed from the group, I used my staff to guide
it back.  They were eager to go, because they realized coming out of
the pen meant that it was time to eat.  Getting an early head start was
important, to find the best spot with fresh water and lots of grass.
Each day I quickly searched for water, in order to beat the other
herders; otherwise their animals would drink what little there was.  In
any case, as the sun grew hotter, the ground became so thirsty that it
would suck it all up.  I made sure the animals drank as much water as
they could, because it might be another week before we found

more.  Or two.  Or three who knows?  Sometimes during the drought the
saddest thing was to watch all the animals die.  We traveled farther
and farther each day looking for water; the herd tried to make it, but
eventually they couldn't go anymore.  When they collapsed, you had the
most helpless feeling in the world, because you knew that was the end
and there was nothing you could do.

No one owns the grazing land in Somalia, so it was up to me to be
cunning, and discover areas with lots of plants for my goats and sheep.
My survival instincts were honed to look for signs of rain, and I
scanned the sky for clouds.  My other senses also came into play,
because a particular smell or a certain feeling in the air predicted
rain.

While the animals grazed, I watched for predators, which are everywhere
in Africa.  The hyenas would sneak up and snatch a lamb or kid that had
wandered off from the herd.  There were lions to worry about and wild
dogs; they all traveled in packs, but there was only one of me.

Watching the sky, I carefully calculated how far I had to travel to
return home before night fell.  But many times I miscalculated, and
that's when trouble began.  As I was stumbling along in the dark,
trying to get home, the hyenas would

attack, because they knew I couldn't see them.  I'd swat one here, and
another would sneak up behind me.  As I chased that one away, another
would run up while I wasn't looking.  The hyenas are the worst, because
they're relentless; they never quit until they get something.  When I
got home each evening and put the animals in the pen, I counted several
times to see if any were missing.  One night I returned home with my
herd, and as I counted my goats, I noticed I was one short.  I counted
again.  And again.  Suddenly I realized I hadn't seen Billy, and
hurried through the goats checking for him.  I ran to my mother
screaming, "Mama, Billy's missing what should I do?"  But of course it
was too late, so she simply stroked my head as I cried when I realized
that the hyenas had eaten my fat little pet.

Whatever else happened to us, the responsibility of taking care of our
livestock went on and was always our first priority, even in times of
drought, sickness, or war.  Somalia's constant political turmoil caused
enormous problems in the cities, but we were so isolated that for the
most part no one bothered us.  Then, when I was about nine years old, a
large army came and camped close by.  We'd

heard stories about soldiers raping girls they caught out alone, and I
knew a girl this had happened to.  It didn't matter if they were the
Somalian army or the Martian army, they were not part of our people;
they were not nomads, and we avoided them at all costs.

One morning my father had given me the chore of watering the camels, so
I headed off with the herd.  Evidently, during the night, the army had
arrived, and now sat encamped all around the road, their tents and
trucks stretching as far as I could see.  I hid behind a tree and
watched them milling about in their uniforms.  I was frightened,
remembering the other girl's story; certainly I had no one around to
protect me, so the men were free to do whatever they pleased.  At first
sight I hated them.  I hated their uniforms, I. hated their trucks, I
hated their guns.  I didn't even know what they were doing; for all I
knew they could have been saving Somalia, but I didn't want any part of
them all the same.  Yet my camels needed water.  The only route I knew
that would avoid the army camp was too long and circuitous for me to
travel with my herd, so I decided to turn the camels loose, and let
them walk through the camp without me.  They marched right through the
middle of the soldiers, making straight for the water, as I

had hoped they would.  I scurried around the camp, ducking behind
bushes and trees, until I joined the camels on the other side at the
watering hole.  Then, as the sky grew dark, we repeated the procedure
and headed home safely.

Each evening, when I returned home at sunset and secured my herd back
in the pen, it was time to start the milking again.  Around the camels'
necks we hung wooden bells.  The sound of these bells is indeed music
to the nomad, who listens to their hollow clunk at twilight as the
milking begins.  The bells always act as a beacon to the traveler
searching for home as the light fades.  During the ritual of our
evening chores, the great curve of the desert sky darkens, and a bright
planet appears, a signal that it's time to herd the sheep into their
pen.  In other nations this planet is known as Venus, the planet of
love, but in my country we call it maqal hid hid meaning 'hiding the
lambs."

Frequently, it was around this time I would get into trouble, because
after working since sunup, I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer.
Walking through the dusk, I'd fall asleep and the goats would bump into
me, or as I squatted milking, my head would begin to nod.  If my father
caught me dozing off, watch out!  I love my father, but he

could be a son of a gun; when he caught me sleeping on the job he'd
beat me, to make sure I took my work seriously and paid attention to my
business.  After we finished our chores, we'd have our supper of
camel's milk.  Then we'd gather wood for a big fire and sit around its
warmth talking and laughing until we went to sleep.

Those evenings are my favorite memories of Somalia: sitting around with
my mother and father, sisters and brothers, when everybody was full,
everybody was laughing.  We always tried to be upbeat, optimistic.
Nobody sat around complaining or whining or saying, "Hey, let's have a
conversation about death."  Life there was very hard; we needed all our
strength just to survive and being negative sapped our vital energy.

Even though we were far from any village, I was never lonely, because I
played with my sisters and brother s. I was a middle child, with an
older brother and two older sisters and several younger siblings.  We
chased each other endlessly, climbed trees like monkeys, played
tic-tac-toe in the sand by drawing lines with our fingers, collected
pebbles, and dug holes in the ground to play an African game called
manca la  We even had our

own version of jacks, but instead of a rubber ball and metal pieces,
we threw up one rock and grabbed other rocks in place of the jacks.
This was my favorite because I was very good at it, and I always tried
to get my little brother, Ali, to play it with me.

Our greatest pleasure, though, was pure joy at being a child in the
wilderness, the freedom to be part of nature and experience its sights,
sounds, and smells.  We watched packs of lions lie around all day,
baking in the sun, rolling onto their backs, sticking their feet up in
the air and snoring.  The cubs chased each other and played just as we
did.  We ran with the giraffes, the zebras, the foxes.  The hyrax, an
African animal that's the size of a rabbit but is actually a descendant
of the elephant, was a particular favorite.  We waited patiently
outside their burrows for their little faces to appear, then chased
them through the sand.

Once, on an excursion, I discovered an ostrich egg.  I decided to take
it home with me because I wanted to watch the baby ostrich hatch, then
keep it as a pet.  The egg is about the size of a bowling ball, and I
hoisted it up from its hole in the sand and was carrying it away when
Mama Ostrich came after me.  She chased me and believe me, ostriches
are fast; they can run forty miles an hour.

She quickly caught me and started pecking my head with her beak,
kakaka.  I thought she was going to crack my skull like an egg, so I
put down her baby and ran for my life.

Seldom were we close to forested areas, but when we were, we loved to
see the elephants.  From a great distance we'd hear their thundering
roar and climb a tree to spot them.  Like lions, monkeys, and humans,
elephants live in communities.  If they had a baby in their midst,
every adult elephant, the cousin, the uncle, the auntie, the sister,
the mother, the grand all of them would watch after that baby, to make
sure nobody touched it.  All of us children would stand high in the top
of a tree and laugh, watching the elephant world for hours.

But gradually all those happy times with my family disappeared.  My
sister ran away; my brother went to school in the city.  I learned sad
facts about our family, about life.  The rain stopped coming, and
taking care of our animals was more and more difficult.  Life became
harder.  And I became harder with it.

Part of that hardness formed watching my brothers and sisters die.
Originally there were

twelve children in my family, but now there are only six of us left. My
mother had a set of twins who died right after they were born.  She had
another beautiful baby girl who was about six months old.  One day the
baby was strong and healthy, the next my mother called to me,
"Waris!!!"  I ran to her and saw her kneeling over the baby.  I was
just a little girl, but I could tell something was terribly wrong, the
baby didn't look right.  "Waris, run get me some camel's milk!"
my-mother commanded.  But I couldn't move.  "Run, hurry!"  I stood
staring at my sister in a trance in terror.  "What's wrong with you?"
Mama screamed at me.

Finally, I tore myself away, but I knew what would be waiting for me
when I got back.  I returned with the milk, but the baby was totally
still, and I knew she was dead.  When I looked at my sister again, Mama
slapped me hard.  For a long time she blamed me for the baby's death,
feeling that I had some sort of sorcerer's powers, and when in my
trance I stared at the baby, I caused its death.

I had no such powers, but my little brother did have supernatural
gifts.  Everyone agreed he was n o ordinary child.  We called him Old
Man, because when he was roughly six, his hair turned

completely gray.  He was extremely intelligent, and every man around
us came to ask for his advice.  They would walk up and say: "Where's
the Old Man?"  Then, by turns, they would sit this little gray-haired
boy on their laps.  "What do you think about the rain this year?"  they
would ask.  And honest to God, even though in years he was a child,
never did he act like a child.  He thought, talked, sat, and behaved
like a very wise elderly man.  While everyone respected him, they were
frightened of him, too, because he was so obviously not one of us.
While he was still technically a young boy, Old Man died, as if in a
few short years he'd crammed in an entire lifetime.  No one knew the
cause, but everyone felt his passing made sense, because: "There's no
way he belonged to this world."

As in any large family, each of us developed a role.  Mine became the
role of rebel, a reputation I earned in a series of actions that to me
seemed perfectly logical and justified, but to my elders particularly
my father seemed outrageous.  One day my younger brother, Ali, and I
sat under a tree eating white rice with camel's milk.  Ali wolfed his
down greedily, but because this was a rare treat for

us, I took each bite slowly.  Having food was not something we took
for granted; I always appreciated mine, savoring each bite with
pleasure.  Only a small amount of rice and milk remained in my bowl,
and I anticipated it eagerly.  Suddenly Ali stuck his spoon in my dish
and scooped out my last bite, taking every last grain of rice.  Without
thinking, I retaliated by grabbing up a knife lying next to me and
burying the blade in Ali's thigh.  He shrieked, but took it out and
sunk the knife in exactly the same spot in my leg.  Now both of us sat
with wounded legs, but because I was.  the one who had struck first,
the blame went to me.  Today, we carry matching scars from this meal.

One of the earliest outbursts of my rebel behavior centered on my
longing for a pair of shoes.  All my life I've been obsessed by shoes.
Today even though I'm a model, I don't own many clothes a pair of
jeans, a couple of T-shirts but I have a cupboard stacked full of high
heels, sandals, tennis shoes, loafers, and boots, even though
ironically I have nothing to wear them with.  As a child I desperately
wanted shoes, but not all the children in my family had clothes, and
certainly there was no money to buy shoes.  Yet it was my dream to wear
beautiful leather sandals like my mother wore.  How I wished to put on
a pair of

 comfortable shoes and look after my animals, walk without worrying
about rocks and thorns, snakes and scorpions.  My feet were always
bruised and marked, and I still carry the black scars today.  Once a
thorn came all the way through my foot; sometimes they would break off
in my feet.  We had no doctors in the desert, or medicine to treat the
wound.  But still we had to walk, because we had to look after the
animals.  No one said, "I can't."  We just did it, went out each
morning and limped along as best we could.

One of my father's brothers was a very wealthy man.  Uncle Ahmed lived
in the city, in Galcaio, but we looked after his camels and the rest of
his animals.  I was the favorite to care for his goats, because I
always did a thorough job, making sure they were well fed and watered,
and I did my best to keep them safe from predators.  One day, when I
was about seven years old, Uncle Ahmed visited us and I said, "Look, I
want you to buy me some shoes."

He looked at me and laughed.  "Yeah, yeah, all right.  I'll get you
shoes."  I knew he was surprised, because it was very unusual for a
girl to ask for anything, let alone anything as extravagant as shoes.

The next time my father took me to see him, I

was excited, because today would be the day I got my first pair of
shoes.  At my earliest opportunity I said eagerly, "Well, did you bring
them?"

He said, "Yeah, I have them right here," and handed me a parcel.  I
took the shoes in my hand and examined them; they were rubber sandals,
flip-flops.  Not beautiful leather sandals like Mama's, but cheap,
yellow flip-flops.  I couldn't believe it.

"These are my shoes?."  I cried, and threw them at him.  When the
flip-flops bounced off his brother's face, my father tried to be upset,
but this time he couldn't help himself- he doubled over laughing.

My uncle said to him, "I don't believe it.  How are you raising this
child?"

I started fighting with my uncle, swinging at him, because I was so
disappointed, I was furious.  "I worked so hard for this shit!"  I
screamed.  "I did all this work for you, and this is it?  I get a pair
of cheap rubber sandals?  Fah!!  I'd rather go barefoot - I'll go
barefoot till my feet bleed before I wear this garbage!"  and I
motioned toward his gift.

Uncle Ahmed just looked at me, then raised his eyes to heaven and
moaned, "Oh, Allah."  He stooped with a sigh, picked up his flip-flops,
and took them back home.

I was not content to give up so easily, however.  \020After that day I
kept sending my uncle messages by every relative, friend, or stranger
heading to Galcaio: "Waris wants shoes!"  But I had to wait many years
until I realized my dream of owning a pair.  In the meantime, however,
I continued to raise Uncle Ahmed's goats, and help my family care for
our herds, walking thousands of miles barefoot.

Several years before the shoes episode with Uncle Ahmed, when I was a
tiny girl, around four years old, we had a visitor one day.  The man,
Guban, was a good friend of my father's and frequently came to see us.
At twilight he stood talking with my parents, until finally my mother,
staring at the sky, watching the bright planet maqal hid hid emerge,
said it was time to bring in the lambs.  Guban said, "Oh, why don't you
let me do that for you?  Waris can help me."

I felt important at being chosen over the boys to help Papa's friend
with the animals.  He took my hand and we walked away from the hut and
began to round up the herd.  Normally I would have been running
everywhere like a wild animal myself, but it was getting dark now, and
since I was frightened, I stayed close to Guban.  Suddenly he took



off his jacket and laid it on the sand and sat down on top of it.  I
stared at him, confused, and protested: "Why are you sitting down? It's
getting dark we have to get the animals."

"We have time.  We'll do that in a minute."  He rested on one side of
his jacket and patted the empty space next to him.  "Come sit down."
Reluctantly I came to him.  Since I always loved stories as a kid, I
realized this might be a good opportunity to bear one.  "Will you tell
me a story?"

Guban patted his coat again.  "If you sit down, I'll tell you one."  As
soon as I sat next to him, he started trying to push me back onto his
coat.  "I don't want to lie down.  I want you to tell me a story," I
insisted stubbornly and squirmed upright.

"Come, come."  His hand pushed my shoulder firmly.  "Lie down and look
at the stars and I'll tell you a story."  Stretching out with my head
on his jacket, I stuck my toes in the cold sand and stared at the
phosphorescent Milky Way.  As the sky deepened from indigo to black,
the lambs ran in circles around us, crying in the dark, and I waited
anxiously for the story to begin.  Abruptly, Guban's face came between
me and the Milky Way; he squatted between my legs and yanked up

- the little scarf wrapped around my waist.  Next I felt something
hard and wet pressing against my vagina.  I froze at first, not
understanding what was happening, but I knew it was something very bad.
The pressure intensified until it became a sharp pain.

"I want my Mama!"  Suddenly I was flooded with a warm liquid and a
sickening acrid odor permeated the night air.  "You pee peed on me!"  I
screamed, horrified.  I jumped up and rubbed my scarf against my legs,
mopping off the foul smelling liquid.

"No, no, it's okay," he whispered soothingly and grabbed my arm.  "I
was just trying to tell you a story."  Jerking free, I ran back to my
mother, with Guban chasing after me, trying to catch me.  When I saw
Mama standing next to the fire, the orange light glowing off her face,
I ran up and threw my arms around her legs.

"What's wrong, Waris?"  Mama said in alarm.  Guban ran up behind me
panting, and my mother looked at him.  "What happened to her?"

He laughed casually and waved his arm at me.  "Oh, I was trying to tell
her a story and she got scared."  I held on to my mother with a grip of
iron.  I wanted to tell her what Papa's friend had done to me, but I
didn't have the words I didn't

know what he'd done.  I looked at his smiling face in the firelight, a
face I would have to see again and again over the years, and knew I'd
hate him forever.

She stroked my head as I pressed my face into her thigh.  "Waris, it's
okay.  There, there, it was only a story, baby.  It's not real."  To
Guban, she said, "Where are the lambs?"

A NOMAD'S LIFE

Growing up in Africa I did not have the sense of history that seems so
important in other parts of the world.  Our language, Somali, did not
have a written script until 1973, so we did not learn to read or write.
Knowledge was passed down by word of mouth poetry or folktales or, more
important, by our parents teaching us the skills we needed to survive. 
For example, my mother taught me how to weave from dried grass
containers tight enough to hold milk; my father taught me how to care
for our animals and make sure they were healthy.  We didn't spend much
time talking about the past nobody had time for

that.  Everything was today, what are we going to do today?  Are all
the children in?  Are all the animals safe?  How are we going to eat?
Where can we find water?

In Somalia, we lived the way our ancestors had for thousands of years;
nothing had changed dramatically for us.  As nomads we did not live
with electricity, telephones, or automobiles, much less computers,
television, or space travel.  These facts, combined with our emphasis
on living in the present, gave us a much different perspective on time
than the one that dominates the Western world.

Like the rest of my family, I have no idea how old I am; I can only
guess.  A baby who is born in my country has little guarantee of being
alive one year later, so the concept of tracking birthdays does not
retain the same importance.  When I was a child, we lived without
artificial time constructions of schedules, clocks, and calendars.
Instead, we lived by the seasons and the sun, planning our moves around
our need for rain, planning our day around the span of daylight
available.  We told time by using the sun.  If my shadow was on the
west side, it was morning; when it moved directly underneath me, it was
noon.  When my shadow crossed to the other side, it was afternoon.  As
the

day grew longer, so did my shadow my cue to start heading home before
dark.

When we got up in the morning, we decided what we'd do that day, then
did that task the best we could until we finished or the sky grew too
dark for us to see.  There was no such notion of getting up and having
your day all planned out for you.  In New York, people frequently whip
out their date books and ask, "Are you free for lunch on the fourteenth
or what about the fifteenth?"  I respond with "Why don't you call me
the day before you want to meet up?"  No matter how many times I write
down appointments, I can't get used to the idea.  When I first came to
London, I was mystified by the connection between people staring at
their wrist, then crying, "I've got to dash!"  I felt like everyone was
rushing everywhere, every action was timed.  In Africa there was no
hurry, no stress.  African time is very, very slow, very calm.  If you
say, "I'll see you tomorrow around noon," that means about four or five
o'clock.  And today I still refuse to wear a watch.

During my childhood years in Somalia, it never occurred to me to
fast-forward into the future, or delve into the past enough to ask,
"Mama, how did you grow up?"  As a consequence I know little of my
family history, especially since I left home at

such an early age.  I constantly wish I could go back and ask those
questions now ask my mother what her life was like when she was a
little girl, or ask where her mother came from, or how her father died.
It disturbs me that I may never know these facts.

However, one thing I do know about my mother is that she was very
beautiful.  I know I sound like the typical adoring daughter, but she
was.  Her face was like a Modigliani sculpture, and her skin so dark
and smooth, that she looked as if she'd been perfectly chiseled from
black marble.  Since Mama's skin was jet black and her teeth dazzlingly
white, at night when she smiled all you could see were her teeth
glowing, as if they floated all by themselves in the night.  Her hair
was long and straight, very soft, and she'd smooth it with her fingers,
since she never owned a comb.  My mother is tall and slender traits
that all her daughters inherited.

Her demeanor is very calm, very quiet.  But when she starts talking,
she's hysterically funny and she laughs a lot.  She tells jokes, and
some of them are funny, some are really dirty, and some are just stupid
little things she'd say to crack us up.  She'd look at me and say,
"Waris, why are your eyes disappearing into your face?"  But her
favorite

D

silly joke was calling me Avdohol, which means 'small mouth."  Mama
would look at me for no reason and say, "Hey, Avdohol, why is your
mouth so small?"

My father was very handsome, and believe me, he knew it.  He was about
six feet tall, slim, and lighter than Mama; his hair was brown, and his
eyes were light brown.  Papa was cocky because he knew he was
good-looking.  He always teased Mama, "I can go and get another woman
if you don't -' and then he'd fill in the blank with whatever he was
after.  Or, "Look, I'm getting bored around here.  I'm getting me
another woman..."  My mother would tease back, "Go ahead.  See what you
can do."  They really loved each other, but unfortunately one day these
taunts came true.

My mother grew up in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia.  My
father, on the other hand, was a nomad and had always lived roaming the
desert.  When she met him, my mother thought Papa was so handsome that
a life wandering with him as nomads sounded like a romantic idea; they
quickly decided to get married.  Papa went to my grandmother, since my
grandfather was dead, and asked permission to marry my mother.  My
grandmother said, "No, no, no, absolutely not."  To my mother she
added, "He's just a playboy!"

Grandmother was not about to allow her beautiful daughter to throw her
life away raising camels in the wilderness with this man, this desert
man!  However, when my mother was about sixteen, she ran away and
married Papa anyhow.

They went to the other side of the country and lived with his family in
the desert, which created a whole series of problems for my mother. Her
family had money and power, and she had never known this type of harsh
nomadic life.  Greater than that dilemma, however, was the fact that my
father was from the Daarood tribe, and my mother was from the Hawiye
tribe.  Like Native Americans, the citizens of Somalia are divided into
individual tribes, and each has a fanatical loyalty to its own group. 
This tribal pride has been the source of wars throughout our history.

A great rivalry exists between the Daaroods and Hawiyes, and my
father's family always treated my mother badly, assuming she was a
lesser mortal by virtue of being from a different tribe than their own.
Mama was lonely for a very long time, but she had to adapt.  After I
ran away from home and was separated from my family, I realized what
life must have been like for her, living all alone among the
Daaroods.

My mother started having babies, and raising

her children gave her the love she missed being away from her own
people.  But again, now that I'm grown, I look back and realize what
she went through having twelve children.  I remember when Mama was
pregnant, she would suddenly disappear, and we wouldn't see her for
days.  Then she would show up carrying a tiny baby.  She went off into
the desert alone and gave birth, taking along something sharp to cut
the umbilical cord.  Once after she disappeared we had to move our camp
in the endless search for water.  It took her four days to find us; she
walked across the desert carrying the newborn baby while she looked for
her husband.

Of all her children, though, I always felt I was my mother's special
favorite.  We had a strong bond of understanding between us, and I
still think about her every day of my life, praying to God to take care
of her until I'm able to do the job.  As a child I always wanted to be
near her, and all day I would look forward to coming home in the
evening when I would sit next to Mama and she would stroke my head.

My mother wove beautiful baskets, a skill that takes years of practice
to achieve.  We spent many hours together as she taught me how to make
a small cup that I could drink milk from, but my

attempts at larger projects were never like hers.  My baskets were
raggedy and full of holes.

One day my desire to be with Mama and my natural childish curiosity
drove me to secretly follow her.  Once a month she left our camp and
went away by herself for the afternoon.  I said to her, "I'm so
determined to know what you do, Mom what is this thing you do every
month?"  She told me to mind my own business; a child in Africa has no
right meddling in parents' affairs.  And, as usual, she told me to stay
home and watch after the younger children.  But when she walked away, I
hurried behind her at a distance, hiding behind bushes to stay out of
sight.  She met with five other women, who had traveled long distances
also.  Together they sat under a huge, beautiful tree for several hours
during our siesta, when the sun was too hot to do much else.  During
that time the animals and family were all resting, so they could spare
a little time for themselves.  Their black heads gathered close in the
distance like ants, and I watched as they ate popcorn and drank tea.
What they talked about, I still don't know, as I was too far away to
hear.  Eventually I decided to risk revealing myself, mainly because I
wanted some of their food.  I walked up meekly and stood next to my
mother.

"Where did you come from?"  she cried.

"I followed you."

"Bad, naughty girl," she scolded.

But all the other women laughed, and cooed, "Oh, look at the cute
little girl.  Come here, darling ."  So my mother relented and let me
have some popcorn.

When I was this young age, I had no conception of another world
different from the one we lived in with our goats and camels.  Without
travel to different countries, books, TV, or movies, my universe simply
consisted of the sights I saw around me each day.  I certainly had no
conception that my mother had come from a different life.  Before
Somalia's independence in 1960, Italy had colonized the southern
region.  As a result, Mogadishu's culture, architecture, and society
were full of Italian influences, so my mother spoke Italian.
Occasionally, when she was angry, she'd spew a string of Italian cuss
words "Mama!"  I'd look at her in alarm.  "What are you saying?"

"Oh, that's Italian."

"What's Italian?  What does it mean?"

"Nothing mind your own business," and she'd wave me aside.

Later I discovered for myself- like I discovered

cars and buildings that Italian was part of a broader world outside our
hut.  Many times we children questioned Mama about her decision to
marry our father.  "Why did you ever follow this man?  Look where
you're living, while your brothers and sisters are living all over the
world they're ambassadors and what have you!  Why did you run away with
this loser?"  She replied that she'd fallen in love with Papa, and made
her decision to run away with him so they could be together.  Yet my
mother is a strong, strong woman.  In spite of everything I watched her
go through, I never heard her complain.  I never heard her say, "I'm
fed up with this," or "I'm not doing this anymore."  Mama was simply
silent and hard as iron.  Then without warning, she'd crack us up with
one of her silly jokes.  My goal is to someday be as strong as she is,
then I can say my life has been a success.

Our family was typical in our choice of occupations, since over 60
percent of Somalis are pastoral nomads, earning a living by raising
animals.  My father periodically ventured into a village and sold an
animal in order to buy a sack of rice, fabric for clothes, or blankets.
Occasionally, he sent along

his goods for sale with anybody traveling into town, and a shopping
list of items he wanted purchased in return.

Another way we made money was by harvesting frankincense, the incense
mentioned in the Bible as one of the gifts the Magi brought the baby
Jesus.  Its scent is still a valued commodity today, as it has been
since ancient times.  Frankincense comes from the Boswellia tree, which
grows in the highlands of northeastern Somalia.  It's a beautiful
little tree, about five feet tall, and the limbs hang in a curve like
an open umbrella.  I would take an axe and strike the tree lightly not
enough to damage it just enough to slash the bark.  Then the tree would
bleed a milky fluid.  I waited a day for the white juice to harden into
gum; in fact, sometimes we would chew it like gum for its bitter taste.
We gathered the clumps into baskets, then my father sold them.  My
family also burned frankincense at night in our campfires, and whenever
I smell it today I'm transported back to those evenings.  Sometimes, in
Manhattan, I'll find incense advertised as frankincense.  Desperate for
a little reminder of home, I buy it, but its smell is such a weak
imitation that it can never match the rich exotic perfume of our fires
burning in the desert night.

Our large family was also typical in Somalia, where the average woman
has seven children.  Children are looked at as the future old-age
pension for the elders, as they will take care of their parents when
they grow old.  Somali children regard their parents and grandparents
with great respect, never daring to question their authority.  All your
elders, even your older brothers and sisters, must be treated with
respect, and you must follow their wishes.  This fact was one of the
reasons my rebellious acts were considered so incredibly scandalous.

Part of the reason for large families, other than lack of birth
control, is that the more people who Share the work, the easier life
is.  Even basic functions such as having water not plenty of water, or
enough water, but any water at all required back-breaking work.  When
the area around us dried up, my father went in search of water.  He
strapped huge bags onto our camels, bags my mother had woven from
grass.  Then he left home and was gone for days until he found water,
filled the bags, and traveled back to us.  We tried to stay in one spot
waiting for him, but each day would become increasingly challenging, as
we traveled miles and miles to water the herds.  Sometimes we had to
move on without him, yet he always found

us, even without the aid of roads, street signs, or maps.  Or, if my
father was away, if he'd gone to the village in search of food, one of
the children had to do this job, because Mama had to stay home and keep
everything running.

Sometimes the job fell to me.  I'd walk and walk for days, however long
it took to find water, because there was no point in coming back
without it.  We knew never to come home empty handed, because then
there was no hope.  We had to keep going until we found something.  No
one accepted the excuse "I can't."  My mother told me to find water, so
I had to find water.  When I came to the Western world, I was amazed to
find people complaining, "I can't work because I have a headache."  I
wanted to say to them, "Let me give you hard work.  You'll never
complain about your job again."

One of the techniques for providing more hands to ease the workload was
increasing the number of women and children, which means that having
multiple wives is a common practice in Africa.  My parents were unusual
in that only the two of them were together as a couple for years and
years.  Finally, one day, after having twelve children, my

mother said, "I'm too old .. . why don't you get yourself another wife
and give me a break?  Leave me alone now."  I don't know if she me ont
it or not she probably never thought my father would take her up on
it.

But one day, Papa disappeared.  At first we thought he'd gone in search
of water, or food, and my mother looked after everything by herself.
After he'd been gone for two months, we thought he was dead.  Then one
evening, as suddenly as he'd left, my father reappeared.  All the
children were sitting around in front of our hut.  He strolled up and
said, "Where's your Mother?"  We told him she was still out with the
animals.  "Well, hey-hey, everyone," he said, grinning, "I want you to
meet my wife."  He pulled forward this little girl, about seventeen
years old not much older than I was.  We all just stared at her,
because we weren't allowed to say anything; besides, we didn't know
what to say.

When my mother came home, it was a horrible moment.  All the children
waited tensely to see What would happen.  Mama glared at my father, not
noticing the other woman in the darkness, and said, "Oh, you decided to
show up, did you?"

Papa shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and looked around.
"Yeah, well, yeah.  by

the way, meet my wife," and he put his arm around his new bride.  I
can never forget my mother's face in the firelight.  It just fell to
the ground.  Then she realized, "Damn, I lost him now to this little,
little girl!"  Mama was dying from jealousy, although, bless her heart,
she tried so hard not to show it.

We had no idea where my father's new wife was from, nor did we know
anything about her.  But that didn't stop her from immediately bossing
all his children around.  Next this seventeen-year-old girl started
bossing my mother around telling Mama to do this, get me that, cook me
this.  Things were already growing very tense when one day she made a
fatal mistake: she slapped my brother Old Man.

The day this happened all we kids were in our hangout (each time we
moved, we found a tree close to the hut that was the children's
'room').  One day I was sitting under this tree with my brothers and
sisters when I heard Old Man crying.  I stood up and spotted my little
brother walking toward me.  "What's wrong with you?  What happened?"  I
said, bending over to wipe his face.

"She slapped me she slapped me so hard."  I didn't even have to ask
who, because no one in our family had ever hit Old Man.  Not my mother,
not any of his older siblings, not even my father, who

W

beat the rest of us on a regular basis.  There was no need to hit Old
Man, since he was the wisest one among us and always did the right
thing.  Slapping my brother was the breaking point; this was more than
I could stand, and I went looking for this foolish girl.

"Why did you slap my brother?"  I demanded.  "He drank my milk," she
said in her haughty way, as if she were the queen and owned all our
milk from our herds.

"Your milk?  I put that milk in the hut, and if he wants it, if he's
thirsty, he can have it.  You don't need to hit him!"

"Oh, shut the hell up and get away from me!"  she yelled, dismissing me
with a wave of her hand.  I stared at her and shook my head, because
even though I was only about thirteen, I knew she'd made a big
mistake.

My brothers and sisters sat waiting under the tree, straining to hear
the conversation between Papa's wife and me.  As I approached them, I
pointed at their questioning faces and said, "Tomorrow."  They
nodded.

The next day luck was with us, because my father said he was leaving
for a couple of days.  When it

was time for siesta I brought my animals home and found my sister and
two brothers.  "Papa's new little wife is taking over," I began,
stating the obvious.  "We've got to do something to teach her a lesson,
because this has to stop."

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?"  asked Ali.  "You'll see.  Just
come with me, and help me out."  I got a thick, tough rope, the rope we
used to tie our belongings onto the camels when we were traveling.  We
led Papa's scared wife away from our camp, took her into the bushes,
and forced her to take off all her clothes.  Then I threw one end of
the rope around the limb of a huge tree and tied it around Little
Wife's ankles.  She alternated between cussing us, screaming, and
sobbing while we pulled the rope and hauled her up off the ground.  My
brothers and I played the rope back and forth to position her head
dangling about eight feet from the dirt, ensuring no wild animals could
eat her.  Then we tied the rope off and returned home, leaving her
there twisting and screaming in the desert.

The next afternoon, my father showed up a day early.  He asked us where
his little woman was.  We all shrugged and said we hadn't seen her.
Fortunately, we'd taken her far enough away so no one could hear her
screaming.  "Hmmm," he said,

and looked at us suspiciously.  By dark he still hadn't found any
trace of her.  Papa knew something was very, very wrong, and began
questioning us: "When did you see her last?  Have you seen her today?
Did you see her yesterday?"  We told him she hadn't come home the night
before, rhich was, of course, true.

My father panicked and began frantically searching for her everywhere.
But he didn't find her until the next morning.  Father's bride had been
hanging upside down for nearly two days by the time he cut her down,
and she was in bad shape.  By the time he came home he was furious.
"Who's responsible for this?"  he demanded.  We all went quiet and
looked at each other.  Of course she told him.  She said, "Waris was
the leader.  She attacked me first!"  Papa came after me and started
beating me, but all the kids jumped on him.  We knew it was wrong to
hit our own father, but we simply couldn't take it anymore.  After that
day, Papa's new little wife was a c hanged person.  We had set out to
teach her a lesson and she learned it well.  After having the blood
rush to her head for two days, I guess her n was refreshed and she
turned sweet and on.  she kissed my mother's

feet and waited on her like a slave.  "What can I get you?  What can I
do for you?  No, no I'll do that.  You sit down and relax."

And I thought, "There you go.  You should have acted like this from the
beginning, you little bitch, and saved us all that unnecessary grief."
But the nomad's life is a harsh one, and even though she was twenty
years younger than my mother, father's new wife wasn't as strong.  In
the end Mama learned she had nothing to fear from this little girl.

The nomad's life is a harsh one, but it is also full of beauty a life
so connected to nature that the two are inseparable.  My mother named
me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower.  The desert
flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can
survive.  Sometimes it doesn't rain in my country for over a year.  But
finally the water pours down, cleansing the dusty landscape, and then
like a miracle the blooms appear.  The flowers are a brilliant
yellowish orange, and for this reason, yellow has always been my
favorite color.

When a girl marries, the women from her tribe go out into the desert
and collect these flowers.

They dry them, then add water to them and make a paste to spread on the
bride's face that gives her a golden glow.  They decorate her hands and
feet with henna, drawing ornate designs.  They rim her eyes with kohl,
so they look deep and sexy.  All these cosmetics are made from plants
and herbs, so they're completely natural.  Next the women drape her in
brightly colored scarves reds and pinks and oranges and yellows the
more the better.  Maybe they don't own much; many families are
incredibly poor, but there is no shame over this fact.  She'll simply
wear the best she or her mother or sisters or friends can find, and
carry herself with fierce pride a trait all Somalis bear.  By the time
her wedding day comes, she walks out to greet her groom as a stunning
beauty.  The man doesn't deserve it I

For their wedding, the people in the tribe bring gifts; again, there's
no need to feel pressured to buy certain things, or worry that you
can't afford something better.  You give whatever you have: weave a mat
for them to sleep on, or give them a bowl, or if you have none of
these, bring some food for the celebration after the ceremony.  There's
no such thing in my culture as a honeymoon, so the day after the
wedding is a workday for the newlyweds, and they will

need all their gifts to start their married life together.

Other than weddings, we have few celebrations.  There are no holidays
arbitrarily marked by a calendar.  Instead, the other major cause for
rejoicing is the long-awaited rain.  In my country water is so scarce,
yet it is the very essence of life.  Nomads living in the desert have a
deep, deep respect for water, regarding every drop as a precious
commodity, and to this day I love water.  Simply looking at it gives me
great joy.

After months and months of drought, sometimes we would grow desperate.
When this happened, the people would gather together and pray to God
for rain.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  One year we
had passed into what was supposed to be the rainy season, but still not
a drop had fallen.  Half our animals were dead and the other half were
weak from thirst.  My mother told me that we were all going to gather
to pray for rain.  The people converged, seemingly from out of nowhere.
We were all praying and singing and dancing, trying to be happy and
lift our spirits.

The next morning the clouds gathered, and the

rain began to pour.  Then, as always when it rains, the true rejoicing
began.  We would strip off our clothes and run into the water,
splashing, and washing for the first time in months.  The people
celebrate with our traditional dancing: the women clapping their hands
and chanting, their low sweet voices humming across the desert night,
and the men leaping high into the air.  Everyone contributes food, and
we eat like kings to praise the gift of life.

In the days after the rains, the savannahs blossom with golden flowers,
and the grasslands turn green.  The animals are able to eat and drink
their fill, offering us a chance to relax and enjoy life.  We can go to
the lakes newly created by the rain and bathe and swim.  In the fresh
air, the birds begin to sing and the nomads' desert becomes paradise.



BECOMING A WOMAN

The time had come for my oldest sister, Aman, to be circumcised.  Like
all younger siblings, I was envious, jealous that she was entering this
grownup world that was still closed to me.  Aman was a teenager, much
older than the normal age for circumcision, but so far the timing had
never been right.  As my family traveled Africa in our endless cycle,
we had somehow missed the gypsy woman who performed this ancient
ritual.  When my father finally found her, he brought her to circumcise
my two oldest sisters, Aman and Halemo.  But when the woman came to our
camp, Aman happened to be off searching for water, so the gypsy

circumcised only Halemo.  My father was growing concerned, because
Aman was reaching marriageable age, but no marriage could take place
unless she had been properly 'fixed."  The prevailing wisdom in Somalia
is that there are bad things between a girl's legs, parts of our bodies
that we're born with, yet are unclean.  These things need to be removed
the clitoris, labia minora, and most of the labia majora are cut off,
then the wound is stitched shut, leaving only a scar where our genitals
had been.  But the actual details of the ritual cutting are left a
mystery it's never explained to the girls.  You just know that
something special is going to happen to you when your time comes.

As a result, all young girls in Somalia anxiously await the ceremony
that will mark their transformation from being a little girl to
becoming a woman.  Originally the process occurred when the girls
reached puberty, and the ritual had some meaning, as the girl became
fertile and capable of bearing her own children.  But through time,
female circumcision has been performed on younger and younger girls,
partially due to pressure from the girls themselves, since they eagerly
await their 'special time' as a child in the West might await her
birthday party, or Santa Claus's arrival on Christmas Eve.

When I heard the old gypsy was coming to circumcise Aman, I wanted to
be circumcised, too.  Aman was my beautiful older sister, my idol, and
anything she wanted or had, I wanted, too.  The day before the big
event, I begged my mother, tugging at her arm, "Mama, do both of us at
the same time.  Come on, Mama, do both of us tomorrow!"

Mother pushed me away.  "Just hush, little girl."  However, Aman was
not so eager.  I remember her muttering, "I just hope I don't wind up
like Halemo."  But at the time I was too young to know what that meant,
and when I asked Aman to explain she just changed the subject.

Very early the next morning my mother and her friend took Aman to meet
the woman who would perform the circumcision.  As usual, I pleaded to
go, too, but Mama told me to stay home with the younger children.  But
using the same sneaky techniques I used the day I followed my mother to
meet her friends, I followed along, hiding behind bushes and trees,
staying a safe distance behind the group of women.

The gypsy woman arrived.  She is considered an important person in our
community, not only because she has specialized knowledge, but because
she earns a great deal of money from performing circumcisions.  Paying
for this procedure is one of

the greatest expenses a household will undergo, but is still
considered a good investment, since without it, the daughters will not
make it onto the marriage market.  With their genitals intact, they are
considered unfit for marriage, unclean sluts whom no man would consider
taking as a wife.  So the gypsy woman, as some call her, is an
important member of our society, but I call her the Killer Woman
because of all the little girls who have died at her hand.

Peering from behind a tree, I watched my sister sit on the ground. Then
my mother and her friend both grabbed Aman's shoulders and held her
down.  The gypsy started doing something between my sister's legs, and
I saw a look of pain flash across Aman's face.  My sister was a big
girl, and very powerful, and suddenly -phoom!  She raised her foot and
shoved against the gypsy's chest, knocking her over on her back.  Then
my sister struggled free from the women holding her down, and leaped to
her feet.  To my horror, I saw blood pouring down her legs and onto the
sand, leaving a trail as she ran.  They all ran after her, but Aman was
far ahead of them until she collapsed and fell to the ground.  The
women rolled her over on the spot where she had fallen, and continued
their work.  I felt sick and couldn't watch anymore, so I ran home.

Now I knew something I really wished I didn't know.  I didn't
understand what had happened, but was terrified at the thought of going
through it myself.  I couldn't very well ask my mother about it,
because I wasn't supposed to have witnessed it.  They kept Aman
separated from the rest of the children while she healed, and two days
later I took her some water.  I knelt beside her and asked quietly,
"What was it like?"

"Oh, it was horrible..."  she began.  But I guess she thought better of
telling me the truth, knowing that I would have to be circumcised, and
then I'd be frightened, instead of looking forward to it.  "Anyway,
you're not far from it; they will do it to you soon enough."  And
that's all she would say.

From then on, I dreaded the ritual that I would pass through on the way
to womanhood.  I tried to put the horror of it out of my mind, and as
time passed, so did my memory of the agony I had witnessed on my
sister's face.  Finally, I foolishly convinced myself that I wanted to
become a woman, too, and join my older sisters.

A friend of my father's and his family always traveled with us.  He was
a grouchy old man, and anytime my younger sister or I pestered him,
he

would wave us away as if shooing flies, and tease us by saying, "Get
away from me, you two unsanitary little girls you dirty little girls.
You haven't even been circumcised yet!"  He always spat the words out
as if the fact we weren't circumcised made us so disgusting that he
could barely stand to look at us.  These insults agitated me until I
vowed to find a way to make him shut his stupid mouth.

This man had a teenage son named Jamah, and I developed a crush on this
boy, even though he always ignored me.  Instead of me, Jamah was
interested in Aman.  Through time I got the idea that his preference
for my older sister revolved around the fact she was superior to me
since she'd been circumcised.  Like his father, Jamah probably didn't
want to associate with dirty, uncircumcised little girls.  When I was
about five years old, I went to my mother and nagged, "Mama, just find
me this woman.  Come on, when are you going to do it?"  I thought, I
have to get it over with get this mysterious thing done.  As my luck
would have it, only a few days passed until the gypsy woman showed up
again.

One evening my mother said to me, "By the way, your father ran into the
gypsy woman.  We're waiting for her; she should be here any day now."

The night before my circumcision, Mama told me not to drink too much
water or milk, so I wouldn't have to pee-pee much.  I didn't know what
that meant, but didn't question her, only nodded my head.  I was
nervous but resolved to get it over with.  That evening the family made
a special fuss over me and I got extra food at dinner.  This was the
tradition I'd witnessed through the years that made me envious of my
older sisters.  Just before I went to sleep, my mother said, I'll wake
you up in the morning when the time comes."  How she knew when the
woman was coming I have no idea, but Mama always knew these things. She
simply sensed intuitively when someone was coming, or the time was
right for something to happen.

I lay awake with excitement that night until suddenly Mama was standing
over me.  The sky was still dark, that time before dawn when the black
has lightened imperceptibly to gray.  She motioned for me to be silent
and took my hand.  I grabbed my little blanket, and still half asleep
stumbled along after her.  Now I know the reason they take the girls so
early in the morning.  They want to cut them before anybody wakes up,
so nobody else will hear them scream.  But at the time, even though I
was confused, I simply did as

I was told.  We walked away from our hut, out into the brush.  "We'll
wait here," Mama said, and we sat down on the cold ground.  The day was
growing faintly lighter; I could barely distinguish shapes, and soon I
heard the click-click of the gypsy woman's sandals.  My mother called
out the woman's name, then added, "Is that you?"

"Yes, over here," came a voice, although I still could see no one.
Then, without my seeing her approach, she was right beside me.  "Sit
over there."  She motioned toward a flat rock.  There was no
conversation, no hello.  No "How are you?"  No "What's going to happen
today is going to be very painful, so you must be a brave girl."  No.
The Killer Woman was strictly business.

Mama grabbed a piece of root from an old tree, then positioned me on
the rock.  She sat behind me, and pulled my head back against her
chest, her legs straddling my body.  I circled my arms around her
thighs.  My mother placed the root between my teeth.  "Bite on this."

I was frozen with fear as the memory of Aman's tortured face suddenly
flooded back before me.  "This is going to hurt!"  I mumbled over the
root.

Mama leaned over and whispered to me, "You know I can't hold you.  I'm
on my own here.  So try to be a good girl, baby.  Be brave for Mama,
and

it'll go fast."  I peered between my legs and saw the gypsy woman
getting ready.  She looked like any other old Somali woman with a
colorful scarf wrapped around her head and a bright cotton dress except
there was no smile on her face.  She looked at me sternly, a dead look
in her eyes, then foraged through an old carpet bag.  My eyes were
fixed on her, because I wanted to know what she was going to cut me
with.  I expected a big knife, but instead, out of the bag she pulled a
tiny cotton sack.  She reached inside with her long fingers, and fished
out a broken razor blade.  Turning it from side to side, she examined
it.  The sun was barely up now; it was light enough to see colors but
no details.  However, I saw dried blood on the jagged edge of the
blade.  She spat on it and wiped it against her dress.  While she was
scrubbing, my world went dark as my mother tied a scarf around my eyes
as a blindfold.

The next thing I felt was my flesh, my genitals, being cut away.  I
heard the sound of the dull blade sawing back and forth through my
skin.  When I think back, I honestly can't believe that this happened
to me.  I feel as if I were talking about somebody else.  There's no
way in the world I can explain what it feels like.  It's like somebody
is slicing through the meat of your thigh, or

TO

cutting off your arm, except this is the most sensitive part of your
body.  However, I didn't move an inch, because I remembered Aman and
knew there was no escape.  And I wanted Mama to be proud of me.  I just
sat there as if I were made of stone, telling myself the more I moved
around, the longer the torture would take.  Unfortunately, my legs
began to quiver of their own accord, and shake uncontrollably, and I
prayed, Please, God, let it be over quickly.  Soon ir was, because I
passed out.

When I woke up, I thought we were finished, but now the worst of it had
just begun.  My blindfold was off and I saw the Killer Woman had piled
next to her a stack of thorns from an acacia tree.  She used these to
puncture holes in my skin, then poked a strong white thread through the
holes to sew me up.  My legs were completely numb, but the pain between
them was so intense that I wished I would die.  I felt myself floating
up, away from the ground, leaving my pain behind, and I hovered some
feet above the scene looking down, watching this woman sew my body back
together while my poor mother held me in her arms.  At this moment I
felt complete peace; I was no longer worried or afraid.

My memory ends at that instant, until I opened

my eyes and the woman was gone.  They had moved me, and I was lying on
the ground close to the rock.  My legs had been tied together with
strips of cloth binding me from my ankles to my hips so I couldn't
move.  I looked around for my mother, but she was gone, too, so I lay
there alone, wondering what would happen next.  I turned my head toward
the rock; it was drenched with blood as if an animal had been
slaughtered there.  Pieces of my meat, my sex, lay on top, drying
undisturbed in the sun.

I lay there, watching the sun climb directly overhead.  There was no
shade around me and the waves of heat beat down on my face, until my
mother and sister returned.  They dragged me into the shade of a bush
while they finished preparing my tree.  This was the tradition; a
special little hut was prepared under a tree, where I would rest and
recuperate alone for the next few weeks until I was well.  When Mama
and Aman had finished working, they carried me inside.

I thought the agony was over until I had to pee, then I understood my
mother's advice not to drink too much milk or water.  After hours of
waiting, I was dying to go, but with my legs tied together I couldn't
move.  Mama had warned me not to walk, so that I wouldn't rip myself
open, because if the

wound is ripped open, then the sewing has to be done again.  Believe
me, that was the last thing I wanted.

"I have to pee-pee," I called to my sister.  The look on her face told
me this was not good news.  She came and rolled me over on my side and
scooped out a little hole in the sand.

"Go ahead."

The first drop came out and stung as if my skin were being eaten by
acid.  After the gypsy sewed me up, the only opening left for urine and
menstrual blood was a minuscule hole the diameter of a matchstick. This
brilliant strategy ensured that I could never have sex until I was
married, and my husband would be guaranteed he was getting a virgin. As
the urine collected in my bloody wound and slowly trickled down my legs
onto the sand one drop at a time I began to sob.  Even when the Killer
Woman was cutting me to pieces I had never cried, but now it burned so
badly I couldn't take any more.

In the evening, as it grew dark, my mother and Aman returned home to
the family and I stayed in the hut by myself.  But this time, I wasn't
scared of the dark, or the lions or the snakes, even though I was lying
there helpless, unable to run.  Since the moment when I floated out of
my body and

watched that old woman sewing my sex together, nothing could frighten
me.  I simply lay on the hard ground like a log, oblivious to fear,
numb with pain, unconcerned whether I would live or die.  I couldn't
care less that everyone else was at home laughing by the fire while I
lay alone in the dark.

As the days dragged on and I lay in my hut, my genitals became infected
and I ran a high fever.  I faded in and out of consciousness.  Dreading
the pain of urination, I had held back the urge to pee until my mother
said, "Baby, if you don't pee, then you're going to die," so I tried to
force myself.  If I had to go, and no one was around, then I scooted
over an inch or so, rolled myself onto my side and prepared myself for
the searing pain I knew was coming.  But my wound became so infected
for a time that I was unable to urinate at all.  Mama brought me food
and water for the next two weeks; other than that I lay there alone
with my legs still tied together.  And waited for the wound to heal.
Feverish, bored, and listless, I could do nothing but wonder: Why? What
was it all for?  At that age I didn't understand anything about sex. 
All I knew was that I had been butchered

with my mother's permission, and I couldn't understand why.

Finally, Mama came for me and I shuffled home, my legs still bound
together.  The first night back at my family's hut, my father asked,
"How does it feel?"  I assume he was referring to my new state of
womanhood, but all I could think about was the pain between my legs.
Since I was all of five years old, I simply smiled and didn't say
anything.  What did I know about being a woman?  Although I didn't
realize it at the time, I knew a lot about being an African woman: 1
knew how to live quietly with suffering in the passive, helpless manner
of a child.

For over a month my legs were tied together so my wound would heal.  My
mother constantly admonished me not to run or jump, so I shuffled along
gingerly.  Considering I had always been energetic and active, running
like a cheetah, climbing trees, jumping over rocks, this was another
kind of agony for a young girl sitting around while all my siblings
were playing.  But I was so terrified of having to go through the whole
process again that I barely moved an inch.  Each week Mama checked me
to see if I was healing properly.  When the ties that bound me were
removed from my legs, I was able to look at

myself for the first time.  I discovered a patch of skin completely
smooth except for a scar down the middle like a zipper.  And that
zipper was definitely closed.  My genitals were sealed up like a brick
wall that no man would be able to penetrate until my wedding night,
when my husband would either cut me open with a knife or force his way
in.

As soon as I could walk again, I had a mission.  I'd been thinking
about it every day as I lay there, for all those weeks, ever since the
day that old woman butchered me.  My mission was to go back to the rock
where I'd been sacrificed and search to see if my genitals were still
lying there.  But they were gone no doubt eaten by a vulture or hyena,
scavengers who are part of the life cycle of Africa.  Their role is to
clear away carrion, the morbid evidence of our harsh desert
existence.

Even though I suffered as a result of my circumcision, I was lucky.
Things could have been much worse, as they frequently were for other
girls.  As we traveled throughout Somalia, we met families and I played
with their daughters.  When we visited them again, the girls were
missing.  No one spoke the truth about their absence, or even

spoke of them at all.  They had died as a result of their mutilation
from bleeding to death, shock, infection, or tetanus.  Considering the
conditions in which the procedure is performed, that isn't surprising.
What's surprising is that any of us survived.

I barely remember my sister Halemo.  I was around three, and I remember
her being there, then she wasn't there anymore, but I didn't understand
what had happened to her.  Later I learned that when her 'special time'
came, and the old gypsy woman circumcised her, she bled to death.

When I was around ten, I heard the story of my younger cousin's
experience.  At the age of six she was circumcised, and afterward one
of her brothers came to stay with our family and told us what had
happened.  A woman came and cut his sister, then she was placed in her
hut to recuperate.  But her 'thingy," as he called it, began to swell,
and the stench coming from her hut was unbearable.  At the time he told
this story, I didn't believe him.  Why should she smell bad, as this
had never happened to me or Aman?  Now I realize he was telling the
truth: as a result of the filthy conditions the practice is performed
in, hacking girls up in the bush, her wound became infected.  The awful
smell is a symptom of

gangrene.  One morning, their mother came in to check on her daughter
who, as usual, had spent the night alone in her hut.  She found the
little girl lying dead, her body cold and blue.  But before the
scavengers could clear away the morbid evidence, her family buried
her.

THE MARRIAGE

CONTRACT

One morning I woke to the sound of people talking.  I stood up from my
mat and saw no one, so I decided to investigate.  Through the early
stillness I tracked the voices, jogging about half a mile to where my
mother and father were waving goodbye to a group of people walking
away.  "Who is that, Mama?"  I asked, pointing at the back of a slight
woman with a scarf wrapped around her head.

"Oh, that's your friend, Shukrin."

"Is her family moving from here?"

"No, she's getting married," came my mother's reply.

Stunned, I stared at the figures disappearing.  I was around thirteen,
and Shukrin was only slightly older than me, about fourteen, and I
couldn't believe she was getting married.  "To whom?"  No one answered
me, as such a question was considered none of my business.  "To whom?"
I repeated my question, which was again met by silence.  "Will she be
leaving here with the man she marries?"  This was common practice and
my greatest fear was that I would never see my friend again.

My father said gruffly, "Don't worry about it.  You're next."  My
parents turned and walked back to our hut, while I stood there
grappling with the news.  Shukrin was getting married!  Married!  It
was a term I'd heard over and over, but until that morning I'd never
really questioned what it meant.

As a girl in Somalia, I never thought about marriage or sex.  In my
family in our whole culture nobody ever talked about any of that.  It
never, ever, came to mind.  My only thoughts on boys were competing
with them to see who could be best at caring for the animals, racing
with them, and beating them up.  The only thing anyone ever said on the
topic of sex was "Be sure you

don't mess with anybody.  You're supposed to be a virgin when you
marry."  Girls know they will marry as a virgin, and will marry only
one man, and that's it.  That's your life.

My father used to say to my sisters and me, "You girls are my queens,"
because he was considered very lucky to have some of the best-looking
daughters around.  "You are my queens, and no man will mess with you.
If he tries, just let me know.  I'm here to protect you I'll die for
you."

More than one opportunity came for him to guard his 'queens."  My
oldest sister, Aman, was out one day taking care of her animals, when a
man approached her.  This guy kept pestering her, and she kept
repeating, "Leave me alone.  I'm not interested in you."  Finally, when
his charm didn't work, he grabbed Aman and tried to force himself on
her.  This was a big mistake, because she was an amazon, well over six
feet tall, and strong as any man.  She beat him up, then came home and
told my father the story.  My father went looking for this poor fool,
then Papa beat him up.  No man would mess with his daughters.

One night I awoke when another sister, Fauziya, let out a piercing
scream.  As usual we were

sleeping outside under the stars, but she was separated from the rest
of us, and lay off to one side.  I sat up and dimly saw the shape of a
man running away from our camp.  Fauziya continued to scream as my
father jumped up and chased the intruder.  We went to her and she
reached down to touch her legs, which were covered with white, sticky
semen.  The man escaped from my father, but in the morning, we saw the
prints of the pervert's sandals next to where my sister had slept. Papa
had an idea who the culprit was, but couldn't be sure.

Sometime later, during an intense dry spell, my father had traveled to
a local well to gather water.  As he stood in the damp earth at the
bottom, a man approached.  This man grew restless waiting his turn for
the water and yelled out to Papa, "Hey, come on!  I got to get some
water, too!"  In Somalia, wells are open areas where someone has dug
down deep enough to reach groundwater, sometimes one hundred feet deep.
As water becomes scarcer, everyone becomes very competitive, trying to
get enough water for the livestock.  My father replied that the
gentleman should come ahead and get what he needed.

"Yeah, I will."  This man wasted no time and climbed down into the
hole.  He went about his

business, filling his bags with water, and as he walked about, my
father noticed the prints of his sandals in the mud.

"It was you, wasn't it?!"  Papa said, grabbing the man by the shoulders
and shaking him.  "You sick bastard, you're the one who was messing
with my girl!"  My father hit him, beating him like the cur that he
was.  But the cur took out a knife, a big African killer knife, carved
with an ornate pattern like a ceremonial dagger.  He stabbed my father
four or five times in the ribs, before Papa managed to wrestle the
weapon away from him and stab the man with his own knife.  Now they
were both seriously wounded.  My father barely managed to climb out of
the well, and make it back to our hut; he returned home bloody and
weak.  After a long illness, Papa recovered, but I realized later he
had told the truth: he'd been prepared to die for my sister's honor.

My father always joked with us girls, "You are my queens, my treasures,
and I keep you under lock and key.  And I've got the key!"

I would say, "But Papa, where's the key?"

He would laugh like a madman and say, "I threw it away!"

"Well, how are we going to come out?"  I would cry, and we'd all
laugh.

"You're not, my darling.  Not till I say you're ready."

These jokes were handed down from my oldest sister, Aman, all the way
to the youngest baby girl.  But they were not really jokes.  Without my
father's permission, there would be no access to his daughters.  But
more was at stake here than Papa protecting us from unwanted advances.
Virgins are a hot commodity in the African marriage market, one of the
largest unspoken reasons for the practice of female circumcision.  My
father could expect a high price for beautiful virgin daughters but had
little hope of unloading one who had been soiled by having sex with
another man.  When I was a girl, however, none of these facts concerned
me, because I was a child and never thought about the subjects of sex
or marriage.

That is, until I learned of my friend Shukrin's wedding.  A few days
later, my father came home one evening and I heard him call out, "Hey,
where's Waris?"

"Over here, Papa," I yelled.

"Come here," he called in a soft voice.  Normally he was very stern and
aggressive, so I knew something was up.  I assumed he wanted me to do
him

a favor, do something with the animals tomorrow, look for water, hunt
for food, or some similar chore.  So I stayed where I was, staring at
my father cautiously, trying to imagine what he had planned for me.
"Come, come, come, come," he said impatiently.

I walked a couple of steps toward him, eyeing him suspiciously, but
didn't say anything.  Papa grabbed me and sat me down on his knee. "You
know," he began, 'you been really good."  Now I knew something serious
was up.  "You been really good, more like a boy, more like a son to
me."  I knew this was his highest praise.

"Hmmm," I responded, wondering why I was receiving such accolades.

"You've been just like a son to me, working hard as any man, taking
good care of the animals.  And I just want to let you know that I'm
going to miss you very much."  When he said this, I thought my father
was afraid that I was going to run away like my sister Aman had.  When
Papa had tried to arrange her marriage, she ran away.  He was afraid I
was going to run away, too, and leave him and Mama with all the hard
work.

A flood of tenderness came over me, and I hugged him, feeling guilty
for being so suspicious.  "Oh, Papa, I'm not going anywhere!"

He pulled back from me, and stared at my face.  In a soft voice he
said, "Yes, you are, my darling."

"Where am I going?  I'm not going anywhere I'm not leaving you and
Mommy."

"Yes, you are, Waris.  I found you a husband."  "No, Papa, no!"  I
jumped up and he tried to grab me back, tried to grab my arms and hold
on to me.  "I don't want to leave, I don't want to leave home, I want
to stay with you and Mama!"

"Sh, sh, shit's going to be fine.  I found you a good husband."

"Who?"  I said, curious now.

"You will meet him."

My eyes filled with tears, even though I tried hard to be tough.  I
started swinging at him, and screaming, "I don't want to get
married!"

"Okay, Waris, look .. ."  Papa reached down and grabbed a rock, pulled
his hands behind his back, and swapped the rock back and forth.  Then
he held his hands out in front of him, with both fists clenched, so I
couldn't see which one held the prize.  "Choose the right hand or the
left hand.  Choose the one that holds the rock.  If you guess right,
you're going to do what

your days will be full of sorrow, because you'll be banned from the
family."

I stared at him, wondering what was going to happen if I chose the
wrong hand.  Was I going to die?  I touched his left hand.  He turned
up an empty palm toward the sky.  "I guess I'm not going to do what you
tell me," I murmured sadly.

"We can do it again."

"No."  I shook my head slowly.  "No, Papa.  I'm not going to marry."

"He's a good man!"  my father cried.  "You've got to trust me I know a
good man when I see one.  And you're going to do what I say!"

I stood there with my shoulders slumped, feeling sick and scared, and
shook my head.

He tossed the rock hiding in his right hand into the darkness and
shouted, "Then you'll have bad luck all your life!"

"Well, I guess I'm the one who'll have to live with it, won't I?"  He
slapped me hard across the face, because no one talked back to my
father.  I realize now that he had to marry me off quickly, as much for
this type of behavior as for any traditional reasons.  I had grown into
a rebel, a tomboy, sassy and fearless, and was getting a reputation as
such.  Papa had to find me a husband while I was still a valuable
commodity, because

no African man wanted to be challenged by his wife.

The next morning I got up and took my animals out to graze as usual.
While I watched them I thought about this new notion of marriage.  I
tried to think of a plan to persuade my father to let me remain at
home, but knew in my heart this would never happen.  I wondered who my
new husband would be.  To date, my only childish romantic inkling had
been an interest in Jamah the son of my father's friend.  I had seen
him many times, because our families often traveled together.  Jamah
was considerably older than me, and I thought him very good-looking,
but he wasn't married yet.  My father loved him like a son, and thought
Jamah was a good son to his own father.  But probably my biggest
attraction to Jamah was that he'd once had a serious crush on my sister
Aman and didn't know I was alive.  I was just a little girl to him,
where Aman had been a desirable woman.  When I whispered that Jarnah
liked her, Aman waved her hand and said, "Pshhh."  She never gave him a
second look, because she'd seen enough of the nomadic life and had no
desire to marry a man like our father.  She always talked

about going to the city and marrying a man with lots of money.  And
when Papa tried to marry her off to one of his fellow nomads, she ran
away in search of her big city dreams.  We never heard from her
again.

All that day, as I sat watching my animals, I tried to convince myself
that marriage might not be so bad, and envisioned myself living with
Jamah, the way my mother and father lived together.  As the sun was
going down, I walked back to our camp with my herd.  My little sister
ran to meet me and announced, "Papa has somebody with him and I think
they're waiting for you."  My sister was suspicious of this sudden
interest in Waris, thinking perhaps she was being left out of some
worthwhile treat.  But I shuddered, knowing my father was continuing
with his plan just as if I'd never objected.

"Where are they?"  My sister pointed in one direction, and I turned and
headed in the other.  "Waris, they're waiting for you!"  she cried.

"Oh, shut up!  Get away from me!"  I put my goats in their pen and
began to milk them.  When I was about halfway through the job, I heard
my father calling my name.  "Yes, Papa.  I'm coming."  I stood up with
dread but knew there was no point in putting off the inevitable.  A
small hope

flickered that maybe my father would be waiting with Jamah, and I
envisioned his smooth handsome face.  I walked toward them with my eyes
closed.  "Please let it be Jamah .. ."  I muttered as I stumbled along.
Jamah had become my salvation from this unsavory notion of leaving home
to live with a strange man.

Finally, I opened my eyes and stared into the blood-red sky; the sun
melted into the horizon, and I saw two men in front of me in
silhouette.  My father said, "Oh, there you are.  Come here, my
darling. This is Mr.  .... I didn't hear another word he said.  My eyes
fastened onto a man sitting down, holding on to a cane.  He was at
least sixty years old, with a long white beard.

"Waris!"  I finally realized my father was talking to me.  "Say hello
to Mr.  Galool."

"Hello," I said, in the iciest voice I could muster.  I had to be
respectful, but I did not have to be enthusiastic.  The old fool just
sat there grinning at me, leaning on his stick with all his might, but
did not reply.  He probably didn't know what to say, looking at this
girl he was about to marry, who only stared at him in horror.  To hide
the look in my eyes, I hung my head down and stared at the ground.

"Now, Waris, dear, don't be shy," Papa said.

looked at my father, and when he saw my face, he realized that his
best tactic was to shoo me away, so I didn't scare off my prospective
husband.  "Well, okay, you go ahead and finish your chores."  He turned
to Mr.  Galool and explained, "She's just a shy, quiet young girl."  I
didn't linger another second but ran back to my goats.

All that evening I thought about what my life would be like married to
Mr.  Galool.  Never having been away from my parents, I tried to
imagine living not with them, but instead with a person who I didn't
even know.  At least it was fortunate that I didn't add to my misery by
including the thought of having sex with a disgusting old man.  But at
the tender age of thirteen, I was naive about that part of the bargain.
As a distraction to take my mind off my marriage dilemma, I beat up my
little brother.

Early the next morning my father called me.

"You know who that was last night?"

"I can guess."

"That's your future husband."

"But Papa, he's so old!"  I still couldn't believe my father thought so
little of me that he'd send me to live with an old man like that.

"That's the best kind, darling!  He's too old to run around, chasing
after other women, bringing

home other wives.  He's not going to leave you he'll look after you.
And besides' Papa grinned proudly 'do you know how much he's paying for
you?"

"How much?"

"FIVE camels!  He's giving me FIVE camels."  Papa patted my arm.  "I'm
so proud of you."

I looked away from my father, watching the golden rays of morning sun
bring the desert landscape to life.  Closing my eyes, I felt its warmth
on my face.  My thoughts returned to the previous night when I couldn't
sleep.  Instead, I lay there sheltered in the midst of my family,
watching the stars spin overhead, and made my decision.  I knew if I
protested against marrying the old man, that wouldn't be the end of the
situation.  My father would just find another man, then another one,
then another one, because he was determined to get rid of me... and get
his camels.  I nodded my head.  "Well, Father, I got to take my animals
out now."  Papa looked at me with satisfaction, and I could read his
mind: "Hey, that was much easier than I thought it would be."

As I sat watching the goats playing that day, I knew it would be the
last time I looked after my father's herd.  I pictured my life with the
old man, the two of us in some completely isolated desert

place.  Me doing all the work, while he limped around with his cane.
Me living alone after he had a heart attack, or better yet, me raising
four or five babies alone after he died, because in Somalia, widows do
not remarry.  I made up my mind this was not the life for me.  That
night when I came home, my mother asked me what was wrong.  "Have you
met that man?"  I snapped.

She didn't need to ask me which man.  "Yes, I saw him the other day."

In a frantic whisper, so my father couldn't hear, I said, "Mama, I
don't want to marry that man!"

She shrugged.  "Well, my darling, it's out of my hands.  What can I do?
It's your father's decision."  I knew that maybe tomorrow or the next
day, my new husband would come for me, bringing his five camels in
exchange.  I formed my plan to run away before it was too late.

That evening after everyone went to sleep, I listened for Papa's
familiar snoring.  Then I got up and went to my mother, who still sat
next to the fire.  "Mama," I whispered, "I can't marry that man I'm
going to run away."

"Shhh, quiet!  Where, child?  Where are you going to go?"

I'll find Auntie in Mogadishu."

"Do you know where she is?  I don't!"

"Don't worry, I'll find her."

"Well, it's dark now," she rationalized, as if this could stop
destiny.

"Not now, in the morning," I whispered.  "Wake me up before the sun
comes up."  I knew I needed her help, because it wasn't as if I could
just set the alarm clock.  I needed to get some rest before I set off
on my long journey, but I also needed to get a head start before my
father woke up.

"No."  She shook her head.  "It's too dangerous."  "Oh, please!  Mama,
I cannot marry this man go and be his wife!  Please, please.  I'll come
back for you.  You know I will."

"Go to bed."  She had that stern look, her look that told me the
subject was closed.  I left my tired mother looking into the fire and I
pushed into the tangle of arms and legs, between my brothers and
sisters, to get warm.

While I was sleeping, I felt my mother lightly tap my arm.  She knelt
on the ground beside me.  "Go now."  Immediately I was jolted awake,
then flooded with the sick sensation of what I had to do.  I wriggled
carefully from the warm bodies and checked to make sure my father was
in his usual position guarding the family.  He still lay snoring.

I shivered and walked away from our hut with my mother.  "Mama, thank
you for waking me."  In the gloomy light I struggled to see her face,
trying to memorize its features, because I wouldn't see that face again
for a long time.  I had planned to be strong, but instead choked on my
tears and hugged her hard.

"Go go before he wakes up," she said softly into my ear.  I felt her
arms tighten around me.  "You're going to be all right don't you worry
about that.  You just be very careful.  Careful!"  She turned me loose.
"And Waris... please, one thing.  Don't forget me."

"I won't, Mama .. ."  I spun away from her and ran into the darkness.

ON THE ROAD

We'd driven only a few kilometers when the elegantly dressed man pulled
his Mercedes over.  "I'm afraid this is as far as I'm going.  I'll let
you out here so you can get another ride."

"Oh .. ."  This was disappointing news indeed, since after running away
from my father, walking across the desert, starving for days, being
stalked by a lion, whipped by a herdsman, and attacked by a truck
driver, this gentleman in the Mercedes had been the best thing that had
happened to me since I left home.

"Good luck on your journey," he called from the open window and,
waving, displayed his white

teeth again.  I stood in the sun on the side of the dusty road and
waved back without much enthusiasm.  I watched his car speed away into
the shimmering waves of heat and started walking again, wondering if
I'd ever make it to Mogadishu.

That day I got a few more rides, but they were for short distances; in
between I kept walking.  As the sun was going down, another big truck
pulled over to the side of the road.  Frozen with fear, I stared at the
red brake lights, remembering my last experience with a trucker.  While
I stood there thinking, the driver turned around inside the cab to look
at me.  if I didn't act soon, I knew he'd pull away without me, so I
hurried up to the cab.  The truck was a huge semi; when the driver
opened the door from inside, I struggled to climb in.  "Where are you
headed?"  he said.  "I'm only going as far as Galcaio."

When the driver said "Galcaio," a great idea flashed into my mind.  I
hadn't realized I was close to the city, but my rich uncle lived in
Galcaio.  Instead of wandering all over Somalia looking for Mogadishu,
I could stay with Uncle Ahmed.  In my mind we still had some unfinished
business anyway, because I'd never received my shoes in exchange for
taking care of his animals.  I imagined eating a big meal at his fine
home that

night and sleeping there instead of under a tree.  "Yeah, that's where
I'm going."  I smiled, liking the idea.  "I'm headed to Galcaio, too."
In the back, the truck was loaded with food: heaps of yellow corn,
sacks of rice and sugar.  Looking at them reminded me of how hungry I
was.

The truck driver was about forty, and a big flirt.  He kept trying to
strike up a conversation; I wanted to be friendly, but I was
disgustingly scared.  The last thing I wanted was for him to think I
was interested in messing around with him.  Looking out the window, I
tried to imagine the best way to find my uncle's house, since I had no
idea where he lived.  But then one of the driver's comments caught my
attention: "You're running away, aren't you?"

"Why do you say that?"  I said in surprise.

"I can just tell I know you are.  I'm turning you in."

"What NO!  Please, please .. . I'm going.  I've got to go.  I just want
you to take me... take me to Galcaio.  I've got to go visit my uncle
there.  He's expecting me."  The look on his face told me he didn't
believe me, but all the same he kept driving.  My mind raced ahead
where should I tell the driver to let me out?  After this story, that
my uncle was expecting me, I couldn't admit I didn't

know where to go.  As we entered the city I looked around at the
streets crowded with buildings, cars, and people; this was much bigger
than the village I'd encountered earlier, and for the first time I
realized what I was up against trying to find Uncle.

From high up in the cab of the semi, I nervously looked down on the
confusion of Galcaio.  To my eyes, the city was mass chaos, and I was
torn between not wanting to get out of the truck, and feeling I'd
better get out damn quick before this guy decided to turn me in as a
runaway.  When he pulled up next to an outdoor market, and I saw the
stalls full of food, I decided to go.  "Hey, um, friend, I'll get out
here.  My uncle lives down there," I said, pointing toward a side
street and jumping out the door before he could stop me.  "Thanks for
the lift," I called as I slammed the door.

I walked through the market in astonishment.  Never, ever in my life
had I seen so much food.  I remember thinking how beautiful it was! 
Piles of potatoes, mountains of corn, racks of dried pasta.  And my
God, all the colors!  Bins piled high with bright yellow bananas, green
and golden melons, and thousands and thousands of red tomatoes.  I had
never seen these foods before, and I stood in

front of a display of tomatoes.  This moment was the beginning of my
love of luscious, ripe tomatoes, and to this day I've never gotten
enough of them.  I stared at the food, and all the people walking
through the market stared at me.  The woman who owned the stand headed
toward me, frowning.  She was a complete mama.  (In Africa, 'mama' is a
term of respect for women.  It means you're mature, you've come of age,
and in order to deserve this title you must actually be a mother.) All
her colors and scarves were flashing.  "What do you want?"  this mama
demanded.

"Please, can I have some of this?"  I said, pointing to the tomatoes.

"Do you have money?"

"No, but I'm so hungry '

"Get out of here GO!"  she cried, shooing me away from her stall with
one hand.

I went to another vendor and started in again.  This woman said, "I
don't need any beggars hanging around in front of my place.  I'm trying
to run a business here.  Go on, go away."

I told her my story, that I needed to find Uncle Ahmed, and asked if
she knew where he lived.  I assumed since my uncle was a wealthy
businessman, the people of Galcaio would know him.  "Look, shut up. 
You can't come here from out in

the bush and start shouting like that.  Sh-hhh.  Have some respect,
girl.  You have to be quiet.  Quiet.  Don't be yelling out your family
names here in public."  Staring at her, I thought, Oh, Lord, what is
this woman talking about, and how am I ever going to communicate with
these people?

Off to one side of us, a man leaned against a wall.  He called out,
"Girl, come here."  I went to him excitedly and tried to explain my
predicament.  The man was about thirty, a very ordinary looking African
man nothing special but he had a friendly face.  He said patiently,
"Just hush.  I can help you, but you've got to be careful.  You can't
go around yelling out the name of your tribe like that.  Now what tribe
are you?"  I told him all I knew about my family and Uncle Ahmed.
"Okay, I think I know where he lives.  Let's go and I'll help you find
him."

"Oh, please please.  Can you take me there?"  "Yeah, come on.  Don't
worry, we'll find your man."  We walked away from the busy market area,
heading down one of the shady side streets.  The man paused in front of
a house.  "Are you hungry?"  This, of course, was pitifully obvious to
anyone with eyes.

"Yes."

"Well, this is my house.  Why don't you come in

and I'll give you something to eat, then we can find your uncle?"  I
gratefully accepted his offer.

When we went inside, I was struck by a very peculiar smell, some
strange odor that I'd never smelled before.  He sat me down and brought
me food.  As soon as I'd taken the last bite, he said, "Why don't you
come lie down with me and have a nap?"

"A nap?"

"Yeah, take a rest."

"No, please, I just want to find my uncle."

"I know, I know.  But first let's have a nap.  It's siesta time.  Then
don't worry, we'll go find him."

"No, please.  You go ahead I'll wait for you here.  I don't mind." Even
though it was siesta time, I had no intention of lying down with this
strange man.  I knew at this point that something was very, very wrong.
 But ignorant little girl, I didn't know what to do about it.

"Look, little girl," he said in an angry tone, 'if you want me to take
you to find your uncle, you better lie down and have a nap."  I knew I
needed this man's help to find Uncle Ahmed.  And as he grew
increasingly belligerent and insistent, I became frightened, so I
finally did the worst possible thing I could have done.  I gave in to
his suggestion.  Of course, the minute we lay on

his bed, a nap was the last thing on his mind.  In two seconds this
fucking ass was trying to get on top of me.  When I struggled and
turned away from him, he slapped the back of my head.  Don't say a
word, I thought; but seizing my opportunity, I leaped from his arms and
tore out of the room.  As I ran, I heard him calling from his bed,
"Hey, little girl, come back here..."  Then I heard a low laugh.

I bounded onto the dark street crying hysterically and fled back to the
market seeking the safety of other people.  An old mama came to me, a
woman about sixty years old.  "Child, what's the matter?"  She took my
arm firmly and made me sit down.  "Come, come.  Talk to me tell me
what's wrong."  I couldn't bring myself to admit what had just
happened.  I was too embarrassed and ashamed to ever tell anyone.  I
felt like such a fool, such a stupid little fool because I had let the
whole episode happen by going into his house.  Between sobs I explained
to her that I was looking for my uncle, and I couldn't find him.

"Who is your uncle?  What's his name?"  "Ahmed Dirie."

The old mama lifted her bony finger and pointed toward a bright blue
house diagonally across the corner.  "It's right there," she said.
"You

see that?  That's your house."  It was right there.  All along, it was
right there, across the street from where I had stood begging that
bastard to help me find my uncle.  Later I realized that when I was
telling him my story, he knew exactly who I was, and exactly who my
uncle was.  The old woman asked me if I wanted her to take me there.  I
looked at her hard, because now I didn't trust anyone.  But in her face
I could see that she was a real mother.

"Yes, please," I answered faintly.

We walked across the corner and I knocked on the door of the blue
house.  My aunt opened the door and stared at me in shock.  "What are
you doing here?"  The old woman turned and walked away.

"Auntie, I'm here!"  I replied stupidly.

"What in Allah's name are you doing here?  You ran away, didn't
you!?"

"Well .. ."

"I'm taking you back," she said firmly.

Uncle Ahmed, my father's brother, was amazed to see me as well, but
particularly amazed that I was able to find his house.  My explanation
skipped the details of clobbering a truck driver with a boulder

and nearly being raped by his neighbor.  However, even though he was
impressed with my ability to make my way across the desert and track
him down, he had no intention of letting me stay.  Uncle worried about
who was going to look after his animals a task that had been my job for
years, and for all my trouble he'd bought me a pair of flip-flops.  All
my father's older children were gone from home now.  I was the oldest
one left the tough one who was more dependable than the younger
children.  "No, you have to go back home.  Who's going to help your
mother and father with all the work?  What are you going to do if you
come here?  Sit on your ass?"  Unfortunately, I didn't have good
answers for any of these questions.  I knew there was no point telling
him I ran away because Papa was making me marry a white-bearded old
man.  Uncle would look at me like I was crazy and say, "So?  So? Waris,
you have to get married.  Your father needs the camels .. ." There was
no point trying to explain that I was different from my family; I loved
my parents, but what they wanted for me wasn't enough. I knew there had
to be more to life, although I wasn't sure what. After a few days I
learned Uncle had sent a messenger to look for my father, and Papa was
on his way.

I knew Uncle Ahmed's two sons well because they used to come and stay
with my family during holidays when they weren't in school.  They
helped us care for their animals, and taught us some Somali words.  At
the time, this was the tradition: the kids who went to school in town
came out into the desert over break to teach the nomadic children.
While I was staying with them in Galcaio, my cousins mentioned they
knew where my oldest sister, Aman, was: when she ran away from home,
she went to Mogadishu and got married.  I was overjoyed at this news,
because when she left I never heard from her again; she might as well
have been dead.  I realized talking to them that my parents had known
where Aman was, but she'd been banned from the family, so they never
spoke of her.

When I found out my father was coming to take me home, we hatched a
plan.  The boys gave me directions on how to find my sister once I
arrived in the capital.  And one morning they led me to the road out of
town, then gave me what little money they had.  "There you go, Waris,"
they said, pointing.  "That's the way to Mogadishu."

"Promise me you won't tell anyone where I've gone.  Remember when my
father gets here, you don't know what happened to me.  The last time

you saw me was this morning at the house, okay?"  They nodded and
waved good-bye as I started walking.

The journey to Mogadishu was excruciatingly slow.  It took days, but at
least now that I had a little money, I was able to buy something to eat
along the way.  My rides were sporadic and I walked many miles in
between.  Frustrated with my slow progress, I finally paid for a ride
aboard an African bush taxi, a big truck with about forty people
aboard.  These trucks are common in Africa.  After dumping their load
of grain or sugarcane, they'll take passengers back in the empty
trailer.  Around the bed of the truck is a wooden frame like a fence;
sitting or standing beside it, the people on board look like children
in a gigantic playpen.  The bush taxi is also crowded with babies,
luggage, household goods, furniture, live goats, and crates of
chickens, and the driver will pack on as many paying passengers as he
can get.  But after my recent experiences, I was willing to be crowded
in with a large group, rather than going alone with strange men.  When
we got to the outskirts of Mogadishu, the truck stopped and let us off
at a well where people had gathered to

water their animals.  I cupped some water in my hands and scooped up a
drink, then splashed some on my face.  I'd noticed that by this time
there were many roads, since Mogadishu is the largest city in Somalia,
with a population of seven hundred thousand.  I approached two nomads
standing with their camels and asked, "Do you know which of these roads
goes to the capital?"

"Yeah, over there," the man said, pointing.  I headed off in the
direction he'd shown me, walking toward the interior of the city.
Mogadishu is a port city on the Indian Ocean, and it was beautiful
then.  Walking along, I craned my neck to look at the stunning white
buildings surrounded by palm trees and brightly colored flowers.  Much
of the architecture was built by the Italians while Somalia was an
Italian colony, giving the city a Mediterranean feel.  The women
walking past me wore gorgeous scarves in yellow, red, and blue prints.
The long scarves circled their faces, and they'd hold them under their
chins as the sea breezes lifted the ends.  The filmy fabric floated
gracefully behind the women as they undulated down the street.  I saw
many Moslem women with scarves draped over their heads, the dark veils
covering their faces altogether.  I stared at them, wondering how they
could find their way.  The

city sparkled in the bright sun and all the colors seemed
electrified.

As I walked, I stopped people and asked directions to my sister's
neighborhood.  I had no street address but planned to repeat my system
of finding Uncle Ahmed in Galcaio; once I got to her area, I'd go to
the market and ask if anyone knew her.  However, I would not be so
gullible this time about letting strange men 'help me."

When I arrived in the neighborhood, I quickly found a market and
strolled through examining the food, deciding what I would buy with the
last of my precious Somali shillings.  Finally, I bought some milk at a
stall run by two women; I chose them because their milk was the best
price.  But when I took the first sip of it, I knew something was fishy
it didn't taste right.  "What's wrong with this milk?"  I asked.

"Nothing!  Nothing is wrong with our milk!"  "Ah, come on.  One thing I
know about is milk.  It doesn't taste right.  Did you put water in it
or something?"  Finally they admitted they mixed the milk with water so
they could sell it cheaper.  Their customers didn't mind.  Our
conversation continued and I told them I'd come to the capital to find
my sister, asking if they knew Aman.

"Yeah, I thought you looked familiar!"  one of the

women cried.  I laughed, because when we were little, I was the
spitting image of my sister.  They knew her because she came to that
market every day.  The milk lady called to her young son and told him
to show me where my sister lived.  "Take her to Aman's house, then come
straight back here!"  she commanded the boy.

We walked along the quiet streets; by now it was siesta time and people
were resting from the heat of midday.  The boy pointed out a tiny
shack.  I walked inside the house and found my sister asleep.  Shaking
her arm, I woke her up.  "What are you doing here..."  she said
groggily, looking at me as if I were a dream.  I sat down on the bed
and told her my story, that I had run away just as she did many years
ago.  At last I had someone to talk to who I knew would understand. She
would understand that at thirteen, I just couldn't bring myself to
marry this stupid old man for Papa's sake.

Aman told me how she had come to Mogadishu and found her own husband.
He was a good, quiet man who worked hard.  She was expecting their
first child, which was due in about a month.  But when she stood up,
she certainly didn't appear to be a woman about to give birth.  At six
foot two, she merely seemed tall and elegant, and in her

loose African dress, she didn't even look pregnant.  I remember
thinking how beautiful she was, and hoped I carried my baby so well
when I was expecting.

After we talked for a while, I finally worked up the courage to ask the
question I'd been dying to ask: "Aman, please.  I don't want to go back
can I stay here with you?"

"So you ran away and left Mama with all the work," she said sadly.  But
she agreed I could stay as long as I needed.  Her cramped place had two
rooms: a tiny one where I slept and another room she shared with her
husband.  We seldom saw him, however; he left in the morning and went
to work, came home for lunch, took a nap, then went back to work,
returning late in the evening.  When he was in the house he had so
little to say that I can barely remember anything about him his name
even, or what he did for a living.

Aman gave birth to a beautiful little girl and I helped take care of
the baby.  I also cleaned the house and carried our clothes outside and
scrubbed them, hanging them on the line to dry.

I went to the market and did the shopping, learning the fine art of
haggling with the vendors over prices.  Mimicking the locals, I walked
up to a stand and immediately demanded, "How much?"

The ritual might as well have been scripted, because every day it was
the same: a mama places in front of me three tomatoes, one big one and
two smaller ones, and quotes me the price I'd expect to pay for three
camels.

"Ah, too much," I'd respond with a bored look and a wave of my hand.

"Well, come, come, come, how much you wanna pay?"

"Two fifty."

"Oh, no, no, no!  Now come on..."  At this point I'd make a great show
of walking away and talking to the other vendors with keen interest,
always in direct view of my target.  And then I'd go back and pick up
where I left off, arguing until one of us got tired and gave in.

My sister constantly mentioned her concern for our mother; she worried
that since I'd run away, Mama was stuck doing all the work alone.
Whenever she brought up this subject, it was as if the sole blame for
the situation rested on me.  I shared her worry over Mama, but Aman
never mentioned that she'd run away, also.  Forgotten memories of our
childhood years together came back to me now.  Much had changed in the
five or so years since I'd last seen her, but to Aman I was still the
same goofy little sister she'd left behind;

meanwhile, she would always, always be the oldest and the wisest.  It
became clear to me that even though we looked alike, our personalities
were nothing alike.  I grew resentful of her constant bossiness.  When
Papa tried to marry me off to the old man, I ran away because I thought
there had to be more to life.  And cooking, washing, and taking care of
babies something I'd already had plenty of with my little brothers and
sisters was not what I had in mind.

One day I left Aman's to find out what else fate had in store for me. I
didn't discuss it with her; I didn't tell her I was leaving I simply
walked out one morning and never came back.  It seemed like a good idea
at the time, but I didn't know then that I'd never see her again.

o

MOGADISHU

While I was living with Aman, she took me to visit some of our other
relatives who were living in Mogadishu.  For the first time in my life,
I was able to meet some of my mother's family.  She grew up in the
capital with her mother, four brothers, and four sisters.

I'm grateful I got to know my grandmother while I was in Mogadishu.
Today, she's around ninety years old, but when I first met her, she was
in her seventies.  Granny is a complete mama.  Her face is
light-skinned, and shows that she's a tough cookie, a woman of
character and strong will.  Her hands look like she's been digging in
the

earth so long that they've developed crocodile hide.

My grandmother grew up in one of the Arab countries, but I don't know
which one.  She's a devout Moslem, prays five times a day facing Mecca,
and always wears a dark veil over her face when she leaves the house;
she's covered up from head to toe.  I used to tease her: "Granny, are
you okay?  You sure you know where you're going?  Can you see through
that thing?"

"Oh, come, come, come," she'd bark.  "This thing is completely
see-through."

"Good so you can breathe and everything?"  I'd laugh.

Staying at my grandmother's house, I realized where Mama got her
strength.  My grandfather had been dead many years, and Granny lived
alone, taking care of everything by herself.  And when I went to visit
her, she'd wear me out.  As soon as we got up in the morning she was
ready to go.  She'd start in on me right away: "Get going.  Come on,
Waris.  Let's go."

Granny lived in a neighborhood of Mogadishu that was a good distance
from the market.  Each day we'd shop for food, and I'd say, "Come on,
Granny let's take it easy and ride the bus.  It's hot and the market's
too far from here to walk."

"What!?  Bus!  Now, come, come, come.  Let's go.  Young girl like you,
wanting to take the bus.  What are you complaining about?  You're
getting lazy these days, Waris.  All you children today I don't know
what's wrong with you.  When I was your age, oh, I'd walk for miles and
miles.."  girl, are you coming with me or not?"  So off we went
together, because if I dawdled, she was obviously going to go without
me.  On the way home, I'd come trudging along behind her, carrying the
bags.

After I left Mogadishu, one of my mother's sisters died, leaving nine
children.  My grandmother took care of these kids, raising them just as
she did her own.  She's a mama and she did what had to be done.

I met another one of her sons, Mama's brother Wolde'ab.  I had gone to
the market one day, and when I returned, he was sitting at my
grandmother's with one of my cousins on his lap.  Even though I'd never
seen him before, I ran to him, because suddenly here was this man who
looked exactly like my mother and I was desperate for anything that
reminded me of Mama.  I ran to him, and since I also look very much
like my mother, it was a wonderful but strange moment, like looking in
some sort of crazy, distorted

mirror.  He had heard that I'd run away and was staying in Mogadishu.
As I came closer to him, he said, "Is this who I think it is?"  That
afternoon I laughed more than I had since I left home, because not only
did Uncle Wolde'ab look like my mother, he had her silly sense of
humor.  The brother and sister must have been quite a team growing up,
cracking everyone in the family up till they cried, and I wish I could
have seen them together.

But it was to Aunt L'uul's home that I went the morning I ran away from
my sister's.  Shortly after I arrived in Mogadishu, we had gone there
together for a visit.  The day I left Aman's, I decided that I would go
to Aunt L'uul's house and ask if I could stay with her.  She was my
aunt by marriage, since she was married to my mother's brother, Uncle
Sayyid.  However, she spent her days raising their three children
alone, as he was living in Saudi Arabia.  Because the economy in
Somalia was so poor, Uncle worked in Saudi and sent money back home to
support his family.  Unfortunately, he was away the whole time I lived
in Mogadishu, so I never got to meet him.

When I arrived, Aunt L'uul was surprised, but she seemed genuinely glad
to see me.  "Auntie, things aren't working out very well between

Aman and me, and I wondered if I could stay here with you for a
while."

"Well, yes, you know I'm here by myself with the children.  Sayyid is
gone most of the time and I could use a hand.  That would be nice."
Immediately I felt relieved; Aman had grudgingly let me stay with her,
but I knew she didn't like the situation.  Her place was too tiny, and
she was still a relative newlywed.  Besides, what she really wanted was
for me to go back home, to ease her conscience about running away from
Mama all those years ago.

Staying first at Aman's, then Auntie L'uul's, I got accustomed to life
indoors.  At first, the confinement of living in a house seemed strange
to me having my view of the sky blocked by a ceiling, the space I could
move around in limited by walls, the brush and animal smells of the
desert replaced by the sewage and carbon monoxide smells of a crowded
city.  Auntie's place was somewhat bigger than Aman's, but still not
spacious by any means.  And even though the facilities offered me new
luxuries keeping warm at night and dry when it rained they were
primitive by contemporary Western standards.  My respect for water

continued, as it remained a precious commodity.  We purchased it from
a vendor who transported his wares through the neighborhood by donkey,
then we stored the water outside in a barrel.  The family dipped it out
sparingly for bathing, cleaning, making tea, cooking.  In the small
kitchen, Auntie prepared meals on a camp stove using bottled gas.  In
the evening, we sat around the house and talked by kerosene lamps, as
there was no electricity.  The toilet was typical of this part of the
world: a hole in the floor where the waste fell and remained stinking
in the heat.  Bathing meant carrying a bucket of water in from the
barrel outside, and sponging off, letting the excess run down the hole
into the toilet.

Soon after I arrived at Auntie Uuul's, I realized I was getting more
than I'd bargained for when I asked for a place to stay.  I was also
getting a full time job as babysitter for her three rotten children.
Well, I guess I couldn't really categorize the little baby as rotten,
but its behavior distressed me all the same.

Each morning Auntie got up around nine, and right after breakfast she
gleefully left the house to visit her friends.  Then she spent the
entire day with these women, gossiping endlessly about their friends,
enemies, acquaintances, and neighbors.

Eventually she meandered back home in the evening.  While she was
gone, the three-month old baby cried constantly, wanting to be fed.
When I held it, it started sucking me.  Every day I would say, "Look,
Auntie for God's sake you've got to do something.  The baby's trying to
suck me every time I pick it up, and I don't have any milk.  I don't
even have any breasts!"

"Well, don't worry.  Just give him some milk," she said pleasantly.

Besides cleaning the house, and taking care of the baby, there was a
nine-year-old and a six-year old to look after.  And these two were
like wild animals.  They had no idea how to behave, because obviously
their mother never taught them anything.  I tried to rectify this
situation immediately by whipping their ass every chance I got.  But
after years of running around like hyenas, they were not going to
become little angels over night.

As the days passed, I got more and more frustrated.  I wondered how
many more of these hopeless situations I was going to have to go
through before something positive happened.  I was always looking for a
way to make things better, push myself forward, and find whatever that
mysterious opportunity was that I knew was waiting for me.  Every day I
wondered, "When is it

going to happen?  Is it today?  Tomorrow?  Where am I going to go?
What am I going to do?"  Why I thought this, I've never known.  I guess
at that time I thought everyone had these voices inside them.  But as
far back as I can remember, I always knew my life was going to be
different from those around me; I just had no idea how different.

My stay with Aunt L'uul reached a crisis after I'd been there about a
month.  Late one afternoon, as Auntie was off making her rounds of the
gossip mill, the oldest child, her nine-year old daughter, disappeared.
First I went outside and called her.  When she didn't reply, I started
walking through the neighborhood looking for her.  Finally, I found her
in a tunnel with a young boy.  She was a strong-minded, inquisitive
child, and by the time I caught up to her, she had become very
inquisitive about this little boy's anatomy.  I marched into the
tunnel, grabbed her arm, and jerked her to her feet; the boy took off
running like a frightened animal.  All the way back to the house I
whipped my cousin with a switch, as I had never been so disgusted with
a child in my life.

That evening when her mother came home, the daughter cried about the
spanking I had given her.  Aunt L'uul was furious.  "Why are you
spanking this child?"  she demanded.  "You keep your

hands off my baby or I'm going to beat you up and see how you like
it!"  she shouted, and came toward me menacingly.

"Believe me, you don't want to know the reason I spanked her, because
you don't want to know what I know!  If you had seen what she did
today, you would say she's no daughter of yours.  This child is out of
control she's like an animal."  My explanation did not make matters any
better between the two of us.  Suddenly after leaving me a
thirteen-year-old girl to cope with three children under the age of
ten, her daughter's welfare was of major importance to her.  My aunt
came at me shaking her fist, threatening to beat me for what I'd done
to her little angel.  But I'd had enough not only from her, but from
the whole world.  "Look, you're not going to touch me!"  I screamed.
"If you do, you're going to wind up bald-headed."  This ended any
discussion of anyone beating me, but I knew at this point I had to go.
But where would I run to this time?

Raising my fist to knock on Aunt Sahru's door, I thought, Here you go
again, Waris.  Sheepishly, I said hello when she answered the door.
Auntie Sahru was Mama's sister.  And she had five children.  This

fact, I felt, did not bode well for my happiness in her household, but
what choice did I have?  Become a pickpocket or beg for food on the
street?  Without going into details about my departure from Auntie
L'uul's, I asked if I could stay with her family for a while.

"You have a friend here," she said to my surprise.  "If you want to
stay with us, you can.  If you want to talk about anything, I'm here."
Things were off to a better start than I'd imagined.  As expected, I
began helping around the house.  But Auntie Sahru's oldest daughter,
Fatima, was nineteen years old.  The majority of the responsibility for
running the house fell to her.

My poor cousin Fatima worked like a slave.  She got up early each day
and went to college, then came home at twelve-thirty to cook lunch,
returned to school and came back again around six in the evening to
make dinner.  After dinner she would clean up, then study late into the
night.  For some reason her mother treated her differently, demanding
much more from her than she did from any of the other children.  But
Fatima was good to me; she treated me like a friend, and at that time
in my life I certainly needed one.  However, the way she was treated by
her mom seemed unfair to me, so I tried to help my cousin

in the kitchen at night.  I didn't know how to cook, but I tried to
learn by watching her.  The first time I ever tasted pasta was when
Fatima made it, and I thought I was in heaven.

My responsibilities were largely cleaning, and to this day Auntie Sahru
says I'm the best cleaner she ever had.  I scrubbed and polished the
house, which was hard work.  But I definitely preferred cleaning to
baby-sitting, especially after my adventures of the past few months.

Like Aman, Auntie Sahru continued to worry about my mother, and the
fact that Mama was left without any older girls to help her with the
work.  My father might help with the animals, but he wouldn't lift a
finger to help with the cooking, or clothing, or making baskets, or
taking care of the children.  This was woman's work, and Mama's
problem.  After all, hadn't he done his part by bringing home another
wife to help?  Yes, he certainly had.  But I, too, had been worried
about this issue since the dark morning when I last saw my mother.
Whenever I thought of her, I remembered her face in the firelight the
night before I left, and how tired she'd looked.  While I was running
across the desert looking for Mogadishu, I couldn't

get these thoughts out of my mind.  The journey had seemed as endless
as my dilemma: Which would I chose my desire to take care of my mother
or my desire to be rid of the old man?  I remember collapsing under a
tree at dusk and thinking, Who's going to look after mama now?  She's
going to look after everyone else, but who's going to look after her?

There was no point in turning back now, however; it would simply mean I
had gone through all the hardships of the past few months for nothing.
If I went back home, a month wouldn't pass before my father started
dragging around every lame, decrepit fool in the desert who owned a
camel, trying to marry me off.  Then not only would I be stuck with a
husband, I still wouldn't be there to take care of my mother.  But one
day I decided that a partial remedy for this problem was to earn some
money and send it to her.  Then she could buy some of the things my
family needed and wouldn't have to work so hard.

I set out to find a job, and began looking all over the city.  One day
my aunt sent me to the market to do her shopping, and on the way home I
passed a construction site.  I stopped and watched the men carrying
bricks, mixing pits of mortar by tossing in shovels of sand and
stirring in water

with a hoe.  "Hey," I yelled out, 'do you have any jobs?"

The guy laying bricks stopped and started laughing at me.  "Who wants
to know?"

"I do.  I need a job."

"Nope.  We don't have any work for a skinny girl like you.  Somehow I
don't think you're a bricklayer."  He laughed again.

"Hey, you're wrong," I assured him.  "I can do it - I'm very strong.
Really."  I pointed at the guys mixing the mortar; they stood there
with their pants hanging down to their buttocks.  "I can help them.  I
can bring all the sand, and mix as good as they can."

"Okay, okay.  When can you start?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Be here at six and we'll see what you can do."  I floated back to
Auntie Sahru's without touching the ground.  I had a job!  I would be
earning money real cash!  And I would save every penny and send it to
Mama.  She'd be so surprised.

When I got to the house, I told Auntie my news.  She couldn't believe
it.  "You got a job where?"  First of all, she couldn't believe any
girl would want to do this kind of work.  "And exactly what are you
going to do for these men?"  she asked.  Second, she couldn't believe
the boss would

hire a female, especially me, as I still looked half starved.  But
when I insisted it was true, she had no choice but to believe me.

Once she believed me, she was angry that I planned to live with her,
yet instead of helping out with the household chores, I'd be working
for someone else.  "Look," I said tiredly.  "I need to send Mama money,
and in order to do that, I have to get a job.  Either it's this one, or
a different one,

but all the same, I have to do it.  Okay?"

"All right."

The next morning my career as a construction worker began.  And it was
horrible.  I struggled carrying back-breaking loads of sand all day; I
didn't have any gloves, the bucket handle cut into my hands.  Then,
along my palms, I developed enormous blisters.  By the end of the day
the blisters had burst and my hands were bleeding.  Everyone thought
that was the end of me, but I was determined to come back the next
morning.

I stuck it out for a month, before my hands were so torn up and sore
that I could barely bend them.  But by the time I quit, I. had saved
the equivalent of sixty dollars.  I told my auntie proudly that I had
saved some money to send home to Mama.  Recently a man she knew had
visited us; he was soon heading out into the desert

with his family and offered to take the money to my mother.  Auntie
Sahru said, "Yeah, I know his people; they're all right.  You can trust
them to take the money."  Needless to say, that was the end of my sixty
dollars.  After all that, I found out later that my mother never saw a
penny of it.

When I retired from construction work, I started cleaning house for my
aunt again.  Not long after this, I was working one day as usual, when
a distinguished guest arrived: the Somalian ambassador to London.  The
ambassador, Mohammed Chama Farah, happened to be married to yet another
aunt, my mother's sister Maruim.  As I dusted my way around the next
room, I overheard the ambassador talking to Auntie Sahru.  He had come
to Mogadishu to find a servant before he began his four-year diplomatic
appointment in London.  Instantly, I knew this was it.  This was the
opportunity I had been waiting for.

Bursting into the room, I called to Aunt Sahru, "Auntie, I need a
conversation."

She looked at me in exasperation.  "What is it, Waris?"

"Please in here."  When she walked through the door and out of his
sight, I grabbed hold of her arm fiercely.  "Please.  Please tell him
to take me.  I

can be his maid."  She looked at me and I could see the hurt on her
face.  But I was a strong-willed kid only thinking about what I wanted,
instead of what she'd done for me.

"You!  You don't know nothing about nothing.  What are you going to do
in London?"

"I can clean!  Tell him to take me to London, Auntie!  I want to GO!"

"I don't think so.  Now, stop bothering me and get to work."  She
walked back into the other room and sat beside her brother-in-law.  I
heard her say quietly, "Why don't you take her?  You know she really is
good.  She's a good cleaner."

Auntie called me into the room and I leaped through the door.  I stood
there with my feather duster in my hand, smacking my gum.  "I'm Waris.
You're married to Auntie, aren't you?"

The ambassador frowned at me.  "Would you mind taking that chewing gum
out of your mouth?"  I spat the wad into the corner.  He looked at
Auntie Sahru.  "This is the girl?  Oh, no, no, no."

"I'm excellent.  I can clean, I can cook and I'm good with children,
too!"

"Oh, I'm sure you are."

I turned to Auntie.  "Tell him'

"Waris, that's enough.  Get back to work."

"Tell him I'm the best!"

"Waris!  Shush!"  To my uncle she said, "She's young still, but she
really is a hard worker.  Believe me, she'll be okay .. ."

Uncle Mohammed sat still for a moment looking at me with disgust.
"Okay, listen.  I'm taking you tomorrow.  Okay?  I'll be here in the
afternoon with your passport, then we'll go to London."

GOING TO LONDON

London!  I didn't know anything about it, but I liked the sound of it.
I didn't know where it was, but I knew it was very far away.  And far
away was where I wanted to be.  It seemed like the answer to my
prayers, and yet too good to be true.  I wailed, "Auntie, am I really
going?"

She wagged her finger at me sternly.  "You shut up.  Don't start." When
she saw the look of panic on my face, she smiled.  "All right. Yes,
you're really going."

On fire with excitement, I ran to tell my cousin Fatima, who was just
starting dinner.  "I'm going to London!  I'm going to London!"  I
shouted and

began to dance in circles around the kitchen.

"What?  London!"  She grabbed my arm in mid spin and made me explain.
"You're going to be white," Fatima announced matter-of factly "What did
you say?"

"You're going to be white, you know.."  white."  I did not know.  I had
no idea what she was talking about, since I had never seen a white
person, and in fact didn't know such a thing existed.  However, her
comment didn't trouble me in the slightest.  "Shut up, please," I said
in my most superior fashion.  "You're just jealous that I'm going to
London and you're not."  I resumed my dancing, swaying and clapping my
hands as if I were celebrating the rain, then chanted, "I'm going to
London!  Ohhh-aiyeee - I'm going to London!"

WAR IS  Aunt Sahru called in a threatening tone.

That evening Auntie outfitted me for my journey; I received my first
pair of shoes fine leather sandals.  On the plane I wore a long,
brightly colored dress she'd given me, covered by a loose African robe.
I had no luggage, but it didn't matter because I had nothing to take,
except the outfit I'd be wearing when Uncle Mohammed picked me up the
next day.

As we left for the airport, I hugged and kissed Auntie Sahru, dear
Fatima, and all my little cousins good-bye.  Fatima had been so kind to
me that I wanted to take her with me.  But I knew there was only a job
for one person, and since that was the case, I was glad it was me.
Uncle Mohammed gave me my passport and I looked at it in wonder my
first official document since I had never owned a birth certificate, or
any paper with my name on it.  Getting into the car, I felt very
important and waved farewell to the family.

Before this day I had seen airplanes from the ground; occasionally I
would even see them fly overhead in the desert when I was out tending
my goats, so I knew such things existed.  But I certainly had never
seen one up close until the afternoon I left Mogadishu.  Uncle Mohammed
walked me through the airport, and we paused at the door leading
outside to the plane.  On the tarmac, I saw a gigantic British jet
gleaming in the African sun.  It was at this point I heard my uncle
jabbering something about '... and your Aunt Maruim is expecting you in
London; I'll join you in a few days.  I've got some business to finish
up here before I can leave."

My mouth gaped as I turned around to stare at him.  He thrust the
plane ticket into my hand.  "Now, don't lose your ticket or your
passport Waris.  These are very important documents, so hang on to
them."

"You're not coming with me?"  It was all I could do to choke out these
words.

"No," he said impatiently, "I have to stay here for a few more days." I
immediately started to cry, scared of going alone, and now that leaving
Somalia was imminent, I wasn't sure it was such a good idea after all. 
For all its problems, it was the only home I'd ever known, and what
waited ahead of me was a complete mystery.

"Go on you'll be fine.  Somebody's going to meet you in London; they'll
tell you what to do when you get there."  I snuffled and let out a
little whimper.  Uncle pushed me gently toward the door.  "Go on now,
the plane is leaving.  Just get on GET ON THE PLANE, WAR IS

Stiff with dread I walked across the sizzling tarmac.  I studied the
ground crew scurrying around the jet, preparing for takeoff.  My eyes
followed men loading luggage, the crew checking the plane, then I
looked up the stairs, wondering how I was supposed to get inside this
thing.  Deciding on the stairs, I started up.  But unused to walking

in shoes, I had to struggle to make it up the slick aluminum steps
without tripping over my long dress.  Once on board, I had no idea
where to go, and must have looked like a perfect idiot.  All the other
passengers were already seated, and as they sat looking at me
inquiringly, I could read their faces: "Who on earth is this dumb
country girl who doesn't even know how to travel on an airplane?"  I
spun around just inside the door and sat in an empty seat.

This was the first time I ever saw a white person.  A white man sitting
next to me said, "This is not your seat."  At least I assume that's
what he said, since I spoke not one word of English.  Staring at him in
panic, I thought, Oh, Lord.  What is this man saying to me?  And why
does he look like that?  He repeated his statement, and I repeated my
panic.  But then, thank God, the flight attendant came and took the
ticket from my hand.  Obviously, this woman knew that I was completely
clueless.  She took my arm and led me down the aisle to my seat which
was certainly not in first class, where I'd originally deposited
myself.  As I passed, each face turned to stare at me.  The attendant
smiled and pointed to my seat.  I flopped down, grateful to be out of
view; with a goofy grin, I jerked my head at her by way of saying
thanks.

Shortly after takeoff, the same flight attendant returned with a
basket of sweets, which she held out to me with a smile.  I took one
hand and picked up the fold of my dress to make a pouch, as if I were
gathering fruit, and with the other, grabbed a huge handful of candy. I
was famished, so I planned to load up.  Who knew when I'd see any more
food?  As my hand came back for a second swipe, the attendant tried to
move the candy out of my reach.  I stretched, grabbing at the basket as
she moved it farther and farther away.  Her face said, "Oh, my.  What
am I going to do with this one?"

While I unwrapped and devoured my candy, I examined the white people
around me.  They looked cold and sickly to me.  "You need sun," I would
have said to them if I had known English; I assumed this problem was a
temporary condition.  They couldn't always look like that, could they?
These people must have turned white because they'd been out of the sun
too long.  Then I decided I wanted to touch one of them the first
chance I got, because maybe the white would rub off.  Perhaps
underneath they were really black.

After about nine or ten hours on the plane, I was desperate to pee.  I
was absolutely bursting, but I had no idea where to go.  I thought,
come

on, Waris, you can figure this out.  So I watched closely how all the
people sitting around me got up and went to this one door.  This must
be it, I reasoned.  I got up, and went to the door just as someone else
was coming out.  Once inside, I closed the door, and looked around.
This has to be the right place, but where's the right spot?  I looked
at the sink, but disregarded it.  I examined the seat, sniffed, and
decided this was the right spot for my business.  Happily, I sat down
and phew!  I was greatly relieved until I stood up and realized that my
pee-pee was just sitting there.  Now what do I do?  I didn't want to
leave it there for the next person to come in and see it.  But how do I
get it out of there?  I couldn't speak English or read so the word
Flush printed over the button meant nothing to me.  And even if I'd
understood the word, I'd never seen a flush toilet in my life. 
Studying every lever, knob, and screw in the room, I wondered if this
one was the right one to make my urine disappear.  Time after time, I
returned to the flush button, as it seemed the obvious choice.  But I
was afraid if I pushed it, the plane would blow up.  In Mogadishu, I'd
heard of such things happening.  With the constant political fighting
there, people talked of bombs and

explosions, blowing up this and blowing up that.  Maybe if I pressed
this button, the whole plane would explode and we'd all die.  Maybe
that's what this button said; it warned: DO NOT PRESS!  WILL BLOW UP
PLANE.  Best not to chance it over a little pee-pee, I decided.  Still,
I didn't want to leave the traces of my business for others to find.
And I knew they'd know exactly who left it, because by now, they were
all outside pounding on the door.

In a flash of inspiration I grabbed up a used paper cup and filled it
from the drizzling faucet.  I poured this into the toilet, reasoning if
I diluted the urine enough, the next person in would think this bowl
was simply full of water.  Steadily I set to work, filling the cup and
pouring, filling the cup and pouring.  By now, people were not only
pounding on the door, they were shouting, too.  And I couldn't even
answer them with "Just a minute .. ."  So, in silence, I kept working
at my plan, filling up the soggy cup from the dripping faucet, and
pouring it into the toilet bowl.  I stopped when the water level was
right under the rim of the seat; I knew if I added another drop, it was
going to pour out onto the floor.  But at least the contents looked
like ordinary water, so I stood up, smoothed down my dress, and opened
the

door.  Looking down, I pushed past the throng gathered outside,
grateful that at least I hadn't poopooed.

When we landed at Heathrow, my fear at coping with the strange country
was outweighed by my relief to get off that plane.  At least Auntie
would be there to greet me, and I was thankful for that.  As the plane
descended, the sky outside the window changed from foamy white clouds
to a gray blur.  When the other passengers stood up, I stood up, and
let myself be swept along in the tide of bodies exiting the plane, with
no idea of where to go, what to do.  The crowd pushed forward until we
reached a set of stairs.  There was only one problem: the stairs were
moving.  I stopped cold, watching them.  The sea of people parted
around me, and I watched them smoothly step on the moving stairs and
rise to the top.  Mimicking them, I stepped forward too, and boarded
the escalator.  But one of my new sandals slipped off and stayed on the
floor.  "My shoe!  My shoe!"  I cried in Somali and rushed back to
retrieve it.  But the mob packed on behind me wouldn't let me pass.

When we got off the escalator, I limped along with the crowd, wearing
only one sandal.  Next we

reached customs.  I looked at the white men in their very proper
British uniforms only I had no idea who these people were.  A customs
official spoke to me in English, and seizing my chance for assistance,
I gestured back toward the escalator, shouting in Somali, "My shoe!  My
shoe!"

He glared at me steadily with a bored, long-suffering expression, and
repeated his question.  I giggled nervously, temporarily forgetting my
shoe.  The official pointed at my passport, and I handed it to him.
After examining it closely, he stamped it and waved me through.

Outside customs, a man in a chauffeur's uniform walked up to me and
asked .in Somali, "Are you here to work for Mr.  Farah?"

I was so relieved to find someone who could speak my language, I cried
ecstatically, "Yes!  Yes!  That's me, I'm Waris."  The driver started
to lead me away, but I stopped him.  "My shoe, we have to go downstairs
and get my shoe."

"Your shoe?"

"Yes, yes, it's back there."

"Where is it?"

"It's at the bottom of those moving stairs."  I pointed in the opposite
direction.  "I lost it when I got on."  He looked down at my one
sandaled foot and one bare foot.

Luckily, the driver also spoke English, so he got permission for us to
re-enter the gate and fetch my missing sandal.  But when we reached the
point where I'd left my shoe, there was no sign of it.  I couldn't
believe my bad luck.  I took off my other sandal and carried it in my
hand, scanning the floor as we came back upstairs.  But now I had to go
through customs all over again.  This time the same official got to ask
me the questions he'd wanted to ask the first time around, by using the
chauffeur to translate.

"How long are you staying?"  the customs man asked me.  I shrugged.
"Where are you going?"

"To live with my uncle, the ambassador," I said proudly.

"Your passport says you're eighteen; is that correct ?"

"Huh?  I am not eighteen!"  I protested to the driver.  He translated
to the customs man.

"Do you have anything to declare?"  This question I didn't
understand.

The driver explained, "What are you bringing with you into the
country?"  I held up my one sandal.  The customs official stared at my
shoe for a minute, then shaking his head slightly, returned my passport
and flagged us through.

As the driver led me out of the crowded airport,

he explained, "Look, your passport says you're eighteen, so that's
what I told the man.  If anyone asks you, you should say you're
eighteen."

"I am NOT eighteen," I said angrily.  "That's old!"

"Well, how old are you?"

"I don't know maybe fourteen but I'm not that old!"

"Look, that's what your passport says, so that's how old you are
now."

"What are you talking about?  I don't care what my passport says why
does it say that, when I'm telling you it's not true?"

"Because that's what Mr.  Farah told them."  "Well, he's crazy!  He
doesn't know anything!"  By the time we reached the exit we were
shouting and Uncle Mohammed's chauffeur and I had developed a hearty
dislike for each other.

As I walked out to the car barefoot, snow was falling on London.  I put
my one sandal back on and shivered, pulling my thin cotton robe around
me.  I had never experienced weather like this before, and had
certainly never seen snow.  "Oh, my

God it's so cold here!"

"Get used to it."

As the driver eased the car out of the airport and into the London
morning traffic, I was overcome

by such a sad, lonely feeling, in this completely foreign place, with
nothing but white sickly faces around me.  Allah!  Heaven!  Mama! Where
am I?  At that moment I desperately wanted my mother.  Even though he
had the only other black face around, Uncle Mohammed's chauffeur was no
comfort to me; obviously he considered me beneath him.

While driving, he filled me in on the household I was joining: I'd be
living there with my uncle and aunt, Uncle Mohammed's mother, another
uncle I hadn't met one of my mother and Aunt Maruim's brothers and the
seven children, my cousins.  After he told me who lived in the house,
he informed me when I would get up, when I would go to bed, what I
would be doing, what I would be cooking, where I would sleep, when I
would go to bed, and how I'd fall into that bed exhausted at the end of
each day.

"You know, your aunt, the mistress, runs this household with an iron
fist," he confided matter of-factly.  "I warn you, she gives everybody
a hard time."

"Well, she may give you a hard time, but she's my aunt."  After all,
she's a woman and my mother's sister, I reasoned.  I thought of how
much I missed Mama, and how good Auntie Sahru and Fatima

had been to me.  Even Aman had meant well, but we just couldn't get
along.  The women in the family cared, and looked after each other.  I
leaned back against the seat, suddenly very tired after my long
journey.

I squinted out the car window, trying to see where the white flakes
came from.  The snow was gradually turning the sidewalks white as we
glided through the posh residential section of Harley Street.  When we
stopped in front of my uncle's home, I stared at the house in
astonishment, realizing that I was going to live in this grand place.
In my limited experience in Africa, I'd never seen anything like it.
The ambassador's residence was a four-storey mansion, and it was
yellow, my favorite color.  We walked to the front door, an impressive
entrance with a fanlight above.  Inside the door, a large gilt-framed
mirror reflected a solid wall of books from the library opposite.

Auntie Maruim walked into the foyer to greet me.  "Auntie!"  I cried.

A woman slightly younger than my mother, wearing stylish Western
clothes, stood in the hall.  "Come in," she said coolly.  "Close the
door."  I had planned to rush to her and hug her, but something about
the way she stood there with her hands  pressed together made me
freeze in the doorway.  "First I'd like to show you around and explain
what your duties are."

"Oh," I said quietly, feeling the last spark of energy leave my body.
"Auntie, I'm very tired.  I just want to lie down.  Can I please go to
sleep now?"

"Well, yes.  Come with me."  She walked into the living room, and as we
climbed the stairs, I saw the elegant furnishings: the chandelier,
white sofa covered with dozens of pillows, abstract oils hanging over
the mantel, the logs crackling in the fireplace.  Aunt Maruim took me
into her room and told me I could sleep in her bed.  The four poster
was the size of my family's entire hut and was covered with a beautiful
down comforter.  I ran my hand across the silky fabric, enjoying its
feel.  "When you wake up, I'll show you the house."  "Are you going to
wake me up?"

"No.  You wake up when you wake up.  Sleep as long as you like."  I
climbed under the covers and thought I had never felt anything so soft
and heavenly in my life.  Auntie closed the door quietly, and I fell
asleep as if I were falling down a tunnel - a long black tunnel.

THE MAID

When I opened my eyes, I thought I was still dreaming and it was a
beautiful dream.  Waking up in the huge bed in the lovely room, at
first I couldn't believe it was real.  Aunt Maruim must have slept with
one of the children that night, because I lay unconscious in her room
until the following morning.  But as soon as I got out of bed, my
fantasy life crashed back to real life.

I came out of Auntie's room, and was wandering through the house when
she found me.  "Good.  You're up.  Let's go to the kitchen and I can
show you what you'll be doing."  In a daze, I followed her into the
room she called the kitchen; however, it

did not look like the kitchen in my auntie's house in Mogadishu.  The
room was surrounded by creamy-white cabinets, gleamed with blue ceramic
tiles, and was dominated in the center by a monstrous six-burner stove.
Auntie opened and slammed drawers, calling out, '... and here are the
utensils, the cutlery, the linens .. I had no idea what this woman was
talking about no idea what these things were she was showing me, let
alone what I was supposed to do with them.  "At six-thirty each morning
you'll serve your uncle's breakfast, because he goes to the embassy
early.  He's a diabetic, so we must watch his diet carefully.  He
always has the same thing: herbal tea and two poached eggs.  I'd like
my coffee in my room at seven; then you'll make pancakes for the
children; they eat at eight sharp, because they have to be at school by
nine. After breakfast '

"Auntie, how am I supposed to know how to do all these things?  Who's
going to teach me?  I don't know how to make how you call it pancakes.
What's pancakes?"

Aunt Maruim had just inhaled a big breath before I interrupted her, and
she'd extended her arm pointing at a door.  She held the breath for a
moment with her arm still outstretched, while she stared at me with
sort of a panicky look on her

face.  Then she exhaled slowly and brought her arm down to her side,
pressing her hands together the way she had when I first saw her. "I'll
do these things the first time, Waris.  But you must watch me closely. 
Watch me very closely, listen, and learn."  I nodded, and she inhaled
again, picking up where she'd left off.

After the first week, and a few minor disasters, I had the routine down
to a science and followed it every day, 365 days a year, for the next
four years.  For a girl who had never been aware of time, I learned to
watch the clock closely and live by it.  Up at six, Uncle's bretkfast
at six-thirty, Auntie's coffee at seven, children's breakfast at eight.
Then I cleaned the kitchen.  The chauffeur brought the car back from
taking my uncle to the embassy, and took the children to school.  Then
I cleaned my aunt's room, then her bathroom, then worked through each
room of the house, dusting, mopping, scrubbing, and polishing my way up
all four floors.  And believe me, if I didn't clean the house to
someone's satisfaction, I heard about it.  "I don't like the way you
cleaned the bathroom.  Make sure it's clean, next time.  This white
tile should be spotless shining."

Other than the chauffeur and the chef, I was the only servant for the
entire household; my aunt

explained there was no need to hire more help for a small place like
ours.  Chef made dinner only six nights a week, and on Sunday, his day
off, I cooked.  In four years I never had a day off.  The few times I
asked, my aunt threw such a fit that I gave up trying.

I didn't eat with the family.  I grabbed something when I had a chance,
and kept working until I fell into bed around midnight.  But I didn't
feel that missing dinner with the family was any great loss, because in
my opinion, the chef's cooking was garbage.  He was a Somali, but from
a different tribe than mine.  I thought he was a pompous, wicked, lazy
man, who loved to torment me.  Whenever my aunt would walk into the
kitchen, he would start in out of the blue: "Waris, when I came back in
on Monday morning, you had left the kitchen in a disgusting mess.  It
took me hours to clean it."  Of course this was a total lie.  All he
ever studied were ways to make himself look good in front of my aunt
and uncle, and he knew it wasn't going to be with his food.  I told my
aunt I didn't want to eat her chef's cooking, and so she said, "Well,
make whatever you want, then."  At this point I was really glad I had
watched my cousin Fatima cook back in Mogadishu.  But intuitively I had
a talent for

voice, slurring her words, as if she were talking in her sleep, "What
do you want to talk about?"  "What are you reading?"  "Hmmm?"

"What are you reading?  What's it about?"  Finally, once I got her
attention, she'd stop and tell me what the whole book was about.  More
often than not, they were romantic novels, and the climax came when,
after several interruptions and misunderstandings, the man and woman
finally kissed.  Since I've had a lifelong love of stories, I enjoyed
these times enormously, and I'd sit spellbound while she went through
the entire plot in great detail, her eyes flashing and arms waving.
Listening to her stories made me want to learn to read, because then, I
figured, I could enjoy stories whenever I wanted.

Mama's brother who lived with us, Uncle Abdullah, had come to London
with his sister, so he could attend the university.  He asked me if I
wanted to go to school.  "You know, Waris, you need to learn how to
read.  If you're interested, I can help you."  He told me where the
school was located, what times it met and most important that it was
free.  The notion that I could go to school would have never occurred
to me on my own.  The ambassador paid me a tiny sum each

month for pocket money, but certainly not enough to pay for school.
Excited about learning to read, I went to Auntie Maruim and told her I
wanted to go to school.  I wanted to learn how to read, write, and
speak English.

Even though I lived in London, we spoke Somali at home, and since I had
no contact with the outside world, I knew only a few words of English.
Auntie said, "Well, let me think about it."  But when she discussed it
with my uncle, he said no.  I kept pressing her to let me go, but she
didn't want to go against my uncle.  Finally, I decided to go without
their permission.  School met three nights a week, from nine to eleven.
Uncle Abdullah agreed to take me the first time and show me where to
go.  By now I was about fifteen, and this was my first time in a
classroom ever.  The room was full of people of all ages from all over
the world.  After the first night, an old Italian man would pick me up
when I sneaked out of my uncle's house, then bring me home again when
we were finished.  I was so eager to learn that the teacher would say
to me, "You're good, Waris, but slow down."  I learned the alphabet,
and was beginning on the fundamentals of English, when my uncle
discovered I was sneaking out at night.  He was furious that I'd
disobeyed him and put an end to my attending school after only a
couple of weeks.

Even though I was no longer permitted to go to school, I borrowed my
cousin's books and tried to teach myself to read.  I wasn't allowed to
watch TV with the family, but sometimes I'd linger at the door and
listen to the English, trying to develop an ear for the language.
Everything continued as usual until one day Auntie Maruim called to me
as I was cleaning "Waris, come down here when you've finished upstairs.
I have something to tell you."  I was making the beds, and when I'd
done them all I walked into the living room, where my aunt stood by the
fireplace.

"Yes?"

"I got a phone call today from home.  Ah .. .

what's your little brother's name?"

"All?"

"No, the youngest one, the little one with gray hair."

"Old Man?  You're talking about Old Man?"  "Yeah.  Old Man and your big
sister, Aman.  Well, I'm sorry.  They both died."  I couldn't believe
what I was hearing.  My eyes fixed on Auntie's face, thinking she must
be joking or maybe she

was mad at me about something, and she was trying to punish me by
telling me that awful story.  But she had no expression of any kind to
give me a clue; her face was completely blank.  She must be serious, or
why would she say this?  But how can it be true?  I froze in that spot
and couldn't move, until I felt my legs giving way, and sat down on the
white sofa for a minute.  I didn't even think to ask what had happened.
My aunt might have been talking, she might have explained the horrible
events to me, but all I could hear was a roaring in my ears.  Numbly,
walking stiffly like a zombie, I went up to my room on the fourth
floor.

I lay there in shock for the rest of the day, stretched out on my bed
under the eaves in the tiny room that I shared with my young cousin.
Old Man and Aman both dead!  How could it be?  I had left home, missing
my opportunity to spend time with my brother and sister, and now I
would never see either one of them again.  Aman, always the strong one;
Old Man, always the wise one.  It didn't seem possible that they could
die and if they could, what did that mean for the rest of the family
those of us with lesser abilities?

By that evening, I decided I didn't want to suffer anymore.  Nothing in
my life had gone the way

I'd hoped since that morning I ran away from my father.  Now, two
years later, I missed the closeness of my family terribly, and knowing
two of them were gone forever was more than I could bear.  I walked
downstairs to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and removed a butcher
knife.  With the knife in my hand I returned upstairs to my room.  But
as I lay there trying to get the courage to cut myself, I kept thinking
of my mother.  Poor Mama.  I lost two this week, she'd lose three.  It
hardly seemed fair to her, so I laid the knife on the table next to the
bed and stared at the ceiling.  I'd forgotten about the knife, when
later my cousin Basma came in to check on me.  She looked at it in
shock.  "What the hell is that!  What are you doing with a knife?"  I
didn't try to answer, just Went back to looking at the ceiling.  Basma
took the knife and went away.

After a few days my aunt called me again: "Waris!  Come down."  I lay
there pretending not to hear.  WAR IS  COME DOWN!"  I went downstairs
and found her waiting at the foot.  "Hurry up!  Telephone!"  This news
astonished me, as I never got phone calls.  In fact, I'd never spoken
on the telephone.

"For me?"  I said quietly.

"Yes, yes."  She pointed to the receiver lying on

the table.  "Here, pick it up pick up the phone!"

I held the receiver in my hand, looking at the contraption as if it
were going to bite me.  From about a foot away, I whispered, "Yes?"

Aunt Maruim rolled her eyes.  "Speak!  Speak talk into the phone!"  She
turned the receiver right side up and pushed it next to my ear.

"Hello?"  Then I heard an amazing sound: my mother's voice.  "Mama!
Mama!  Oh, my God, is it really you?"  A grin spread across my face for
the first time in days.  "Mama, are you okay?"

"No, I've been living under the tree."  She told me that after Aman and
Old Man died, she went crazy.  At this point in Mama's story, I was so
thankful I had given up the notion of adding to her grief by killing
myself.  My mother had run into the desert; she didn't want to be with
anyone, look at anyone, talk to anyone.  Then she went on to Mogadishu
alone and visited her family.  She was still there with them now,
calling from Auntie Sahru's house.

Mama tried to explain how it happened, but still nothing made sense.
Old Man had fallen ill.  As was so typical of our lives as nomads in
Africa, there was no medical help; nobody knew what was wrong, or what
to do about it.  In that society there were only two alternatives: live
or die.  There

was no in between.  As long as someone lived, everything was okay.  We
didn't worry much about illness, since without doctors or medicine,
there was nothing we could do to fix it.  When someone died, well, that
was okay, too, because the survivors would continue.  Life went on.
Always, the philosophy of in'shallah ruled our lives: "If God is
willing."  There was an acceptance of life as a gift, and death as the
unarguable decision of God.

But when Old Man fell sick, my parents were frightened, because he was
a special child.  Mama not knowing what else to do had sent a messenger
to Aman in Mogadishu, asking for help.  Aman was always the strong one;
she would know what to do.  And she did.  Aman set off on foot from
Mogadishu to come and get Old Man and take him to a doctor.  Exactly
where my family was camped at the time, or how far they were from the
capital, I have no idea.  But what Mama couldn't have known when she
sent for her was that Aman was eight months pregnant.  As my sister
carried Old Man to the hospital, he died in her arms.  Aman went into
shock, and she also died a few days later, and the baby with her.  I
was never even sure where they were when they died, but after learning
this, Mama, who had always been so quietly steadfast, fell apart.  And
since she was the

center that held our family together, it sickened me to think what
life was like for the rest of them.  More than ever, I felt terrible
about being stuck in London and unable to help Mama when she needed me
most.

However, life went on for all of us, and in London I tried to enjoy it
as much as I could.  I did my duties in the house, and joked with my
cousins and their friends who visited.

One night I recruited Basma to help me with my first modeling job.
Since arriving in London, I had grown to love clothes, but I didn't
particularly want to own them there was just something fun about trying
them on.  It was like playacting; I could pretend to be someone else.
While the family was in the den watching television, I went into Uncle
Mohammed's room and closed the door.  I opened his armoire and took out
one of his best suits, a navy wool pinstripe.  I laid it on the bed
with a white shirt, silk tie, dark socks, elegant black English shoes,
and felt hat.  I put everything on, struggling to knot the tie as I'd
seen Uncle do.  Then I pulled the hat down low.  When my ensemble was
complete, I went to find Basma.  She doubled over laughing.

"Go tell your dad there's a man here to see him."

"Those are his clothes?  Oh, my God, he's going to kill '

"Just go do it."

I stood out in the hallway and listened to my cousin, waiting for the
right moment to make my big entrance.  "Father," I heard Basma say,
'there's a man here to see you."

"A man at this time of night?"  Uncle Mohammed didn't sound too happy.
"Who is it?  What does he want?  Have you ever seen him before?"

Basma stammered, "I, uh, I don't know.  I think,

yeah, I think you know him."

"Well, tell him .. ."

"Why don't you see him," she said quickly.  "He's right outside the
door."

"Okay," my uncle agreed tiredly.  That was my cue.  I pulled the hat
all the way down over my eyes till I could barely see, stuck my hands
in the pockets of his jacket, and swaggered into the room.

"Hi, don't you remember me?"  I said in a baritone voice.  Uncle's eyes
bugged out, and he ducked down trying to get a look under the hat. When
he realized who it was, he cracked up laughing.  Auntie and all the
rest of the family roared.

Uncle Mohammed wagged his finger at me.  "Now, did I give you
permission to..."

"I just had to try, Uncle.  Don't you think it's fun?"

"Oh, Allah."

I did this stunt a few more times, each time waiting long enough till I
figured my uncle wasn't expecting it.  Then he would say to me, "That's
enough, now, Waris.  Don't try on my clothes anymore, all right?  Leave
them alone."  And I knew he was serious, but still he thought it was
funny.  Later I'd hear him laughing and telling his friends, "This girl
will go in my room and try on my clothes.  Then Basma will come in and
say, "Dad, there's a man here to see you."  Then she strolls in wearing
my things from head to toe.  You should see it .. ."

My auntie said her friends had mentioned that I should try modeling.
But Auntie's response was "Um-hmmm.  But we don't do that sort of
thing, being from Somalia and being Moslem, you know."  However, my
aunt never seemed to object to the modeling career of her old friend's
daughter, Iman.  Auntie had known Iman's mother for years and years, so
whenever either of them were in London, Aunt Maruim insisted they stay
with us.  Listening to discussions of Iman was how I

first became acquainted with the idea of modeling.  I had cut many of
her pictures from my cousin's magazines and taped them to the wall in
my little room.  If she's a Somali woman and she can do this, I
reasoned, why can't I?

When Iman came to our house, I always wanted to find the right
opportunity to talk to her.  I wanted to ask, "How do I become a
model?"  I barely even knew that such a thing existed; I certainly had
no idea how to become one.  But each time she'd visit, she would spend
the evening talking with the elders; I knew my aunt and uncle would
never approve of my interrupting their conversation for such nonsense
as my desire to be a model.  Finally, one night I found the right
moment.  Iman was in her room reading, and I knocked on the door.  "Can
I get you something before you go to sleep?"

"Yes, I'd like a cup of herbal tea."  I went down to the kitchen and
brought back a tray.

As I set it down on the nightstand, I began.  "You know, I have so many
of your pictures in my room."  I listened to the clock ticking on the
night stand, feeling like a perfect idiot.  "I'd really like to do
modeling, too.  Do you think it's hard.."  how did you do it .. . how
did you start, anyway?"

I don't know what I expected her to say; maybe

I hoped she'd wave a magic wand over me and turn me into Cinderella.
But my dream of modeling was an abstract one; the whole idea seemed so
far-fetched that I didn't spend much time thinking about it.  Instead,
after that night, I went on with my daily chores, focusing on the
day-to-day business of breakfast, lunch, dishes, and dusting.

By this point I was about sixteen, and had lived in London for two
years.  I had actually become acclimated enough that I knew what date
the Western world attributed to this span of time: 1983.

During the summer of that year, Uncle Mohammed's sister died in
Germany, leaving behind a young daughter.  Her daughter, little Sophie,
came to live with us, and my uncle enrolled her in All Souls Church
School.  My morning routine now also included walking Sophie several
blocks to her school.

On one of those first mornings, as Sophie and I strolled toward the old
brick building, I saw a strange man staring at me.  He was a white man
around forty with a ponytail.  He didn't try to hide the fact he was
staring at me and, in fact, he was quite bold.  After I left Sophie at
the door, the man walked toward me and started speaking to me.  But of
course I didn't speak English, so I had no

idea what he was saying.  Frightened, I wouldn't look at him and ran
back home.  This routine continued: I'd drop off Sophie, the white man
would be waiting, he'd try to talk to me, and I'd run.

On the walk home after I met Sophie in the afternoons, she'd frequently
mention a new friend a little girl she'd met in her class.  "Yeah, um
hmmm," I'd say, completely uninterested.  One day I was a little bit
late arriving to pick up Sophie.  When I got there, she was waiting
outside the school, playing with another little girl.  "Oh, Waris, this
is my friend," Sophie said proudly.  Standing next to the two girls was
the man with the ponytail, the guy who had been bothering me for nearly
a year.

"Yeah, let's go," I said nervously, eyeing my man.  But he bent over
and said something to Sophie, who spoke English, German, and Somali.
"Come on, Sophie.  Get away from that man," I warned, and snatched her
hand.

She turned to me and said brightly, "He wants to know if you speak
English."  Sophie shook her head at the man.  He said something else
and Sophie translated, "He wants to ask you something."

"Tell him I'm not talking to him," I replied haughtily and looked in
the other direction.  "He can just go away.  He can just .. ."  But I
decided

not to finish my sentence, because his daughter was listening, and
Sophie would immediately translate.  "Forget it.  Let's just go," and I
grabbed at her hand and pulled her away.

Shortly after this encounter, I dropped Sophie off one morning as
usual.  Then I walked back home and was upstairs cleaning when the
doorbell rang.  I headed downstairs, but before I could reach the door,
Aunt Maruim was opening it.  Peering through the railing from the stair
landing I couldn't believe what I saw; there stood Mr.  Ponytail.  He
must have followed me.  My first thought was that he was going to make
up some stories to tell my aunt say that I was doing something wrong.
Some lies, like I was flirting with him, slept with him, or he'd caught
me stealing something.  Auntie said in her fluent English, "Who are
you?"

"My name is Malcolm Fairchild.  I'm sorry to bother you but can I talk
to you?"

"What do you want to talk to me about?"  I could see Auntie was
shocked.

Walking back upstairs, I felt ill, wondering what he was going to say,
but within two seconds I heard the door slam shut.  I rushed into the
living room as Aunt Maruim was storming toward the kitchen.

"Auntie, who was that?"

"I don't know some man who said he's been following you, wanted to talk
to you, some nonsense about wanting to take your picture."  She glared
at me.

"Auntie, I didn't tell him to do it.  I didn't say anything to him."

"I KNOW THAT!  That's why he's here!"  She marched past me.  "Go do
your work don't worry about it.  I took care of him."  But Auntie
refused to go into details about their conversation, and the fact that
she'd been so angry and disgusted led me to believe he wanted to take
some sort of porno pictures.  I was horrified and never brought up the
incident after that morning.

From then on, each time I saw him at All Souls Church School, he never
talked to me.  He simply smiled politely and went on about his
business.  Until one day when I was picking up Sophie, he startled me
by walking up and handing me a card.  My eyes never left his face as I
took it and stowed it in my pocket.  I watched him steadily as he
turned around to walk away, then started cussing him in Somali: "Get
away from me, you dirty man you fucking pig!"

When I got home, I ran upstairs; the kids all slept on the top floors,
so this part of the house

was our sanctuary from the adults.  I went into my cousin's room and,
as usual, interrupted her reading.  "Basma, look at this," I said,
fishing the card from my pocket.  "This is from that man, remember that
man I told you about, the one who's always bothering me, and who
followed me here?  He gave me this card today.  What does it say?"

"It says he's a photographer."

"But what kind of photographer?"

"He takes pictures."

"Yeah, but what kind of pictures?"

"It says, "fashion photographer."

"Fashion photographer," I said, sounding out each word slowly.  "You
mean, he takes pictures of clothes?  He'd take pictures of me wearing
clothes?"

"I don't know, Waris," she sighed.  "I really don't know."  I knew I
was bothering her, that she wanted to get back to her book.  Standing
up from the bed, I took the card and left.  But I hid the fashion
photographer's card in my room.  Some little voice told me to hang on
to it.

My cousin Basma was my only adviser; this girl was always there for me.
And never was I more

grateful for her guidance than when I sought advice concerning her
brother Haji.

Haji was twenty-four-years old, my uncle's second-oldest son.  He was
considered very bright and, like Uncle Abdullah, was attending
university in London.  Haji had always been friendly to me from the
time I arrived in London.  When I'd be upstairs cleaning, he'd say,
"Hey, Waris, are you finished with the bathroom?"

"No," I'd reply, 'but if you want it, go ahead and I'll clean it
afterward."

"Oh, no... I just wondered if you needed some help."  Or he'd say, "I'm
going to get something to drink.  Would you like something?"  I was
pleased that my cousin cared for me.  We frequently talked and joked
around.

Sometimes, when I opened the door to walk out of the bathroom, he was
standing right outside, and wouldn't let me pass.  When I tried to duck
around him, he moved too.  When I tried to push him, yelling, "Get out
of my way, you slob," he'd laugh.  These little games went on, and
although I tried to shrug them off as corny jokes, I was confused.
There was something underneath his behavior that made me nervous.  He'd
look at me in a funny, moony-eyed way, or he'd stand a bit too close.
When I'd get that queasy feeling, I tried

to stop and remind myself, No, come on, Waris, Haji is like your
brother.  What you're thinking is sick.

Then one day I was walking out of the bathroom carrying my cleaning
bucket and rags and when I opened the door he was standing there.  He
grabbed my arm and pushed himself against me, his face a hair's width
from mine.  "What's going on here?"  I started laughing nervously.

"Oh nothing, nothing."  He turned me loose instantly.  I took my bucket
and went to the next room, very casually, as if nothing had happened.
But my mind was racing, and after that moment, I didn't wonder anymore
if something was going on.  I knew.  I knew something wasn't healthy
here.

The next night I was in my room asleep, and my cousin Shukree, Basma's
little sister, was asleep in her bed.  But I'm a very light sleeper,
and around three in the morning, I heard someone coming up the stairs;
I figured it must be Haji, since his room was across the hall from
mine.  He'd just gotten home, and from the way he was stumbling in the
hallway, I could tell he was drunk.  This sort of behavior was not
tolerated in my uncle's household coming in at this hour, and certainly
nobody drank.  They were strict Moslems, and drinking alcohol of any
kind was forbidden.  But I guess Haji thought he was

old enough to be his own man and he'd give it a try.

The door to my room opened quietly and my body went rigid.  Both the
beds in this room were on a raised platform, up a couple of steps from
the door.  I could see Haji tiptoeing up the stairs, trying hard not to
wake my little cousin, who was in the bed closest to the door.  But he
missed a step and tripped, then crawled the rest of the way over to my
bed.  In the light from the windows behind him, I watched him craning
his neck to see my face in the shadows.  "Hey, Waris," he whispered.
"Waris .. ."  His breath reeked of liquor, confirming my suspicion that
he must be drunk.  But I lay completely still in the darkness,
pretending to be asleep.  He reached out his hand and started feeling
around the pillow to find my face.  I thought, Oh, my God, please don't
let this happen.  Snorting, "HAYYUH," I flopped over on my side as if I
were dreaming, trying to make enough noise to wake up Shukree.  At this
point he lost his nerve and ran quietly back to his room.  The next day
I went to Basma's room.  "Look, I need to talk to you."  I guess the
look of panic on my face told her this wasn't one of my ordinary visits
just to kill time.

"Come in, close the door."

"This is about your brother," I said, taking a deep breath.  I didn't
know how to tell her this, and I just prayed she'd believe me.

"What about him?"  Now she looked alarmed.

"Last night he came into my room.  It was three o'clock in the morning
and pitch-black."

"What did he do?"

"He was trying to touch my face.  He whispered my name."

"Oh, no.  Are you sure?  You weren't dreaming?"  "Come on.  I see the
way he looks at me, the way he looks at me when I'm alone with him.  I
don't know what to do."

"Shit SHIT!  Get a fucking cricket bat and put it under your bed.  Or a
broom.  No take the rolling pin from the kitchen.  Put that under your
bed, and when he comes into your room at night, mash him in the head!
And you know what else to do?"  she added.  "Scream.  Scream your head
off so everybody can hear."  Thank God, this girl was definitely on my
side.

All day I kept praying, "Please don't make me do this horrible thing;
please just make him stop' I didn't want to make trouble.  I worried
about what lies he might offer his parents as an explanation, or that
they might throw me out.  I just wanted him to stop no more games, no
more

late-night visits, no more groping because I had a sick feeling where
it was all headed.  But my instincts told me to prepare for battle in
case prayer didn't work.

That night I went to the kitchen, smuggled the rolling pin up to my
room, and hid it under the bed.  Later, when my cousin was asleep, I
brought it out and laid it next to me, never releasing my grip on the
handle.  And in a repeat performance of the previous night, Haji came
in around three in the morning.  He paused in the doorway and I saw the
light from the hallway glinting off his glasses.  I lay there with one
eye open, watching him.  He crept over to my pillow and started tapping
me on the arm.  His breath stank of Scotch so bad that I wanted to gag,
but I didn't move an inch.  Then, kneeling next to the bed, Haji groped
around until he found the bottom hem of the covers, and pushed his hand
underneath and across the mattress to my leg.  Sliding his palm up my
thigh, he was going all the way to my knickers, my underwear.

I have to break his glasses, I thought, so at least there's proof he
was in the room.  I tightened my hand around the rolling-pin handle and
brought the wood down across his face with all my might.  First there
was a sickening thud, then I screamed,

"GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN' ROOM, YOU

FUCKIN' -'

Shukree sat up in her bed, crying, "What's happening?"  Within seconds
I heard footsteps running from all corners of the house.  But because I
had broken Haji's glasses, he couldn't see, so he resorted to crawling
back to his room on hands and knees.  He got into his bed with all his
clothes on, pretending to be asleep.

Basma came in and threw on the lights.  Of course she was in on the
whole plan but pretended total ignorance.  "What's going on here?"

Shukree explained, "Haji was in here, crawling around on the floor!"

When Aunt Maruim walked in with her robe pulled around her, I yelled,
"Auntie, he was in my room!  He was in my room, and he did it yesterday
too!  And I hit him!"  I pointed at Haji's shattered glasses next to my
bed.

"Shhh," she said sternly.  "I don't want to hear this not now.
Everybody, get back to your rooms.  Go to bed."

10.

FREE AT LAST

After the night I mashed Haji's face with the rolling pin, no one in
the house ever mentioned the incident again.  I might have thought his
late night visits were merely a bad dream, except for one big
difference.  Whenever I saw Haji in the hallway, he no longer gazed at
me with longing.  That expression had been replaced by one of naked
hatred.  I was thankful that as I'd prayed, this unpleasant chapter in
my life had come to an end.  However, it was soon replaced by a new
concern.

Uncle Mohammed announced that in a few weeks the family would be
returning to Somalia.  His four-year term as Somalian ambassador was

up, and we were going home.  Four years had sounded like a lifetime to
me when I'd first arrived, but now I couldn't believe the time was
over.  Unfortunately, I wasn't excited about going back to Somalia.  I
wanted to go home wealthy and successful, as every African dreams of
returning home from a rich nation like England.  In a poor country like
my homeland, people are constantly searching for a way out, clawing to
make it to Saudi or Europe or the States, so they can make some money
to help their destitute families.

Now here I was about to return home after four years abroad with
nothing.  What could I say I'd accomplished when I went back?  Would I
tell my mother I'd learned how to cook pasta?  Back traveling with my
camels, I'd probably never see pasta again.  Would I tell my father I'd
learned how to scrub toilets?  "Huh?  What's a toilet?"  he'd say.  Ah,
but money, cash, there was something he could understand the universal
language.  There was something my family had never had much of.

By the time my aunt and uncle were ready to return to Somalia, I had
saved a pittance from my maid's wages, which was difficult enough
considering my pathetic salary.  My dream, however, was to make enough
money to buy my mother a house a place where Mama could live without
having  to travel constantly and work so hard to survive.  This isn't
as far-fetched as it might sound, since with the exchange rate, I could
buy a house in Somalia for a couple of thousand dollars.  To accomplish
this goal, I felt since I was already in England, I wanted to stay and
make some money, because once I left, I certainly couldn't come back.
How I would manage this, I didn't know.  But I had faith that somehow
things would work out, once I was free from working like a slave for my
aunt and uncle.  However, they didn't agree.  "What on earth are you
going to do here?"  my aunt exclaimed.  "An eighteen-year-old girl,
with no place to stay, no money, no job, no work permit, and no
English?  It's ridiculous!  You're coming home with us."

Long before the scheduled departure, Uncle Mohammed advised us all of
two things: the date we were leaving, and the need to make sure our
passports were in order.  I did.  I promptly took mine into the
kitchen, sealed it in a plastic bag, then buried it in the garden.

Waiting till the day before our flight to Mogadishu, I announced that I
couldn't find my passport.  My plan was simple enough: if I didn't have
a passport, they couldn't take me back.  Uncle smelled something rotten
and kept asking, "Well, Waris, where could your passport be?  Where
have you been that you could possibly have left it?"  Obviously he knew
the answer to that question, since in four years I had barely been out
of the house.

"I don't know maybe I accidentally threw it away while I was cleaning,"
I answered with a straight face.  He was still the ambassador and he
could help me if he wanted.  I kept hoping that if my uncle realized
how desperately I wanted to stay, he wouldn't make me go home, but
instead would help me get a visa.

"Well, now what are we going to do, Waris?  We can't just leave you
here!"  He was livid that I'd put him in this position.  For the next
twenty-four hours we played a game of nerves, to see who would give in.
I kept insisting my passport was lost; Uncle Mohammed kept insisting
there was nothing he could do to help me.

Aunt Maruim had her own ideas.  "We'll just tie you up, put you in a
bag, and smuggle you on board the plane!  People do it all the time."

This threat got my attention.  "If you do that," I said slowly, I'll
never, ever, forgive you.  Look, Auntie, just leave me here.  I'll be
fine."

"Yeah, yeah, you'll be fine," she answered sarcastically.  "NO, you are
NOT going to be fine."  I

could see in her face that she was very worried, but was she worried
enough to help me?  She had plenty of friends in London; my uncle had
all his contacts at the embassy.  A simple phone call was all it would
take to provide me with a link to survival, but I knew if they believed
for an instant they could bluff me into coming back to Somalia, they
wouldn't make that call.

The next morning the entire four-storey mansion was in complete chaos
with everyone packing, the phone ringing, and swarms of people running
in and out of the house.  Upstairs, I prepared to leave my little room
under the eaves, packing my cheap bag with what few belongings I'd
accumulated during my stay in England.  In the end, I threw most of the
hand-me-down clothes in the trash, deciding they were too ugly and
old-womanish for me.  Why haul around a bunch of garbage?  Still a
nomad, I'd travel light.

At eleven o'clock, everyone gathered in the living room as the
chauffeur loaded the bags into the car.  I paused for a second to
remember this was the way I had come so many years ago the chauffeur,
the car, walking into this room, seeing the white sofa, the fireplace,
meeting my aunt for

the first time.  That gray morning was also the first time I'd seen
snow.  Everything about this country had seemed so bizarre to me then.
I walked outside to the car with my distressed Aunt Maruim, who said,
"What am I going to tell your mother?"

"Tell her I'm fine, and she'll hear from me soon."  She shook her head
and got into the car.  I stood on the sidewalk and waved good-bye to
everyone, then walked into the street, watching the car until it was
out of sight.

I'm not going to lie I was scared.  Up until that moment I hadn't
really believed that they would leave me there all alone.  But as I
stood in the middle of Harley Street, I was exactly that all alone.  I
have no hard feelings toward my aunt and uncle, though; they're still
my family.  They gave me an opportunity by bringing me to London, and
for that I will forever be grateful.  When they left, I guess they
thought, "Well you wanted to stay here's your chance.  Go ahead then do
what you want.  But we're not going to make it easy for you, because we
think you should come home with us."  I'm sure they felt it was a
disgrace for a young woman to remain in England alone, unchaperoned.
However, in the end the decision had been mine, and since I had chosen
to remain, I would have to take charge of my own destiny now.

Fighting an overwhelming feeling of panic, I went back inside the
house.  I closed the front door and walked into the kitchen to talk to
the only other person left my old friend the chef.  He greeted me with
"Well, you know, you've got to go today.  I'm the only one who's
staying on not you.  You've got to leave."  He pointed toward the front
door.  Oh, yes, the minute my uncle was gone, he just couldn't wait to
give it to me.  The smug look on his unfriendly face showed that
ordering me around gave him great pleasure.  I stood there leaning
against the door frame, thinking how quiet the house seemed now that
everybody was gone.  "Waris, you've got to go now.  I want you to get
out..."

"Oh, shut up."  The man was like an obnoxious barking dog.  "I'm going,
okay?  I just came in to get my bag."

"Grab it now quickly.  Quickly.  Hurry up, because I have to By this
time I was climbing the stairs, paying no attention to his noise.  The
master was gone, and in the brief interim before the new ambassador
arrived, Chef would be master.  I walked through the empty rooms,
thinking of all the good and bad times here, wondering where my next
home would be.

I picked up my little duffel from the bed, slung it over my shoulder,
walked down the four flights of stairs, and out the front door.  Unlike
the day I had arrived, today was a gorgeous, sunny day with a blue sky
and fresh air like springtime.  In the tiny garden, I used a stone to
unearth my passport, slipping it out of its plastic bag and stowing it
in my duffel.  I brushed the soil from my hands and headed down the
street.  I couldn't help smiling as I walked along the sidewalk free at
last.  My whole life stretched before me with nowhere to go, and no one
to answer to.  And somehow I knew things would work out.

Close to my uncle's house was my first stop: the Somalian embassy.  I
knocked on the door.  The doorman who answered knew my family well,
since sometimes he also drove for my uncle.  "Hello, miss.  What are
you doing here?  Is Mr.  Farah still in town?"

"No, he's gone.  I wanted to see Anna, to find out if I can get a job
at the embassy."  He laughed, returned to his chair, and sat down.  He
put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall.  As I
stood there in the middle of the lobby, he made no attempt to move. His
attitude puzzled me, as this man had always been polite to me. Then I
realized that like Chef's his attitude  had changed with the departures
that occurred that morning.  My uncle was gone, and without my uncle, I
was nobody.  I was less than nobody, and these oafs were thrilled to
have the upper hand.

"Oh!  Anna's far too busy to see you."  The doorman grinned.  "Look," I
said firmly, "I need to see her."  Anna had been my uncle's secretary,
and she'd always been kind to me.  Luckily, she heard my voice in the
lobby and walked out of her office to see what was happening.

"Waris!  What are you doing here?"

"You know, I really didn't want to go back to Somalia with my uncle," I
explained.  "I just didn't want to go back.  So I - I'm not staying at
the house anymore, you know.  And I was wondering if you know anybody
who maybe anybody I can work for anything I don't care what it is. I'll
do anything."

"Well, my darling' she raised her eyebrows 'it's a bit too short
notice.  Where are you staying?"  "Oh, I don't know.  Don't worry about
that."

"Well, can you give me a number where I can find you?"

"No, because I don't know where I'm staying.  I'll find some cheap
hotel tonight."  I knew she would invite me to stay at her place if she
hadn't

had a tiny little flat.  "But I can come back and give you a number
later, so you can let me know if you hear of anything."

"Okay, Waris.  Listen, take care of yourself- are you sure you're going
to be all right?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."  From the corner of my eye I saw the doorman
constantly grinning like a fool.  "Well, thanks look, I'll see you
later."

With relief I headed out into the sunlight again, and decided to go
shopping.  All I had to live on until I landed a job was the small sum
of money I'd squirreled away from my maid's wages.  But now that I was
a woman about town, I needed to buy something decent to wear, a new
dress to lift my spirits.  I walked from the embassy to the big
department stores at Oxford Circus.  I'd been there before with my
cousin Basma when I'd first come to London.  Aunt Maruim had sent us
down to buy me a few things, since when I arrived I had no winter
clothes.  Actually I'd had no clothes at all, except the outfit I'd
worn on the plane and one fine leather sandal.

Strolling through the racks at Selfridges, I found the enormous variety
of choices mesmerizing.  The thought that I could stay here as long
as

I wanted and try on all these clothes all these colors, styles, sizes
was intoxicating.  The thought that for the first time in my history, I
was in charge of my own life was intoxicating nobody yelling at me to
milk the goats, feed the babies, make the tea, scrub the floors, scour
the toilets.

For the next several hours, I set to work trying on outfits in the
dressing room with the help of two sales clerks.  Using my limited
English and sign language, I communicated that I wanted something
longer, shorter, tighter, brighter.  At the end of my marathon session,
when dozens of discarded garments lay in stacks outside my fitting
room, one of the clerks smiled at me and said, "Well, love, what did
you decide to have?"

The sheer volume of choices overwhelmed me, but by this point I was
getting nervous that down the street, in the next store, there might be
something even better.  Before I parted with any of my precious pounds,
I'd better find out.  "I'm not having anything today," I said
pleasantly, 'but thank you."  The poor clerks, standing with their arms
full of dresses, looked at me in disbelief, then at each other in
disgust.  I sailed past them and continued on my mission: to examine
every inch of Oxford Street.

After several places, I still hadn't bought anything; but as always,
the true joy for me was simply to try on things.  As I left one
building and entered another, I realized the spring like day was
fading, the winter evening coming on, and I still had no place to spend
the night.  With this thought in mind, I entered the next store and saw
a tall, attractive African woman examining a sale table of sweaters. 
She looked like a Somalian, and I studied her, trying to decide how to
talk to her.  Picking up a sweater, I smiled at her and said in Somali,
"I'm trying to buy something, but I can't decide what I want.  And
believe me, girl, I've seen a lot of clothes today."

We began talking and the woman said her name was Halwu.  She was quite
friendly and laughed a lot.  "Where do you live, Waris?  What do you
do?"

"Oh, you're going to laugh.  I'm sure you'll think I'm crazy, but I
live nowhere.  I don't have any place to live, because my family left
me today.  They went back to Somalia."  I saw the look of empathy in
her eyes; as I later learned this woman had been through a lot
herself.

"You didn't want to go back to Somalia, huh?"  Without saying it, we
both knew: we missed our home and our families, but what opportunities
did we have there?  Being traded for camels?  Becoming some man's
property?  Struggling every day just to survive?

"No, but I have nothing here, either," I said.  "My uncle was the
ambassador, but now he's gone and the new man is coming.  So this
morning they kicked me out, and right this minute, I have no idea where
I'm headed."  I laughed.

She waved in the air to silence me, as if the movement of her hand
could sweep away all my problems.  "Look, I live around the corner at
the YMCA.  I don't have a big place, but you can come and stay for the
night.  I just have a room, so if you want to cook, you'll have to go
to a different floor to make some food."

"Ooohh, that would be wonderful, but are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure.  I mean, come on.  What are you going to do
otherwise?"

We walked together to her room at the Y. The YMCA was located in a
modern brick high-rise normally occupied by students.  Her room was a
tiny space with a twin bed, a place for books, and Halwu's big,
beautiful television.  "Oh!"  I threw up my hands.  "Can I watch TV?"

The woman looked at me like I was from outer space.  "Oh, yeah sure.
Switch it on."  I plopped

down on the floor in front of it and stared greedily at her TV.  After
four years, I could look at it without somebody chasing me out of the
room like a stray cat.  "Didn't you ever watch television at your
uncle's?"  she said curiously.

"Are you kidding?  Sometimes I would sneak in, but I'd always get
caught.  "Watching TV again, Waris?"  I mimicked my aunt's snottiest
voice and started snapping my fingers.  '"Back to work, now, come on.
We didn't bring you here to watch television."

My real education on life in London began with Halwu as my professor;
the two of us became close friends.  I spent that first night in her
room, and the next, and the next.  Then she suggested, "Why don't you
get a room here?"

"Well, first of all because I can't afford it, and I need to go to
school, which means I won't have time to work."  I asked her shyly,
"Can you read and write?"  "Yeah."

"And speak English?"

"Yeah."

"See, I can't do any of those things and I need to learn.  That's my
biggest priority.  And if I start working again, I won't have time."

"Well, why don't you go to school part-time and work part-time?  Don't
worry about what kind of job it is just take anything until you learn
English."

"Will you help me'

"Sure, I'll help you."

I tried to get a room at the YMCA, but it was full with a waiting list.
All the young people wanted to be there because it was cheap and very
social, with an Olympic-size pool and fitness center.  I added my name
to the list, but in the meantime I knew I had to do something because I
couldn't keep taking up poor Halwu's space.  Right across from the
YMCA, however, was the YWCA; it was full of elderly people, and fairly
depressing, but I took a room there temporarily and set out to find a
job.  My friend suggested logically, "Why don't you start by looking
right here?"

"What do you mean?  Right where?"

"Right here.  Right here," she said, pointing.  "McDonald's is just
next door."

"I can't work there there's no way I can serve people.  Don't forget, I
can't speak English or read.  Besides, I don't have a work permit." 
But Halwu knew the ropes, and following her suggestion, I went around
back and applied for a job cleaning the kitchen.

When I began working for McDonald's, I found out how right she was.  I
thought that for the hard work I did the wages were poor and that
perhaps the management took advantage of my illegal status.  As long as
you were a hard worker, the management didn't care about your story.

My career as kitchen help at McDonald's put to use the skills I'd
learned as a maid: I washed dishes, wiped counters, scrubbed grills,
and mopped floors, in a constant effort to erase the traces of burger
grease.  When I went home at night I was coated with grease and stank
like grease.  In the kitchen we were always short staffed, but I didn't
dare complain.  None of that mattered because, at least now I could
support myself.  I was just grateful to have the job, and besides, I
knew I wouldn't be there for long.  In the meantime, I'd do whatever it
took to survive.

I began going part-time to the foreigners' free language school,
improving my English and learning how to read and write.  But for the
first time in years, my life wasn't only about work.  Sometimes Halwu
took me to nightclubs, where the whole crowd seemed to know her.  She
talked, laughed, and was hysterically funny just generally so lively
that everybody wanted to be around her.  One night we went out and had
been dancing

for hours until I suddenly looked up to realize we were surrounded by
men.  "Damn!"  I whispered to my friend.  "Do these men like us?"

She grinned.  "Oh, yeah.  They like us very much."  This notion
astonished me.  I scanned their faces and decided she was right.  I had
never had a boyfriend, or even the attention of any male other than
some weirdo like my cousin Haji which hadn't exactly flattered me.  For
the past four years I'd simply considered myself Miss Nobody the maid.
Now here were these guys lining up to dance with us.  I thought, Waris,
girl, you have finally arrived:

Oddly enough, even though I always liked the black men, it was the
white guys who were most interested in me.  Overcoming my strict
African upbringing, I chatted away, forcing myself to talk with
everyone black, white, male, female.  If I was going to be on my own, I
reasoned, I had to learn survival skills for this new world, which were
different from the ones I was raised with in the desert.  Here I needed
to learn English, and how to communicate with all sorts of people.
Knowing about camels and goats wasn't going to keep me alive in
London.

Halwu supplemented these nocturnal nightclub lessons with further
instruction the next

day.  She went through the entire roster of characters we'd met the
night before, explaining their motives, their personalities basically
giving me a crash course in human nature.  She talked about sex, what
these guys were up to, what to watch out for, and the special problems
in store for African women like us.  Nobody had ever discussed this
topic with me in my life.  "Have a good time talking, laughing, and
dancing with these guys, Waris, then go home.  Don't let them talk you
into having sex.  They don't know that you're different from an English
woman; they don't understand that you've been circumcised."

After several months of waiting to get a room at the YMCA, I learned of
a woman who wanted to share a room there.  She was a student and
couldn't afford the room by herself.  This was perfect for me, because
I couldn't either, and the room was large enough for the two of us.
Halwu was a great friend, and I made others at the Y, because the whole
place was swarming with young people.  I was still going to school,
gradually learning English, and working at my McDonald's job.  My life
was moving along, smooth and steady, but I had no idea how
dramatically it was about to change.

One afternoon, I got off work at McDonald's and, still covered with
grease, decided to leave through the front, passing by the counter
where the customers ordered their food.  And there, waiting for a Big
Mac, was the man from All Souls Church School and his little girl.
"Hello," I said, gliding by.

"Hey, it's you!"  Clearly I was the last person he was expecting to see
at McDonald's.  "How are you?"  he said eagerly.

"Fine, fine."  To Sophie's friend I said, "And how are you?"  I enjoyed
showing off my English.  "She's fine," her father replied.

"She's growing quickly, isn't she?  Well, I've got to dash.  Byebye."

"Wait where do you live?"

"Bye-bye," I said with a smile.  I didn't want to talk to him anymore,
because I still didn't trust this guy.  The next thing I knew, he'd
show up outside my door.

When I got back to the Y, I decided to consult the all-knowing Halwu
about this mystery man.  I grabbed my passport from the drawer,
flipped

through its pages, and pulled out Malcolm Fairchild's card from the
spot where I'd stuck it the day I buried the little plastic bag in
Uncle's garden.

Marching downstairs to Halwu's room, I said, "Tell me something.  I
have this card, and I've had it a long time.  What is this man?  I know
it says fashion photographer, but what does that mean?"

My friend took the card from my hand.  "It means somebody wants to put
clothes on you and take your picture."

"You know, I'd really like to do that."

"Who is this man?  Where'd you get this card?"  "Oh, he's this guy I
met, but I don't really trust him.  He gave me his card, then followed
me home one day and started saying something to my aunt.  She just got
pissed off and started yelling at him.

But I never really understood what he wanted."  "Well, why don't you
call and ask him?"

"You sure?"  I said, making a face.  "Should I?  Hey, why don't you
come with me and you can talk to him find out what's the story.  My
English is still not very good."

"Yeah, go call him."

It took me until the next day before I worked up the courage.  As Halwu
and I walked down to the pay phone together, my heart pounded drumbeat
in my ears.  She put a coin in the slot, and I listened to it click.
She held his card in one hand, squinting at it in the dim light of the
dark hallway as she dialed.  Then a pause.  "Yes, may I speak to
Malcolm Fairchild?"  After exchanging a few opening comments, she got
right to the heart of the matter: "You're not some kind of pervert or
something, are you?  You're not trying to kill my friend?  .. . Yeah,
but I mean we don't know anything about you where you live or nothing
.. . uh-huh, uh-huh .. . yeah."  Halwu was scribbling something on a
scrap of paper, and I strained to see over her shoulder.

"What's he saying?"  I hissed.  She waved at me to be quiet.

"Okay, then.  Fair enough .. . we'll do that."  Halwu hung up the phone
and took a big breath.  "Well, he said, "Why don't you both come by my
studio, and see where I work, if you don't trust me?  If you don't want
to well, that's okay,

too" '

I covered my mouth with both fists.  "Yes.  And?  Are we going to
go?"

"Shit, yeah, girl.  We might as well check it out.  Let's find out who
this guy is that's been following you around."



THE MODEL

The next day Halwu and I went down to inspect Malcolm Fairchild's
studio.  I had no idea what to expect, but when we opened the door, I
stumbled into another world.  Hanging everywhere were enormous posters
and billboards featuring pictures of beautiful women.  "Oh .. ."  I
said quietly, spinning around the room, looking at their elegant faces.
And I just knew, like I'd known the day when I first heard Uncle
Mohammed telling Auntie Sahru back in Mogadishu that he needed a girl
to take to London this is it.  This is my opportunity this is where I
belong this is what I want to do.

Malcolm came out and said hello; he told us to relax and gave us a cup
of tea.  When he sat down, he said to Halwu, "I just want you to know
that all I want to do is take her picture."  He pointed at me.  "I've
been following this little girl for over two years, and never have I
had such a hard time just to take a photograph."

I stared at him with my mouth hanging open.  "That's it?  That's it you
just want to take my picture a picture like this?"  I waved at the
posters.

"Yes."  He nodded emphatically.  "Believe me.  That's it."  With his
hand he drew a line down the center of his nose.  "I just want this
half of your face' he turned to Halwu - 'because she has the most
beautiful profile."

I sat there thinking: All that time wasted!  He followed me for two
years and it took him two seconds to tell me he just wants to take my
picture.  "Well, I don't mind doing that."  But suddenly I became wary,
remembering some of my past experiences alone with men.  "But she's got
to be here, too!"  I put my hand on my friend's arm and she nodded.
"She's got to be here when you take the picture."

He looked at me with an expression of bafflement.  "Yeah, okay.  She
can come too .. ."  By this

point I was so excited I was barely touching the chair.  "Come day
after tomorrow, ten o'clock, and I'll have someone here to do your
makeup."

Two days later we returned to his studio.  The makeup woman sat me down
in a chair and started to work, coming at me with cotton, brushes,
sponges, creams, paints, powders, poking me with her fingers, and
pulling my skin.  I had no idea what she was doing but sat quietly all
the same, watching her perform these strange maneuvers with these
strange materials.  Halwu leaned back in her chair, grinning.
Occasionally I would look at her and shrug or make a face.  "Be still,"
the makeup woman commanded.

"Now' she stepped back and put one hand on her hip and looked at me
with satisfaction 'look in the mirror."  I stood up and stared in the
glass; one side of my face was transformed, all golden, silky, and
light with makeup.  The other side was plain old Waris.

"Wow!  Look at me!  But why did you just do one side?"  I said in
alarm.  "Because he only wants to photograph one side."  "Oh..."

She led me out to the studio where Malcolm positioned me on a stool. I
swiveled around, studying the dark room full of objects I'd never seen
before: the view camera, the lights, the battery packs, the cords
hanging everywhere like snakes.  He twisted me in front of the camera
till I was at a ninety-degree angle to the lens.  "Okay, Waris.  Put
your lips together and stare straight ahead.  Chin up.  That's it .. .
beautiful" Then I heard a click, followed by a loud pop which made me
jump.  The flashes went off, the lights blazing for a split second.
Somehow, the lights popping made me feel like a different person;
suddenly in that moment I imagined myself as one of the movie stars I
had seen on the television, smiling into the cameras as they exited
their limos at the premieres.  Next, he took a piece of paper from the
camera and sat looking at his watch.

"What are you doing?"  I asked.

"Timing it."  Malcolm motioned for me to walk over into the light and
pulled off the top layer of paper.  As I watched, a woman gradually
emerged from the sheet of film as if by magic.  When he handed me the
Polaroid, I barely recognized myself; the shot showed the right side of
my face, but instead of looking like Waris the maid, I looked like
Waris the model.  They had transformed me into a glamorous creature
like

the ones posing in Malcolm Fairchild's lobby.

Later in the week, after Malcolm had the film developed, he showed me
the finished product.  He put the transparencies up on a light box, and
I loved them.  I asked if he could make more pictures for me.  He said
it was too expensive, and unfortunately he couldn't afford it.  But
what he could do was have prints made for me of the shot he'd already
taken.

a couple of months after Malcolm had taken my picture, he called me at
the Y. "Look, I don't know if you're interested in modeling, but
there's some people who want to meet you.  One of the modeling agencies
saw your photo in my book and said you should call them.  If you like,
you can sign with their firm and they'll get you jobs."

"Okay .. . but you have to take me there .. . because, you know, I
don't feel comfortable going alone.  Will you take me there and
introduce me?"

"No, I can't do that, but I'll give you the address," he offered.

I carefully chose the ensemble I would wear for my important meeting
with Crawford's modeling agency.  As it was summertime, and hot, I put
on a red V-necked dress with short sleeves.  The

dress was not short, not long, but hit me squarely in the middle of
the leg and was god-awful ugly.

I walked into the agency wearing my cheap red dress and white sneakers,
and thinking: This is it.  I'm happening In reality I looked like shit.
But even though I cringe whenever I think back to that day, it's just
as well that I didn't realize how wrong I looked, because I was still
wearing my best outfit.  I certainly didn't have the money to go out
and buy a new one.

When I arrived the receptionist asked if I had any pictures and I said
I had one.  She introduced me to a classically beautiful woman,
elegantly dressed, named Veronica.  Veronica called me into her office
and motioned for me to sit down opposite her desk.  "How old are you,
Waris?"

"I'm young!"  These were the first words that came to mind and I
blurted them out.  "Really I'm young.  These wrinkles' - I pointed to
my eyes - "I was born with them."

She gave me a smile.  "It's all right."  Veronica began writing down my
answers, filling out forms.  "Where do you live?"

"Oh, I live in Y."

"What, now .. ."  She frowned.  "Where do you live?"

"I live in YMCA."  "Do you work?"  "Yes."

"What do you do?"

"McDonald's'

"Okay... Do you know about modeling?"  "Yes."

"What do you know about it do you know much?"

"No.  I know I want to do it."  I repeated this last phrase several
times for emphasis.

"Okay.  Do you have a book pictures?"

"No."

"Do you have any family here?"

"No."

"Where is your family?"

"Africa."

"Is that where you're from?"

"Yes, Somalia."

"Okay, so no one here."

"No, none my family here."

"Well.  There's a casting right this minute and you have to go."

I was really struggling to understand her, and paused for a minute
trying to decipher what she meant by her last statement.  "I don't
understand, Sorry."

"A c-a-s-t-in-g."  She drew out the word slowly.  "What's casting?"

"You know, it's an interview when you go for a job and they interview
you?  Okay?  Interview?  You understand?"

"Yeah, yeah."  I was lying by then.  I had no idea what she was talking
about.  She gave me the address and told me to go straight over.

I'll call them and tell them you're on your way.

Do you have money for a taxi?"

"No, I can walk."

"No, no it's too far.  Too far.  You have to take a taxi.  Taxi.  Okay?
Look, here's ten pounds.  Call me when you're finished.  Okay?"

Riding cross town in the taxi, I was in complete euphoria.  Oh, oh, oh,
I am on my way now.  I'm going to be a model.  Then I realized I forgot
one thing: I didn't ask her what the job was.  Oh, well, it doesn't
matter.  I'll be fine because I am one good looking bitch!

When I arrived at the casting, I walked into another photographer's
studio.  I opened the door to a place crawling with professional models
room after room packed full of women with legs up to their necks.  They
strutted around like

lionesses circling for the kill, preening in front of mirrors, bending
at the waist to shake their hair, smearing makeup on their legs to make
them look dark.  I flopped down and said hello to one of the girls
sitting next to me.  "Um, what is the job?"

"Pirelli calendar."

"Mmmm."  I nodded my head wisely.  "Prulli calendar.  Thank you."  What
the hell is that Prulli calendar?  I was a complete nervous wreck,
unable to sit still, crossing and uncrossing my legs, twisting around
in my chair until an assistant came out and told me I was next.  Then I
froze for a minute.

Turning to the girl beside me, I shooed her toward the assistant.  "You
go.  I'm waiting for my friend."  I repeated this move each time the
assistant came out, until the entire place was empty.

Everyone had gone home.

Finally the woman came out, leaned tiredly up against the wall and
said, "Come on.  You can go now."  I stared at her for a minute and I
said to myself, Enough now, Waris.  Are you going to do this thing or
not?  Come on, get up, let's go.

I followed the woman into the studio and a man with his head glued to
the back of a camera yelled  out, "Over there.  There's the mark."  He
motioned with one hand.

"Mark?"

"Yeah, stand on the mark."  "Oh, okay.  Stand here."  "Okay.  Take off
your top."

I thought, Surely I'm not hearing this man right, but by now I felt
ready to vomit.  "My top, you mean my shirt?"

He brought his head out from under the drape, and stared at me like I
was an idiot.  With great irritation he said, "Yeah.  Take off your
shirt, you know, why you're here?"

"But I don't have a bra."

"That's the idea, so we can see your breasts."  "NO!"  What is this
shit my breasts, Besides, I wasn't wearing a top.  All I had on was my
red dress.  What does this jerk think I'm going to do, just whip it off
and stand there in my fucking underpants and tennis shoes?

"No.  No?  Everybody's dying to come to this casting, and you're
telling me no?"

"No, no, I'm sorry.  Mistake, mistake.  I make mistake," and in a panic
I headed for the door.  When I passed a series of Polaroid's scattered
across the floor, I bent down to examine them.

The photographer looked at me for a few seconds

with his mouth open.  Then he turned and called over his shoulder,
"Oh, Lord, have we got something in here!  Terence, we've got a little
problem."

A heavy, robust man with thick gray hair and rosy jowls walked into the
room and looked at me curiously.  He smiled slightly.  "Ah, yes.  So
what do we have here?"

I stood up straight and tears came to my eyes.  "No.  That's nothing I
can do.  I don't do this."  I pointed at a photo of a woman nude from
the waist up.  At first I was simply disappointed.  There went my big
excitement, my big dream of being a model.  The first job I get and
they want me to take my clothes off Then I became angry furious and I
started to cuss them all in Somali.  "You dirty fucking men!  You shit!
You pigs!  Keep your fucking job!"

"What are you saying?  Look, I'm far too busy for this now' but by this
time I was running out the door, slamming it nearly off the hinges.  I
cried all the way back to the Y, saying to myself, I knew there was
something sad, something deeply disgusting, about this whole modeling
business.

That evening I was lying on my bed, limp with misery, and my roommate
said, "Waris, phone for you."

It was Veronica from the modeling agency.  "It's you!"  I yelled.  "I
don't want to talk to you people!  You you em bars - embress -' I was
trying to pronounce embarrassed but I couldn't even choke out that
word.  "It was terrible.  It was very bad; I don't want to do this.  I
don't want to do this.  I don't want to be with you no more!"

"Okay, now calm down, Waris.  Do you know who that was today, the
photographer?"

"No."

"Do you know who Terence Donovan is?"

"No."

"Well, do you have a friend who speaks English?"

"Yes."

"Well, anybody who speaks English will know who that man is.  When we
get off the phone, you ask them.  He takes pictures of the royal
family, Princess Di, and all the big name models.  Anyway, he wants to
see you again, he's interested in photographing you."

"He asked me to take my clothes off.  You didn't tell me that before I
went!"

"I know well, we were in a big hurry; I just thought you were perfect
for the job.  I explained to him that you couldn't speak English and
this sort of thing was against your culture.  But this is the Pirelli
calendar, and after this job comes out

you will get much more work.  Do you ever buy the fashion magazines,
like Vogue and Elle?"

"No, I can't afford them.  I look at them at the newsstand, but I
always put them back."  "Okay, but you've seen them?  That's the type
of work you're going to be doing.  Terence Donovan is the best; if you
want to be a model, you need this job.  After this you'll be making all
kinds of money, and do whatever you want."

"I'm not taking off my top."

I heard her sigh.  "Waris, where did you say you work?"

"McDonald's."

"How much do they pay you?"

I told her.

"Well, he's paying you fifteen hundred pounds for one day."

"All for me?  All mine?"

"Yes, and you get to travel, too.  The job's in Bath; I don't know if
you've been there, but it's a beautiful place.  You'll be staying at
the Royalton," she added, like I knew what that meant.  "Look, do you
want to do it, or not?"

By this point she had convinced me.  Making this kind of money, I could
quickly earn enough to help my mother.  "Okay, okay!  When can I go
back to him?"

"How about tomorrow morning?"

"And I just have to take my top off- that's it?  I mean, are you sure
for fifteen hundred pounds I don't have to sleep with this man?"

"No, no.  It's no trick.  Nothing like that."

"Or... you know, like he wants me to spread my legs or some shit?  If
so, tell me now."

"Only take your top off.  But remember, he's just doing a Polaroid
tomorrow, then he'll tell you if you got the job.  So be nice .. ."

The next day when I got there, Terence Donovan looked at me and started
laughing.  "Oh.  It's you again.  Come here.  What's your name?"  From
that moment on, he was very patient with me.  Terence was a father, and
he realized that I was just a frightened kid who needed help.  He
brought me tea, and showed me all his work, photos he'd taken of the
most beautiful women in the world.  "Okay.  I'm going to show you some
pictures.  Come with me."  He led me into another room full of shelves
and drawers, and lying on a table was a calendar.  He flipped through
the pages, and on each page was the photograph of a different,
stunningly gorgeous woman.  "You see this?  This is last year's Pirelli
calendar.  I do it every year.  Except

this year it's going to be different just African women.  Some
pictures you'll be wearing clothes, but some might be no clothes."  He
went over everything with me, explaining how the whole process worked.
By that point I felt comfortable that he wasn't just some dodgy, dirty
old man.  He said, "Okay, we're going to take the Polaroid now.  Are
you ready?"

As soon as Veronica told me how much I'd make I was ready, but now I
was relaxed as well.  "Yes, I'm ready."  And from that moment on I was
a complete professional.  Stood on the mark whoosh off went the top,
and I stared into the camera with confidence.  Perfect!  When he showed
me the Polaroid, it reminded me of being back home in Africa.  The shot
was black and white, and very simple and honest nothing tarty and
corny; there was nothing pornographic about it.  Instead, it was Waris
as she'd grown up in the desert, looking just like a little girl child,
tiny breasts exposed in the heat.

When I came home that night, I received the message from the agency
saying I got the job and would be going to Bath next week.  Veronica
had left her home number.  I called to explain that I was scheduled to
work at McDonald's and couldn't afford not to, since I had no idea how
long it

would be before I'd see the money from my modeling job.  But she saved
me by saying if I needed money, she could give me an advance.

Since that day, I've never set foot in a McDonald's again.  After I
talked to Veronica, I hung up the phone and ran all over the Y. I told
not only my friends about my new enterprise, but any stranger who would
listen.  Halwu said, "Oh, come on!  Stop showing off, for God's sake!
You're showing your tits, right?"

"Yeah, for fifteen hundred pounds!"

"For those little things?  You should be ashamed," she laughed.

"But this is not like that.  This is really nice!  Not that nasty
stuff.."  and we're going to Bath and stay in a big hotel."

"Well, I don't want to hear it just stop telling everybody in the
building about it, all right?"

The night before we left, I couldn't sleep at all, wishing it were
morning; my packed duffel sat by the door.  I still couldn't believe it
I'd never been anywhere, and these people were paying me money to go!
Terence Donovan was sending a limousine to pick me up and bring me to
Victoria

Station.  There the group the photographers, assistants, art director,
four other models, the makeup artist, hairstylist, and me would
assemble to take the train to Bath.  I was the first person to arrive,
because I was so nervous about missing the train.  The next person who
got there was Naomi Campbell.

When we arrived in Bath, we checked into the Royalton, which was like a
palace; I was stunned to find out I'd have a huge room all to myself.
But that first night, Naomi came to my room and asked if she could
sleep with me.  She was very young, and sweet, about sixteen or
seventeen, and frightened to stay by herself.  I said sure, because I
enjoyed having the company.  "Don't tell them, okay?  They're going to
be mad if they find out they're wasting all that money on my room and
nobody's sleeping in it."

"Don't worry about it just stay in my room."  After years of
experience, it came naturally to me to play the mother.  In fact, my
friends called me Mama, because I always wanted to mother everybody. 
"I'm not going to say anything, Naomi."

When we started to work in the morning, two girls would go first and
get their hair and makeup done.  Then, while they were on the set
getting their pictures taken, the next two would get ready,

and so on.  The first morning that the hairstylist started working on
me, I told him to chop it all off.  Back then, I was pretty chunky for
a model; I had all that nice juicy McDonald's meat on me.  So I wanted
my hair short, to make me look more fashionable.  The stylist kept
cutting and cutting, until almost nothing was left my hair was about
one inch long all over my head.  Everyone said, "Ooohh, you look so
different."  But I decided I really wanted to shock people, and I said
to the hairstylist, "You know what I'm going to do?  I'm going to
bleach my hair blond."  "Oh, God!  Well, I'm not going to do it.  You'd
look wicked mad!"

Naomi Campbell laughed and said, "Waris, you know what?  One day you're
going to be famous.  And don't forget me then, okay?"  Of course, the
reverse came true, and she's the famous one.

We went on working like this for six days, and I couldn't believe I was
getting paid for it.  As soon as I got off in the evening, and the
group would ask me what I wanted to do, my answer was always the same:
go shopping.  They would let me take the car, and the limo driver would
drop me wherever I wanted, then come back and pick me up.  When the job
was done, my picture wound up being selected for the cover,

which was a surprising honor and got me even more publicity.

We took the train back to London; as soon as we arrived, I jumped in
the limo, and the driver asked where to drop me.  I told him to take me
to the agency.  When I walked in the door, they said, "Guess what?
There's another casting for you, and it's right around the corner.  But
hurry up you have to go right now."

I protested about this, because I was tired.  "I'll go tomorrow," I
said.

"No, no.  Tomorrow will be too late; it's over then.  They're looking
for Bond girls for the new James Bond movie, The Living Daylights, with
Timothy Dalton.  Leave your bag here and let's go.  We'll walk you over
and show you where it is."

One of the guys from the agency took me around the corner and pointed
to the building: "You see that door there, where all the people are
going?  That's the place."  I went in, and it was a repeat of the day I
went to Terence Donovan's studio, except worse.  Inside was an army of
girls, standing, leaning, sitting, gossiping, strutting, and striking
poses.

The assistant said, "We're asking everybody to say a couple of words."
This news sounded ominous to me, but I kept telling myself I was a
professional model now, right?  I'd worked for Terence Donovan on the
Pirelli calendar.  This was nothing I couldn't handle.  When my turn
came they ushered me into the studio and told me to stand on the
mark.

I said, "I just want to tell you guys that I don't speak very good
English."

They held up a cue card and said, "That's okay, you just have to read
this."  Oh, my God- now what?  I have to tell them I can't read?  No,
it's too much, ith too humiliating.  I can't do it.

Instead I said, "Excuse me.  I have to go I'll be right back."  And I
just walked out of the building and went to the agency for my bag.  God
knows how long the casting people waited for me before someone realized
I wasn't coming back.  At the agency I told them I hadn't gotten in
yet; I just wanted to pick up my bag first, because it looked like it
was going to be a long wait.  This was around one or two in the
afternoon, but I went home, dropped off my bag, then went out searching
for a hairdresser.  I wandered into a shop close to the Y, and a
gentleman asked what he could do for me.

"Bleach my hair," I said.

The stylist raised his eyebrows.  "Well, you know we can do it, but
it's going to take a long time.  And we close at eight."  "Okay.  Then
we have till eight."

"Yeah, but we have other appointments ahead of you."  I begged him till
he finally gave in.  He applied the peroxide and I immediately
regretted my begging.  My hair was so short that the chemicals started
burning my head, and I felt like big hunks of my scalp were peeling
away.  But gritting my teeth, I waited it out.  When the hairdresser
washed my hair, it turned orange.  So he had to do it again because the
peroxide needed to stay on longer to remove the color.  The second time
it came out yellow.  The third time I finally became a blonde.

I loved it, but as I walked back to the subway, little kids grabbed
their mother's hands and cried, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, what is that
thing?  Is that a man or a woman?"  I thought, I7!  be damned.  Maybe I
ma ale a mistake here?  I'm scaring the children.  But by the time I
reached the Y, I decided I didn't give a shit, because my hair wasn't
meant to impress the children.  Being blond was something I wanted to
try for me and I thought it looked bloody fabulous.

When I got home, I had message after message waiting for me from the
agency.  Where are you?  Everyone at the casting is still waiting for
you.  Are you coming back?  They still want to see you.  They're still
waiting... But the agency was closed, so I called Veronica at home.
"Waris, where on earth did you go?  They thought you went to the
bathroom!  Promise me you'll go back tomorrow?"  She made me agree I'd
go back the next morning.

Of course, what I had neglected to tell Veronica, the casting people
noticed immediately: that yesterday I was an ordinary black woman,
today I was a Somali with blond hair.  The whole production stopped to
stare at me.  "Wow!  That is amazing you just did that last night?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, my.  Love it.  Love it don't change it again, all right?"

I said, "Believe me, I'm not going through that torture again any time
soon.  By now my scalp is blond."

We picked up with the test where we'd left off the day before.  "Are
you worried about your English is that the problem?"

"Yeah."  I still couldn't bring myself to admit that I couldn't read.

"Okay.  Well, just stand there, look right, look left.  Say your name,
where you're from, what agency you're with, and that's all."  That much
I could handle.

Afterward, since I was right around the corner from Crawford's, I
decided it would be fun to drop by the agency and show them my hair.
They went berserk.  "What the fuck have you done to your hair!  ?"

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"Oh, my God, no, it's not nice!  We can't book you now!  You've got to
consult with us before you do something like this to your appearance,
Waris.  The client has to know what they're getting this isn't just
your hair anymore that you can do anything you want with."

The casting people did, however, like my hair, and I got the Bond Girl
job.  But from that day forward the folks at the agency had a nickname
for me: Guinness.  Because I was dark with a white head on the top.

I was very excited about my new movie career, until one day I went by
the agency and Veronica said, "Well, great news, Waris.  The Living
Daylights will be filmed in Morocco."   I froze.

"You know, unfortunately, I have something to tell you, which I really
would rather not have to tell you.  Remember the day you hired me and
asked me if I had a passport?  Well, I do, but I don't have a current
visa, so if I leave England, I can't get back in."

"Waris, you lied to me!  You have to have a valid passport to be a
model or we can't use you; you have to travel all the time.  God you're
not going to be able to do the job.  We'll have to cancel."

"No, no.  Don't do that I'll think of something.  I'll figgure it out."
Veronica gave me a disbelieving look, but said it was up to me.  For
the next few days I sat in my room thinking and thinking but nothing
came to mind.  I consulted all my friends, but the only solution anyone
could think of was that I might marry someone, and I certainly had
nobody to marry.  I felt terrible, not only that my career was being
flushed down the toilet, but that I'd lied to Veronica and let the
agency down.

One night in the midst of this dilemma, I went downstairs to the pool
at the Y. My friend Marilyn, a black woman who was born in London,
worked there as a lifeguard.  When I first moved in, I would come to
the pool and just sit there and

stare at it because I love the water.  Finally, one night Marilyn
asked me why I never went in, and I told her I couldn't swim.  "Well, I
can teach you," she said.

"Okay."  I went to the deep end of the pool, took a deep breath, and
dived in.  I figured since she was a lifeguard, she could save me.  But
guess what?  Underneath the water, I swam like a fish all the way to
the other end of the pool.

I came up with the biggest grin on my face.  "I did it!  I can't
believe, I did it!"

But she was angry.  "Why did you tell me you 'couldn't swim ?"  "I
never swam in my life!"  After that episode, we became good friends. 
She lived with her mother on the other side of the city, and sometimes,
when she got off work late at night, she'd be too tired to make the
long journey home.  So she would stay in my room.

Marilyn was a generous, lovely person, and as I swam in the pool that
evening, trying to forget my passport troubles, the solution came to
me.  I came to the surface and pushed up my goggles.  "Marilyn," I
panted, "I need your passport."

"What?  What are you talking about?"  I explained my problem.  "You're
out of your fucking mind, Waris!  Do you know what's going to

happen."  They're going to catch you, deport you for life, and put me
in jail.  Now, what am I risking all that for?  So you can be in some
stupid James Bond movie?  I don't think so."

"Oh, come on, Marilyn.  It's fun, an adventure take the risk We'll go
to the post office and I'll apply for a passport in your name; I'll
forge your signature, and put my picture on it.  I don't have much
time, but I can get a temporary passport in just a couple of days.
Please, Marilyn!  It's my big chance to be in the movies!"

Finally, after hours of pleading and begging, the day before I was
scheduled to fly to Morocco, she gave in.  I had my photo taken, then
we went to the post office; an hour later I had my British passport.
But all the way home, she was worried sick.  I kept saying, "Cheer up,
Marilyn.  Come on, it'll be okay.  You've just got to have faith."

"Faith my ass.  I have faith that this one stupid incident can ruin my
whole life."  That night we went to her mother's house to spend the
night.  I suggested that we rent some videos and get some Chinese
takeout and relax.  But when we got to Marilyn's, she said, "Waris.  I
can't do it.  It's too dangerous.  Give me back the passport."  I
sorrowfully handed it to her, watching my movie career disappear into
the realm of lost fantasies.  "You stay

here - I'm going to hide it," she said.  She took it upstairs to her
room.

I said, "Okay, girl.  If it makes you feel like this, there's no point
in suffering.  If you think something will go wrong, then we shouldn't
do it."  But that night, as soon as she went to sleep, I started
scouring her room.  She had hundreds of books in there, and I knew
that's where it had to be hidden.  One by one, I opened them and shook
them.  The car was coming to her house in the morning to pick me up and
take me to the airport, so I was moving fast.  And suddenly the
passport fell out at my feet.  Grabbing it up quietly, I stuck it in my
duffel, then went to bed.  In the morning I woke up and sneaked
downstairs before the driver came to ring the bell, so he wouldn't wake
anybody up.  It was cold outside, but I stood on the sidewalk shivering
until the car came at seven, then headed to Heathrow.

Getting out of England was no problem.  In Morocco, my movie career
consisted of a couple of scenes where I was supposed to be what the
script called 'a beautiful girl lying around the pool."  Then I was in
another scene where we were sitting inside this fantastic house in
Casablanca having

tea, yet for some reason all the women were naked.  James Bond flew
through the bloody roof, and we threw our hands up to our-faces and
screamed, "Ahhh, oh, my God!"  But I thought, Well, I'm not
complaining.  Since I didn't get a speaking part, at least that means I
don't have to worry about the fact that I can't read.

The rest of the time we just lounged around the house, sat by the pool,
ate and ate, and did nothing at all.  I stayed in the sun the whole
time, so thrilled to see it again after living in foggy London.  Not
knowing how to mingle with the movie people, I stayed mostly by myself;
they were all very handsome and intimidating, spoke perfect English,
and seemed to know each other- gossiping about this job and that job. I
was just thrilled to be back in Africa again; in the evening, I'd go
sit outside with the mamas cooking colorful food for their families.  I
couldn't speak the language, but we'd smile, and I'd say one word of
Arabic, they'd say one word of English, and we'd laugh.

One day the film crew came around and said, "Anybody want to go to the
camel races?  Come on, we're getting a group together."  After standing
around watching the races for a while, I asked one of the Arab jockeys
if I could ride, too.  In a

mangled combination of Arabic ad English we communicated; he informed
me that, oh no, women weren't allowed to ride the camels.

"I bet I can beat you," I said.  "Come on, I'll show you you're afraid
for me to ride because I'm going to win!"  This infuriated him that
this little girl would challenge him arid that's when he decided to let
me race.  The word spread through the movie crew that Wari was going to
enter the next race; everybody gathered around and a few people tried
to talk me out of it.  I informed them to get their money ut and bet on
Waris, because I was going to teach these Moroccan guys a lesson. There
were about ten Arab men seated on their camels at the starting line,
and me.  When the race began, we took off and flew.  It was a
terrifying ride, because I was not familiar with this camel and didn't
really know how to make him 'kick."  Camels not only hurtle forward at
a fast clip, but bounce up and down and side to side, so I was hanging
on for my life.  I knew if I fell, I would be trampled to death.

When the race was finished, I had come in second place.  The James Bond
people were astonished, and I could tell I'd gained a new, if weird
respect, especially as they collected their winning  bets.  "How did
you know how to do that?"  one girl asked me:

"Easy.  When you're born on top of a camel, you know how to ride one,"
I laughed.

However, the camel race demanded no courage compared to what was
awaiting me when I returned to Heathrow.  As we exited the plane, we
lined up for customs; as the line inched forward, everyone got their
passports out.  The officials would yell out, "NEXT!"  and each time it
was the most excruciating torture to hear that word, because it meant I
was one step closer to being arrested.

The British officials are always harsh enough letting you into England;
but if you're African and black, they're doubly tough.  You know
they'll be scanning your passport with razor eyes.  I felt so sick I
wanted to faint and began to fantasize about lying down on the floor
and dying so I wouldn't have to go through this agony anymore.  God, I
prayed, please help me.  If I live through this, I promise I'll never
do anything this stupid again.

I was almost there, if my knees didn't give out.  Then suddenly an
obnoxious male model named Geoffrey grabbed my passport from my hand.
He

was a smart-aleck bastard anyway, who delighted in making other people
miserable, and this time he couldn't have found a more vulnerable
target.  "Oh, please, please' I tried to grab it back from him, but he
was much taller than I was and held it up where I couldn't reach it.

Everyone throughout the trip had called me Waris; they all knew my name
was Waris Dirie.  Geoffrey opened the passport and shrieked, "Oh, my
God.  Listen to this listen to this, everybody.  Guess what her name
is? MARILYN MONROE."  "Please give that to me' I was shaking by now. 
He ran around in circles, doubled over laughing, then began showing the
whole gang my passport.  "Her name is Marilyn Monroe!  Check this shit
out! What the fuck?  What's the story here, girl?  No wonder you
bleached your hair!"

I had no idea there was another Marilyn Monroe.  To me, she was simply
my friend, the lifeguard at the Y. Luckily, I didn't even know about
the added concern that I was walking around with a passport bearing my
photo and the name of a famous movie star.  At that moment, my biggest
worry was that my passport said I was Marilyn Monroe, born in London,
yet I barely spoke a word of English.  I'm dead... It's over... I'm
dead... It's over.."  were the words ringing

through my brain as my whole body poured a river of sweat.

All the James Bond people joined in the game: "Hey, so what's your real
name?  Now, really where are you from?  Did you know that people born
in the middle of London don't speak English?"  They were just ribbing
the piss out of me.  This Geoffrey jerk finally handed back my
passport.  I went back to the end of the line, letting all of them go
through ahead of me, hoping they'd be gone by the time it was my
turn.

"NEXT!"

As the rest of the film crew went through customs, no one went on about
their business, running off to hop in the car as they normally would
have after a long trip.  No.  They waited, huddled around in a group
just beyond the customs booth, to see how I was going to get out of
this one.

Pull yourself together, Waris, girl.  You can do it.  I walked up and
handed the customs clerk my passport with a dazzling smile.  "Hello!" I
called out, then held my breath.  I knew better than to say one more
word, because then he'd find out my English was a joke.

"Nice day, isn't it?"

"Umm."  I nodded and smiled.  He handed me

my passport and I sailed by.  The James Bond crew stood there looking
at me in astonishment.  I wanted to collapse, exhale, and fall down on
the floor, but I flew past them too, knowing I wasn't safe until I got
out of the airport.  Just keep moving, Waris.  Get out of Heathrow
alive.



THE DOCTORS

While I was still living at the YMCA, I spent an afternoon in the pool
downstairs, swimming laps.  After I finished, I dressed in the locker
room, and was heading back upstairs when I heard someone calling my
name from the Y's little card.  It was a guy I knew who also lived in
the building.  His name was William and he motioned for me to come in.
"Waris, have a seat.  Would you like something to eat?"

William was eating a cheese sandwich, and I said, 'geah, I'll have one
of those, please."  My English was still pretty weak, but I could make
out the gist of what he was saying.  While we ate, he asked

me if I'd like to go to the movies.  This was not the first time he'd
asked me out.  William was young, handsome, white, and always very
sweet.  But as he talked, I stopped hearing what he was saying. Instead
I sat staring at him, watching his lips move, and my mind began running
like a computer:

Go to the movies with him

If only he knew about me

Oh, imagine what it would be like to have a boyfriend

It might be nice Someone to talk to Someone to love me

But if I go to the movies

He'll want to kiss me

Then he'll want to have sex

And if I agree

He'll find out I'm not like other girls I'm damaged Or if I disagree

He'll be angry and we'll have a fight

Don't go

It's not worth the heartache

Say no

If only he knew about me, he'd realize it has nothing to do with him.

I smiled and shook my head.  "No, thanks.  I have too much work."  The
hurt look that I knew would come, came, and I shrugged, saying to both
of us: There's nothing I can do.

This problem began when I moved to the Y. When I lived with my family,
I was normally never around strange men unchaperoned.  A man who came
to my parents, or Auntie Sahru's, or Uncle Mohammed's, would either
know our culture and not attempt to ask me on a date, or would be dealt
with by the family.  But since I left my uncle's house, I had been
alone.  And for the first time I was forced to cope with these
situations by myself.  The Y was a building chock-full of young, single
men.  Going to clubs with Halwu I met more men.  Modeling I met more
men still.

But I was interested in none of them.  The thought of having sex with a
man never crossed my mind, but unfortunately, after some of my awful
experiences, I knew it crossed theirs.  Although I've always wondered,
I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't been
circumcised. I like men and I'm a very emotional, loving person.  At
that time, it had been six years since I ran away from my father, and
the loneliness had been hard for me; I missed my family.  And

someday I hoped to have a husband and family of my own.  But as long
as I was sewn up, I was very much closed to the idea of a relationship,
shut away into myself.  It was as if the stitches prevented any man
from entering me physically or emotionally.

The other problem that prevented me from having a relationship with a
man came up when I realized I was different from other women,
particularly Englishwomen.  After I arrived in London, it gradually
dawned on me that not all girls had -had done to them what had been
done to me.  When I lived with my cousins at Uncle Mohammed's house,
sometimes I would be in the bathroom with the other girls.  I was
amazed when they peed quickly in a heavy stream, whereas it took me
about ten minutes to urinate.  The tiny hole the circumciser had left
me only permitted the urine to escape one drop at a time.  "Waris, why
do you pee like that what's wrong with you?"  I didn't want to tell
them because I assumed when they got back to Somalia they would be
circumcised, too, so I just laughed it off.

my periods were no laughing matter.  From the very beginning, when I
was around

eleven Or twelve years old, they were a nightmare.  They began one day
when I was alone out tending my sheep and goats.  The day was
unbearably hot, and I sat weakly under a tree, feeling even more
uncomfortable because my stomach hurt.  I wondered, What is this pain?
Maybe I'm pregnant?  Maybe I'm going to have a baby?  But I haven't
been with a man, so how can I be pregnant?  The pressure grew and grew,
and so did my fear.  About an hour later I went to pee and saw blood. 
I thought I was dying.

Leaving the animals grazing in the bush, I flew home, and ran to my
mother crying and screaming, "I'm dying!  Oh, Mama, I'm dying!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm bleeding, Mama I'm going to die!"

She stared at me hard.  "No, you're not going to die.  It's all right.
It's your period."  I had never heard of periods knew nothing about any
of it.

"Can you please explain this to me tell me what you're talking about?"
My mother explained the process as I writhed around in misery, holding
my abdomen.  "But how do I stop this pain?  Because, you know, it feels
like I'm dying!"

"Waris, you can't stop it.  You just have to let it go.  Wait until
it's ready to leave."

However, I wasn't prepared to accept that

solution.  Looking for something that would bring me relief, I went
back into the desert and started digging a hole under a tree.  The
motion felt good and gave me something to take my mind off my pain.  I
dug and dug with a stick until I had a spot deep enough to bury the
bottom half of my body.  Then I climbed in, packing the dirt in around
me; the underground hole was cooler, sort of like an ice pack, and I
would rest there during the heat of the day.

Digging a hole in the ground became the method I would use for coping
with my period each month.  Oddly enough, later I found out that my
sister Aman had done the same thing.  But this treatment had its
drawbacks.  One day my father came walking by and saw his daughter half
buried under a tree.  Viewed from a distance, I looked like I'd been
cut off at the waist and had been sat on the sand.  "What the hell are
you doing?"  On hearing his voice, I automatically tried to jump out of
the hole, but since the dirt was packed tightly around me, I didn't get
very far.  Struggling out, I clawed with my hands to get my legs free.
Papa started laughing hysterically.  I was too shy to explain why I did
it, and afterward he kept making jokes about it.  "If you want to bury
yourself alive, do it properly.  I mean, come on, what was

that halfway business?"  Later, he asked my mother about my strange
behavior.  He worried his daughter was turning into some kind of
burrowing animal a mole obsessed with tunneling underground but Mama
explained the situation.

However, as my mother had predicted, there was nothing I could do to
stop the pain.  Although I didn't understand it at the time, the
menstrual blood backed up in my body the same way the urine did.  But
since it was continuously flowing or trying to for several days, the
pressure of the blockage was excruciating.  The blood came out one drop
at a time; as a result, my periods usually lasted for at least ten
days.

This problem reached a crisis while I was living with my uncle
Mohammed.  Early one morning, I prepared his breakfast as usual.  Then
carrying the tray from the kitchen to the dining room table where he
waited, I suddenly blacked out, and the dishes crashed to the floor
around me.  Uncle ran to me and started slapping my face, trying to
bring me around.  I began to regain consciousness and, as if he were
far away, I heard him crying, "Maruim!  Maruim!  She's fainted!"

When I came to, Aunt Maruim asked me what was wrong, and I told her I'd
gotten my period that morning.  "Well, this is not right, we have to

take you to the doctor.  I'll make an appointment with my doctor this
afternoon."

I told Auntie's doctor that my periods were very bad, and whenever I
got them, I started passing out.  The pain paralyzed me, and I didn't
know what to do about it.  "Can you help me?  Please is there something
you can do?  Because I can't stand it anymore."  However, I didn't
mention to him that I'd been circumcised.  I didn't even know how to
begin a discussion of that topic.  Back then I was still a girl, and
all the issues associated with my physical condition were mixed with
ignorance, confusion, and shame.  And I wasn't sure my Circumcision was
the source of the problem, since I still thought what happened to me
happened to all girls.  My mother hadn't thought my pain unusual,
because all the women she had ever known had been circumcised, and they
all went through this agony.  It's considered part of the burden of
being a woman.

Since the doctor didn't examine me, he didn't find out my secret.  "The
only thing I can give you for pain is birth control pills.  That will
stop the pain because it will stop your periods."

Hallelujah!  I began taking the pills, even though I didn't really like
the idea.  I'd heard from my cousin Basma that they were bad for you.
But

within the month, the pain stopped and so did much of my bleeding.
Because the drug tricked my body into thinking it was pregnant, other
unexpected things happened also.  My breasts grew; my ass grew; my face
filled out, and my weight exploded.  These drastic changes in my body
seemed extremely weird and unnatural.  Deciding I'd rather deal with
the pain, I stopped taking the pills.  And deal with the pain I did,
because it all came right back again, fiercer than ever.

Later, I visited a second doctor to see if he could help.  But that
experience was a repeat of the first; he wanted to give me birth
control pills as well.  I explained that I had tried that option, but I
didn't like the side effects.  However, without the pills I couldn't
function for several days each month; I simply went to bed and wanted
to die so the suffering would stop.  Did he know of another solution?
The doctor said, "Well, what do you expect?  When women take birth
control pills, for the most part their periods stop.  When women have
periods, they have pain.  Take your pick."  When the third doctor
repeated this same advice, I realized I needed to do something besides
visit new doctors.

I said to Auntie, "Maybe I need to see a special kind of doctor?"

She looked at me sharply.  "No," she said emphatically.  "And by the
way what are you telling these men?"

"Nothing.  That I just want to stop the pain, that's all."  I knew the
unspoken message of her comment: circumcision is our African custom and
not something you discuss with these white men.

I began to understand, however, that this was exactly what I was going
to have to do.  Or suffer and live like an invalid for one third of
each month.  I also understood that this action would never be accepted
by my family.  My next step became clear: I would have to secretly go
back to the doctor, and tell him I'd been circumcised.  Perhaps then
one of them could help me.

I chose the first doctor, Dr.  Macrae, because he was located in a big
hospital and, I reasoned, would have the facilities if I needed
surgery.  When I called for an appointment, I had to wait a whole
agonizing month before I could get in.  When the day came, I made some
excuse to Auntie for my absence, and went to Dr.  Macrae's office.  I
said to him, "There's something I haven't told you.  I'm from Somalia
and I - I -' It was terrible for me to try to explain this horrible
secret in my broken English.  "I been circumcised."

He didn't even let me finish the sentence.  "Go get changed.  I want
to examine you."  He saw the look of terror on my face.  "It's okay."
He called in his nurse, and she showed me where to change, how to put
the gown on.

When we went back into the examining room, I really questioned what I'd
gotten myself into this time.  The thought that a girl from my country
would sit in this strange place, spread her legs, and let a white man
look in there.."  well, it was the most shameful thing I could imagine.
The doctor kept trying to get my knees apart.  "Relax.  It's all right
I'm a doctor.  The nurse is right here she's standing right there."  I
craned my neck around to look in the direction his finger was pointing.
She smiled reassuringly at me and I finally gave in.  I forced myself
to think about something else, pretend I wasn't here, but was back
walking in the desert with my goats on a beautiful day.

When he finished, he asked the nurse if there was someone in the
hospital who could speak Somali; she said yes, there was a Somali woman
working downstairs.  But when she came back, she brought a Somali man
instead, because she couldn't find the woman.  I thought, Oh, beautiful
Here's the rotten luck, to discuss this horrible business

using a Somali man to translate.  How much worse could it get?

Dr.  Macrae said, "Explain to her that she's closed up way too much I
don't even know how she's made it this far.  We need to operate on her
as soon as possible."  Right away, I could see the Somali man wasn't
happy.  He pursed his lips and glared at the doctor.  Between the fact
that I did understand some English, and the Somali man's attitude, I
sensed that something was not right.

He said to me, "Well, if you really want it, they can open you up."  I
just stared at him.  "But do you know this is against your culture?
Does your family know you're doing this?"

"No.  To tell you the truth, no."  "Who do you live with?"  "My aunt
and uncle."

"Do they know you're doing this?"

"NO."

"Well, the first thing I'd do is discuss it with them."  I nodded,
thinking: That's the response of a typical African man.  Thanks for
your good advice, brother.  That will put an end to the whole business.
Dr.  Macrae added that he couldn't do the operation right away; I'd
need to make an appointment.  I realized then that I couldn't do it,
because Auntie would find out.  "Yeah.  I'll do that I'll call for an

appointment."  Of course, over a year went by and I never called.

Immediately after my family returned to Somalia, I called and made an
appointment, but the soonest I could get was two months.  As the two
months ticked by, I remembered the horror of my circumcision.  I
thought the surgery would be a repeat of that process, and the more I
thought about it, I decided I couldn't go through that again.  When the
day came, I simply never went to the hospital and never called.

By this point I was living at the Y. The problems with my periods
hadn't decreased, but now I was having to earn my living outside the
home.  You couldn't just miss a week of work each month and hope to
keep a job.  I struggled along, but my friends at the Y saw I was in
bad shape.  Marilyn kept asking me what was wrong.  I explained to her
that I'd been circumcised as a girl in Somalia.

But Marilyn was raised in London, and she couldn't fathom what I was
talking about.  "Why don't you show me, Waris?  I really don't know
what you're talking about.  Did they cut you here?  This?  That?  What
did they do?"

Finally one day I pulled my pants down and showed her.  I'll never
forget the look on her face.

Tears poured down her cheeks as she turned away.  I felt so desperate,
because I thought: Oh, my God, is it really that bad?  The first words
out of her mouth were "Waris, do you feel anything?"  "What are you
talking about?"

She just shook her head.  "You know, do you remember how you looked
when you were a little girl?  Before they did this?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's how I am now.  You're not the same."  Now I knew for
sure.  No longer did I need to wonder or maybe even hope that all women
had been mutilated the way I had.  Now I knew for certain that I was
different.  I didn't wish my suffering on anyone else, but I didn't
want to be on my own.  "So this hasn't happened to you, to you and your
mother?"

She shook her head and began crying again.  "It's horrible, Waris.  I
can't believe that anybody would do this to you."

"Oh, come on, please don't make me feel sad."  "I feel sad.  Sad and
angry.  I'm crying in a way because I can't believe there are people in
the world who would do this to a little girl."

We sat there in silence for a few moments, and while Marilyn continued
to sob quietly I couldn't look at her.  Then I decided I'd had enough.
"Well, fuck it.  I'm going to have this surgery.  I'm going to call
this doctor tomorrow.  At least I can enjoy going to the bathroom.
That's all I can enjoy, but at least that much."

I'll go with you, Waris.  I'll be right there.  I promise."

Marilyn called the doctor's office and made the appointment for me;
this time I had to wait a month.  During that time, I kept saying,
"Girl, you sure you're coming with me?"

"Don't worry.  I'm coming.  I'll be right there."  When the morning
came for surgery, she got me up early and we went to the hospital.  The
nurse led me into the room.  Ah, there it was: the table.  When I saw
the operating table, I nearly turned around and ran out of the
building.  It was better than a rock in the bush, but I had little hope
the procedure would feel much better.  However, Dr.  Macrae gave me an
anesthetic for pain something I wished I'd had when the Killer Woman
butchered me.  Marilyn held my hand while I went to sleep.

When I woke up, they had moved me into a double room with a woman who
had just given birth.  This lady, along with all the people I'd meet

at lunchtime in the cafeteria, kept asking me, "So, what are you here
for?"

What could I say?  Confess, "Oh, I came to have surgery on my vagina.
My pussy was just way too tight!"  I never told anyone the truth.  I
said I had a stomach bug.  And even though my recovery process was
greatly improved over that of my circumcision, some of my worst
memories of that time were repeated.  Every time I had to pee, the same
old thing: salt and hot water.  But at least the nurses let me have a
bath and I'd soak in the hot water.  Ahhhh.  They gave me painkillers,
so it wasn't so bad, but I was really glad when it was over.

Dr.  Macrae did a fine job, and I've always been grateful to him.  He
told me, "You know, you're not alone.  Let me tell you, I have women
come in here with this same problem all the time.  A lot of women from
the Sudan, Egypt, Somalia.  Some of them are pregnant and they're
terrified because trying to give birth while they're sewn up is
dangerous.  There can be a lot of complications the baby can suffocate
trying to exit the tight opening, or the mother can bleed to death. So,
without the permission of their husbands or their family they come to
me, and I do my bit.  I do my best."

Within two or three weeks I was back to normal.  Well, not exactly
normal, but more like a woman who hadn't been circumcised.  Waris was a
new woman.  I could sit down on the toilet and pee whoosh There's no
way to explain what a new freedom that was.

PASSPORT DILEMMA

When I returned from my movie debut as a Bond Girl, I told the driver
to take me straight to Marilyn Monroe's house.  Like a coward, I hadn't
called my friend after I'd left for Morocco, but instead had decided to
let her cool off until I returned.  Standing on her stoop with a sack
full of presents, I nervously rang the bell.  She opened the front
door, grinned from ear to ear, then rushed forward to hug me.  "You did
it!  You crazy bitch, you did it!"  Marilyn forgave me for stealing the
fraudulent passport; she said she was so impressed that I had the guts
to pull the whole caper off that she couldn't stay mad.  But I agreed
never to put

either one of us through the danger of using her passport again,
especially after my torture passing through customs at Heathrow.

I was glad that Marilyn forgave me, because she was indeed a good
friend.  And once again, I had to call on that friendship.  When I
returned home to London, I thought my modeling career was just
beginning especially after the back-to-back successes' of working with
Terence Donovan and being in a James Bond movie.  But as if by magic,
my modeling career vanished overnight, disappearing as suddenly and
mysteriously as it had begun.  No more working at McDonald's for me,
but also no more living at the YMCA.  With no work, I couldn't afford
to keep my room there, and was forced to move into the house with
Marilyn and her mother.  This arrangement pleased me much more in many
ways living in a real home, and being part of their family.  I wound up
staying with them for seven months, and even though they didn't
complain, I knew I'd outstayed my welcome.  I got a few little modeling
jobs here and there, but still was not making enough money to support
myself.  I moved in with another friend, a Chinese man named Frankie,
who was a friend of my hairdresser.  Frankie owned a big house well, to
me it was big because it had

two bedrooms.  He generously offered to let me stay there while I
tried to get my career going.

In 1987, shortly after I moved in with Frankie, The Living Daylights
came out.  A couple of weeks later, another friend took me out on
Christmas Eve; everyone in London was celebrating, and caught up in the
mood, I came home very late.  As soon as my head touched the pillow, I
was asleep.  But a steady tapping on my bedroom window woke me. 
Looking outside I saw the friend who'd just dropped me off, holding a
newspaper.  He was trying to say something, but I couldn't understand
him, so I opened the window.

"Waris!  You're on the cover of The Sunday Times!"

"Oh..."  I rubbed my eyes.  "Honestly I am?"  "Yeah!  Take a look."  He
held up the paper and there was a three-quarter shot of my face filling
the whole cover.  It was larger than life-size, with my blond hair
ablaze and a determined look on my face.

"That's nice... I'm going back to bed now... sleep," and I stumbled to
my bed.  By noon, however, I'd realized the possibilities of that
publicity.  Surely being on the cover of The Sunday Times of London
would generate some action.  In the meantime, I hustled.  I ran all
over London going to

castings, pestered my booker, and finally switched modeling agencies,
but nothing improved.

My new agency said, "Well, Waris, there's simply not much of a market
for a black model in London.  You have to travel for jobs Paris, Milan,
New York."  I was all for traveling, except for the same old problem:
my passport dilemma.  The agency said they'd heard of an attorney,
Harold Wheeler, who had been able to help several immigrants with their
passports.  Why didn't I talk to him

I went to this Harold Wheeler's office and discovered that he wanted an
extortionate amount of money to help me two thousand pounds.  Still, I
reasoned, since I would be able to travel and work, I could make that
money back in no time.  As it stood now, I was quickly going nowhere. I
scraped together the money from every possible source, eventually
raising the two-thousand-pound fee.  But I was concerned about giving
him all my borrowed cash, then finding out he was a crook.

Making sure to leave my cash at home, I made my second appointment, and
took Marilyn with me for her opinion.  I rang the intercom and
Wheeler's secretary answered, then buzzed us into the building.  My
friend waited in the lobby while I met with Wheeler in his office.

I spoke bluntly: "Tell me the truth.  I just want to know if this
passport I'm getting is going to be worth two thousand pounds.  Am I
going to be able to travel all over the world legally?  I don't want to
wind up stranded in some godforsaken place and get deported.  And where
are you getting this thing from?"

"No, no, no, I'm afraid I can't talk about my sources.  You must leave
that to me.  If you want a passport, my dear, I can certainly get you a
passport.  And you have my word, it will be perfectly legal.  After we
begin the process it will take two weeks.  My secretary will give you a
ring when it's ready."  Great!  That means two weeks from now I can
just bugger off anyplace I like, anytime.

"Well, okay, that sounds good," I said.  "What do we do next?"  Wheeler
explained how I would marry an Irish national, and he just happened to
have such an individual in mind.  The two thousand pounds would go to
the Irishman in return for his services.  Wheeler would keep only a
small fee for himself.  He wrote down the date and time of my
appointment; I was to meet my new husband at the registry office, and
bring one hundred and fifty pounds in cash for additional expenses.

"You'll be meeting a Mr.  O'Sullivan," Wheeler advised in his proper
British accent.  He continued

to write as he talked.  "He is the gentleman you'll be marrying.  Oh,
and by the way congratulations."  He glanced up and gave me a slight
smile.

Later, I asked Marilyn if she thought I should trust this guy.  She
said, "Well, he has a nice office in a nice building in a nice
neighborhood.  He has his name on the door.  He has a professional
secretary.  He looks legitimate enough to me."

My trusted friend Marilyn also came with me as a witness on my wedding
day.  Waiting outside the registry office, we watched an old man with a
withered red face, unruly white hair, and ragged clothes zigzag down
the sidewalk.  We were laughing until he started up the registry steps.
Marilyn and I looked at each other in shock, then back at him.  "Are
you Mr.  O'Sullivan?"  I ventured.

"In the flesh.  That's me name."  He lowered his voice.  "Are you the
one?"  I nodded.  "You got the money, lass did you bring the money?"

"Yes."

"One hundred fifty quid?"

"Yes."

"Good girl.  Well, then, hurry up, hurry up.  Let's go.  Time's
a-wastin'."  My new husband

reeked of whiskey, and was obviously completely and thoroughly
soused.

As we followed him inside, I muttered to Marilyn, "Is he going to live
long enough for me to get my passport?"

The registrar began performing the ceremony, but I was having a hard
time concentrating.  I was constantly being distracted by Mr.
O'Sullivan weaving unsteadily on his feet; and sure enough, as the
registrar said, "Do you, Waris, take this man' he collapsed to the
floor with a heavy thud.  At first I thought he'd died till I realized
he was breathing heavily through his open mouth.  I knelt down and
started shaking him, yelling, "Mr.  O'Sullivan, wake up!"  But he
refused.

I rolled my eyes at Marilyn and cried, "Oh, great, my wedding day!" and
she fell against the wall laughing, holding her stomach.  "Just my
luck!  My dear husband-to-be passes out on me at the altar."  Presented
with such a ridiculous situation, I figured we might as well have some
fun, and I twisted it for all I could get.

The registrar put both hands on her knees and bent down to examine my
fiance, peering over the top of her tiny half glasses.  "Is he going to
be all right?"

I wanted to shout at her, "How the fuck should

I know?"  but realized that would be giving away the game.  "Wake up,
come on, WAKE UP!"  I had resorted to slapping his face fairly soundly
by now.  "Please somebody get me some water.  Somebody do something!" 
I pleaded with a laugh.  The registrar brought a cup of water and I
threw it in the old man's face.

"Ugh .. ."  He began snorting and grunting and finally his eyes
flickered open.  With some serious tugging and pushing we were able to
get him to his feet.

"My God, let's get on with it," I mumbled, worried that he'd keel over
again.  I held on to my beloved's arm with an iron grip until we
finished the ceremony.  Back on the sidewalk, Mr.  O'Sullivan asked for
the one hundred fifty pounds, and I got his address, just in case I had
any problems.  He lunged off down the street singing a little ditty
with the last of my money in his pocket.

One week later Harold Wheeler himself called to say my passport was
ready; I gleefully rushed down to his office to pick it up.  He handed
me the document: an Irish passport with a photograph of my black face
and the name Waris O'Sullivan.  I was no expert on passports, but it
looked a little weird.  No, it looked really weird.  Rinky-dink, as if
somebody had made it in the basement.  "This is

it?  I mean, this is a legal passport?  I can travel with this?"

"Oh, yes."  Wheeler nodded his head emphatically.  "Irish, you see.
It's an Irish passport."

"Ummm."  I turned it over and examined the back cover, flipped through
the pages.  "Well.  So long as it does the job, who cares how it
looks?"

I didn't wait long to put it to the test.  My agency set up bookings
for me in Paris and Milan and I applied for my travel visas.  But a
couple of days later, I received a letter.  When I glanced at the
return address, I felt ill.  The letter was from the immigration
office, saying they wanted to see me right away.  I considered all
kinds of wild options, but in the end I knew there was nothing to be
done, except go see them.  I also knew they had the power to deport me
immediately or send me to jail.  Good-bye, London.  Good-bye, Paris.
Goodbye, Milan.  Good-bye, modeling.  Hello, camels.

The day after I received the letter, I took the tube from Frankie's
house to the immigration office, and wandering through the huge
government building, I felt like I was walking into a tomb.  When I
found the right office, I was met by the most deadly serious faces I'd
ever seen.  "Sit

 here," ordered a stone-faced man.  They put me in a completely
isolated room and began asking me questions.  "What is your name?  What
was your name before you married?  Where are you from?  How did you get
this passport?  What was his name?  How much money did you pay?"  I
knew one little wrong answer and they would be putting handcuffs on old
Waris.  Meanwhile, the immigration officials were recording every word
I said.  So I trusted my instincts and didn't tell them much.  When I
needed to stall and think of an answer, I relied on my perfectly
natural talent, pretending to be confused by the language barrier.

Immigration kept my passport and told me that in order to get it back I
had to bring my husband in for an interview not what I was hoping to
hear.  In the end, though, I was able to get out of their office
without telling them about Harold Wheeler.  I figured to get my money
back from this thief before the government picked him up, or that would
be the end of my two thousand pounds.

I left immigration, marched straight to his swanky office, and rang the
intercom.  When his secretary answered, I said it was Waris Dirie to
see Mr.  Wheeler and it was urgent.  But surprisingly, Mr.  Wheeler was
not in, so she refused to open the

door.  Day after day I came to his office and called on the phone
screaming, but his loyal secretary protected the rat.  Playing private
detective, I hid outside his building all day long, waiting to pounce
on him when he walked by.  But he had disappeared.

In the meantime, I had to produce Mr.  O'Sullivan for the immigration
board.  His address was in Croydon, south London, an immigrant
neighborhood where a lot of Somalis live.  I took the train as far as I
could, then had to take a cab the rest of the way, because trains don't
go there.  Walking down the street alone, I kept looking over my
shoulder, really not happy to be there.  I found the address, a
broken-down tenement, and knocked on the door.  No answer.  I walked
around the side of the house and strained to look in the window, but
couldn't see anything.  Where could he be where would he go in the
daytime?  I wondered.  Ah the pub.  I started walking, and when I came
to the closest pub, I went inside and found Mr.  O'Sullivan sitting at
the bar.  "Remember me?"  I asked.  The old man looked over his
shoulder, then quickly resumed his position staring straight ahead at
the bottles of liquor behind the bar.  Think fast, Waris.  I had to
tell him the bad news, and beg him to come to immigration with me; I

knew he wouldn't go for it.  "Here's the story, Mr.  O'Sullivan.
Immigration took my passport away.  They want to talk to you, just ask
you a couple of quick questions before they'll give it back.  Make sure
we're really married, you know.  I can't find this damn attorney he's
disappeared, so I've got nobody to help me."  Still staring straight
ahead, he took a swig of whiskey and shook his head.  "Look, I gave you
two thousand pounds to help me get my passport!"

This got his attention.  He turned to stare at me, his mouth open in
amazement.  "You gave me one fifty, love.  I never had two thousand
pounds in me life, or I wouldn't be hanging around the likes of
Croydon."

"I gave Harold Wheeler two thousand pounds for you to marry me!"

"Well, he didn't give it to me.  If you're foolish enough to give that
man two thousand quid that's your problem not mine."  I kept begging,
pleading with him to help me, but he wasn't interested.  I promised I'd
take him in a cab, he wouldn't even have to take the train to the
immigration office.  But he wouldn't budge from his bar stool.

Searching for the right approach to motivate him, I offered, "Look,
I'll pay you.  I'll give you

more money.  After we visit immigration, we'll go to the pub, and you
can drink all you want."  This offer received skeptical interest, as he
turned to me and raised his eyebrows.  Push it home, Waris.  "Whiskey,
lots and lots of whiskeys, shots lined up all the way down the bar.
Okay?  I'll come to your house tomorrow, and we'll take a taxi to
London.  It will only take a few minutes, a couple of quick questions
and then we'll head straight for the pub.  Right?"  He nodded his head
and went back to staring at the bottles of spirits behind the
counter.

The next morning, I returned to Croydon and knocked on the old man's
door.  But there was no answer.  I walked down the deserted street to
the pub and went inside, but the only person there was the barkeep,
wearing a white apron and drinking a cup of coffee while he read the
paper.  "Have you seen Mr.  O'Sullivan today?"

He shook his head.  "Too early for him, love."  I walked quickly back
to the lying bum's house and pounded on the door.  Still no answer, so
I sat down on the front steps, which reeked of piss, and I put my hand
over my nose.  While I sat there trying to decide what to do next, two
tough-looking guys in their twenties walked up and stopped in front of
me.

"Who've you?"  one of them grunted at me.  "And why are ya sittin' on
me old man's stoop?"

"Oh, hi," I said pleasantly.  "I don't know if you know, but I'm
married to your father."

They both glared at me, and the bigger of the two shouted, "What!  What
the luck are ya talking about?"

"Look, you know, I'm in a complete mess and I need your father's help.
All I want is for him to come with me to this office in the city, and
answer a couple of questions.  They took my passport away, and I need
to get it back, so please .. ."  "Piss off, you fucking cunt!"

"Hey, look!  I gave that old man all my money," I said, pointing to his
front door, 'and I'm not leaving without him."  However, his son had
other ideas.  He jerked a club out of his coat and pulled it back
menacingly, like he was going to break my skull.

"Oh, yeah?  Well, we're going to luck you up.  We'll teach you to come
around here telling your lies' His brother laughed and grinned, and I
stared at his smile, missing a few teeth.  That was enough for me.  I
knew these guys had nothing to lose.  They could beat me to death right
here on the doorstep, and nobody would know or care.  I jumped up and
ran.  They chased me for a couple

of blocks; then, satisfied that they'd scared me away, they stopped.

But when I got home that day, I decided to go back to Croydon again,
and keep going back until I found the old man.  I had no other choice.
By this point, Frankie was not only letting me live with him without
paying rent, but he was buying my food, too.  Added to that, I was
borrowing money from my other friends for expenses, and that situation
couldn't go on much longer.  I'd thrown away all my money on that crook
posing as an immigration attorney, and without a passport, I couldn't
work.  So what did I have to lose?  A few teeth if I wasn't careful,
but I decided I had to be smarter than those punks, and that didn't
seem too difficult.

I went back the next afternoon and quietly circled the neighborhood,
making sure not to stop in front of the old man's house.  I found a
little park and sat down on a bench, and in a few minutes Mr.
O'Sullivan himself came strolling past.  For some unknown reason, he
was in a jolly mood and happy to see me.  He quickly agreed to get in a
taxi with me and head to London.  "You're going to pay me, yeah?"  I
nodded.  "And then you'll buy us a drink, lass?"

I'll buy you all the drinks you need when we're

finished.  But first you have to be a little bit normal when you talk
to these immigration people.  They're complete bastards, you know. 
Then afterwards we'll go to the pub .. ."

When we walked into immigration the agent took one look at Mr.
O'Sullivan and, with a very grim face, said, "This is your husband?"

"Yes."

"Okay, Mrs.  O'Sullivan, let's stop playing these games.  What's the
story?"  I sighed, realizing that there was no point going on with this
charade.  I poured my heart out, and told them the whole business,
about modeling, about Harold Wheeler, about my so-called marriage. They
were quite interested in Mr.  Wheeler; I provided all the information I
had about him, including his address.  "We'll contact you about your
passport in a few days after we finish our investigation." And that was
it; they dismissed us.

Now, out on the street, Mr.  O'Sullivan was raring to go to the pub.
"Okay, you want money?  Here..."  I reached in my bag, pulled out my
last twenty pounds and handed it to him.  "Now get out of my sight.  I
can't stand to look at you anymore."

"This is it?"  Mr.  O'Sullivan shook the note at me.  "This is all I
get?"  I turned and started walking down the street.  "WHORE!"  he
screamed.  He bent double at the waist.  "YA FUCKIN' WHORE!"  People
walking past on the sidewalk turned to stare at me.  They probably
wondered why, if I was the whore, I was paying him.

In a few days immigration called and requested I come back to their
office.  They said they were investigating Harold Wheeler, but so far
they hadn't learned much.  His secretary said he'd gone to India, and
it was unclear when he'd be returning.  However, in the meantime, they
gave me a temporary passport that was good for two months.  Here was my
first break in this whole ugly mess, and I vowed to make the most of
those two months.

I decided to travel to Italy first, since I spoke a little of the
language, having lived in a former Italian colony.  True, most of my
Italian consisted of Mama's cuss words but they might come in handy.  I
went to Milan and loved it, doing runway work in the fashion shows.
During this time I met another model, named Julie.  Julie was tall,
with blond shoulder-length hair and a great body; she did a lot of
lingerie work.  We had such a great time exploring Milan that when the
shows

finished there, we decided to move on and try our luck in Paris
together.

These two months were fabulous for me, traveling to new places, meeting
new people, eating new foods.  And even though I didn't make any
serious money, I still made enough to get by while I was touring
Europe.  Then, when the work ran out in Paris, Julie and I returned to
London together.

When we got back, I met an agent from New York, who had come to England
searching for new talent.  He urged me to come to the States, saying he
could get me lots of modeling jobs there.  Of course, I was anxious for
that, because everyone agreed that New York was the most lucrative
market of all, especially for a black model.  My agency made the
arrangements, and I applied for a visa to the States.

The American Embassy reviewed my papers, then immediately contacted the
British government.  The upshot of that communication was a letter
announcing I was being deported from England in thirty days and sent
back to Somalia.  In tears, I called my friend Julie, who was staying
with her brother in Wales.

"I'm in trouble big trouble.  It's over for me, girl.  I have to go
back to Somalia."

"Oh, no, Waris.  Well, why don't you come here for a few days and
relax?  You can take the train.  It's not too far from London, and it's
beautiful here.  It'll do you good to get out in the country for a
while, and maybe we can figure something out."

When I arrived, Julie picked me up at the station and drove through the
velvet green countryside to the house, we sat down in the living room
and her brother, Nigel, came in.  He was short and very pale, with long
fine red hair, and his front teeth and fingertips were stained with
nicotine.  He looked older than I expected, probably early fifties.  He
brought us tea on a tray, then sat there chain-smoking while I told my
nightmare story of the passport dilemma, and how it was all coming to a
sad end.

Leaning back in the chair with his arms folded, Nigel suddenly said,
"Don't worry, I'll help you."

Shocked at this statement from a guy I'd known only about thirty
minutes, I said, "How are you going to do that?  How are you gonna help
me?"  I'll marry you."

I shook my head.  "Oh, no.  No.  I've been through all that.  And
that's what got me into this mess.  I'm not going through that again.
Enough.  I can't deal with this shit.  I want to go back to Africa, be
happy; my family's there, and  everything I know.  I don't know
nothing about this crazy country.  Everything here is just madness and
confusion.  I'm going home."

Nigel jumped to his feet and ran upstairs.  When he came back, he was
holding up The Sunday Times with my picture on the cover which had come
out over a year ago, long before I ever knew Julie.  "What are you
doing with that?"

"I saved it because I knew one day I was going to meet you."  He
pointed at my eye in the photograph.  "The day I saw this picture, I
saw a tear here in your eye, water running down your cheek.  When I
looked at your face, I saw you crying and I knew you needed help.  Then
Allah told me Allah said it was my duty to save you."

Oh, shit.  I stared at him with my eyes open wide, thinking: Who is
this crazy motherfucker?  He's the one who needs help.  But during the
course of the weekend, both Nigel and Julie kept assuring me that if he
could help me, why not?  What future did I have back in Somalia?  What
was waiting for me there?  My goats and camels?  I asked Nigel the
question that kept coming to mind: "What's in it for you, man?  Why do
you want to marry me, and put yourself through all this?"

"I told you I don't want anything from you.  Allah sent me to you."  I
explained that marrying

me wasn't just a simple matter of hopping down to the registry office.
I was already married.

"Well, you can divorce him, and we'll tell the government blokes we're
planning to get married," Nigel reasoned, 'so they won't deport you.
I'll go with you.  I mean, I'm a British citizen they can't say no.
Look, I feel bad for you and I'm here to help.  I'll do whatever I
can."

"Well, thank you very much..."

Julie added, "Look, if he can help you, Waris, might as well.  You
might as well take a chance, because what else have you got.)' After
listening to them for days, I decided at least she was my friend, and
he was her brother.  I knew where he lived, and could trust him.  She
was right: might as well take a chance.

We concocted a plan where Nigel would come with me to talk to Mr.
O'Sullivan about a divorce, since I certainly didn't want to run into
his boys again alone.  I figured as usual with everything concerning
this old man he'd want some money before he'd consent to do anything. I
sighed; just thinking about it made me tired.  But my friend and her
brother kept urging me on, and I began to feel more optimistic about
the whole plan.  "Let's go," Nigel said.  "We'll drive down to Croydon
tomorrow."   The next day the two of us drove to the old man's
neighborhood, and I gave Nigel directions to the flat.  "Watch
yourself," I warned as we drove.  "These guys his sons are crazy.  I
mean, I'm scared to get out of the car."  Nigel laughed.  "I'm serious.
They chased me and tried to beat me they're mad, I tell you.  We've got
to be really careful."

"Come on, Waris.  We'll just tell the old guy you're getting a divorce.
And that's that.  It's no big deal."

By the time we reached Mr.  O'Sullivan's house, it was late afternoon
and we parked out front on the street.  As Nigel knocked on the door, I
constantly looked over my shoulder up and down the street.  No one
answered, but I wasn't surprised.  I figured we'd have to make another
trip to the corner pub.

Nigel said, "Come on, let's go around and look in the window, and see
if he's home."  Unlike me, he could look inside easily.  But after
walking to several windows without any success, he looked at me with a
confused expression on his face.  "I feel like something's wrong."  I
thought, Oh boy, now you're getting the picture.  I get that feeling
every time I have anything to do with this creep.

"What do you mean "something's wrong"?"

"I don't know .. . I just fed .. . maybe if I can get in through this
window' and with that statement he started pounding one of the windows
with the palm of his hand in order to open it.

The next-door neighbor came out and yelled, "If you're looking for Mr.
O'Sullivan, we haven't seen him for weeks."  As she stood there
watching us with her arms folded over her apron, Nigel banged the
window open a crack, and a horrid smell rushed out.  I covered my mouth
and nose with both hands and turned away.  Nigel put his eyes down to
the level of the crack and peered in.  "He's dead I can see him lying
there on the floor."

We told the neighbor lady to call an ambulance, jumped in the car, and
took off.  I hate to say it, but all I felt was relief.

Shortly after we discovered Mr.  O'Sullivan rotting in his kitchen,
Nigel and I were married.  The British government stopped proceedings
to deport me, but made no secret of the fact they thought our marriage
was a crock.  And, of course, it was.  Still, Nigel and I agreed that
until I got my passport, it would be best for me to stay at his place
in Wales.

After living first in Mogadishu, then London,

for seven years, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed nature.  And even
though the leafy-green countryside scattered with farmland and rivers
was completely different from the deserts of Somalia, I enjoyed
spending time outside again as opposed to being in high-rise buildings
and windowless studios.  In Wales I was able to resume some of my
favorite pleasures from my nomad days: running, walking, picking
wildflowers, and peeing outside.  Occasionally someone would catch me
with my ass poking out of the shrubbery.

Nigel and I had separate rooms and lived like roommates not husband and
wife.  We had made an agreement that he would marry me so that I could
get my passport, and although I offered to help him financially when I
started making money, he insisted he expected nothing in return.  Nigel
only wanted the joy received from following Allah's advice to help
another human being in need.  One morning I got up earlier than usual,
around six, because I was headed to London for a casting.  I came
downstairs and put the coffee on while Nigel remained asleep in his
room.  I had just pulled my yellow rubber gloves on and begun washing
the dishes when the doorbell rang.

Still wearing my gloves dripping soapsuds, I opened the door and found
two men standing

there.  They wore gray suits and serious gray faces,

and carried black briefcases.  "Mrs.  Richards?"  "Yes?"

"Is your husband here?"

"Yes, he's upstairs."

"Step out of the way, please.  We're here on official government
business."  As if anybody else would walk around looking like that.

"Well, come in, come in hey, you want a coffee or something?  Sit down,
and I'll get him."  They sat down in Nigel's big comfortable living
room chairs, but didn't permit their backs to rest against the
furniture. "Oh, darling," I called sweetly.  "Come downstairs, please. 
We have some visitors here."

He came down still half asleep, his red hair tangled.  "Hello."  Nigel
knew immediately by the way they looked who they were.  "Yes, can I
help you?"

"Well, yes, we'd just like to ask you a couple of questions.  First of
all, we want to make sure you and your wife live together.  Do you live
together?"

I could see from the look of pure disgust on Nigel's face that things
were going to get interesting and leaned up against the wall to watch.
He spat out, "Well, what does it look like to you now?"   The two
agents looked nervously around the room.  "Umm.  Yes, sir.  We believe
you, but we still need to have a look around the house."

Nigel's face grew dark, ominous, like a storm cloud.  "Look.  You're
not going through my house.  I don't care who you are.  This is my
wife, we live together, you see how it is.  You came in unannounced we
didn't dress up for you so get out of my house!"

"Mr.  Richards, you don't have to get so angry.  By law we're required
to '

"YOU MAKE ME SICK!!!"  Run, boys, run while you can.  Instead, they
just sat there glued to their chairs with looks of astonishment on
their pasty faces.  "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!  If you ever come around here
or call me again, I'm gonna get my gun, I'm gonna fuckin' shoot you,
and I'll I'll die for her," he said, pointing at me.

I just shook my head, thinking, This guy is crazy.  He is really,
really falling for me, and I'm in deep trouble.  What in the hell am I
doing here?  I should have gone back to Africa I would have been better
off After living there a couple of months, I was saying, "Nigel, why
don't you clean yourself up, get some decent shoes, and get a
girlfriend?  Let me help you."

And he would respond, "Girlfriend?  I don't

want a girlfriend.  For God's sake, I have a wife what would I want
with a girlfriend?"

When he would say this, I would go berserk.  "Go put your fucking head
in the toilet, you psycho, and flush it!  Man, wake up and get out of
my life!  I don't love you!  You and I made an agreement you wanted to
help me but I can't be what you want me to be.  I can't pretend I love
you just to make you happy."  But even though Nigel and I had made an
agreement, he broke it and made his own.  When he was screaming himself
purple at the agents who visited his house, he wasn't lying.  In his
mind, every word of it was true.  And things became even more
complicated because I depended on him, liked him as a friend, was
grateful to him for helping me, wanted no part of him romantically, and
seriously wanted to kill him when he started acting like I was his
beloved wife and personal property.  Quickly I realized I had to get
away, and the sooner the better.

But the passport dilemma dragged on.  As Nigel realized I was dependent
on him, the sense of power drove him to be more and more demanding.  He
became obsessed with me where I was, what I was doing, whom I was with.
He constantly pleaded for me to love him, and the more he begged, the
more I loathed him.  Sometimes I

would get jobs in London, or go to visit friends.  I took every chance
to get away from Nigel in an attempt to remain sane.

However, I was losing my ability to remain sane while I was living with
a man who I thought was insane.  I grew tired of waiting for my
passport my ticket to freedom and one day, heading to London, I stood
on the platform wanting desperately to throw myself in front of the
oncoming train.  In those few minutes, I listened to its roar, felt the
cold wind of its force blow my hair, and thought about what those tons
of steel would feel like as they crushed my bones.  The temptation to
end all my worries was strong, but finally I asked myself, Why waste my
life because of this man?

To his credit, after waiting for over a year, Nigel went to the
immigration office and created a spectacular scene that finally got
them to issue me a temporary passport.  He cried, "My wife is an
international model, and she needs at least a temporary passport so she
can travel for her career."  BAM!  He slammed my portfolio of modeling
shots down on the desk.  "I am a fucking British citizen, and for you
to treat my wife like this well, I'm appalled, I'm ashamed to say this
is my country.  I demand this be sorted out NOW!"  Shortly after his
visit, the government confiscated my old Somalian

passport, and sent me a temporary travel document that permitted me to
leave the country but had to be constantly renewed.  Stamped inside
were the words "Good for travel anywhere except Somalia."  They were
the most depressing words I could imagine.  Somalia was at war, and
England didn't want to take a chance on my visiting a nation at war
while I was under its care.  As a British resident, they would be
responsible for me.  As I read the words "Good for travel anywhere
except Somalia," I whispered, "Oh, my God, what have I done?  I can't
even go to my own country."  Now I was completely alien.

Had anyone told me what my options were, I would have said forget it,
give me back my Somalian passport.  But no one discussed it with me.
And now it was too late to go back.  Since I couldn't go back, there
was only one direction to go and that was forward.  I applied for a
visa to America, and booked a flight to New York alone.

\020THE BIG LEAGUE

Nigel kept insisting that he had to come to New York with me.  He'd
never been there before, yet he knew all about the city: "That place is
totally crazy.  And you, Waris you don't know what you're doing, where
you're going you'll be completely lost without me.  And it's not safe
for you to be there alone I'm going to protect you."  Yeah, but who was
going to protect me from Nigel?  One of his more endearing traits was
that in an argument, he would repeat his warped logic over and over and
over and over and over.."  like a crazy parrot, until he wore you down,
no matter what you said to him.  There was no reasoning

with him.  But I was not giving in this time.  I looked at this trip
as a big opportunity for my future, not only for my career, but as a
fresh start, away from Britain, away from Nigel and our whole sick
relationship.

In 1991, I arrived in the States alone, and the booker at my New York
agency gave me his apartment while he stayed at a friend's.  The
apartment was in the Village, right in the heart of everything exciting
in Manhattan.  There wasn't much in the studio except a big bed, but
that simplicity suited me fine.

My agency had lots of jobs lined up for me when I got there, and I
immediately began running in a way I never had before, and making money
in a way I never had before.  I worked every day that first week I
arrived.  After having struggled for four years to get work, I wasn't
complaining.

Everything was going great until one afternoon when I was on a shoot.
During a break, I called the agency to check on the next day's
appointments.  My booker said, "And your husband called.  He's on his
way and will meet you at the apartment tonight."

"My husband you gave him the address where I'm staying?"  "Uh-huh.  He
said you were so frantic before you

left, you forgot to give it to him.  Your husband was so cute, he
said, "I just want to make sure she's all right, because, you know,
it's her first time in New York."  I slammed down the receiver and
stood there for a minute breathing hard.  I couldn't believe it.  Yes,
I could, but still he had gone too far this time.  I didn't blame this
poor guy at the agency; he had no idea that Nigel wasn't a real
husband.  And how could I explain it to him?  See.  we're married and
everything, but I just married him for his passport because I was an
illegal alien then and they were deporting me to Somalia.  Got it? Now,
about those appointments for tomorrow-.  The scariest part was that I
really was legally married to him.

When I finished work, I came back to the apartment that evening, with
my mind made up.  As I'd been forewarned, Nigel arrived and knocked on
the door.  I let him in, and before he could take his jacket off, I
said in a deadly, no nonsense tone, "Come on, let's go.  I'll take you
out for dinner."  Once we were safely seated in public, I spelled it
out for him: "Look, Nigel, I can't stand you.  I can't stand you.  You
make me sick!  I can't work when you're around me.  I can't think.  I'm
frustrated.  I'm tense, and I just want you to go away."  I knew what I
was saying to him was horrible, and it gave me no pleasure to hurt

him.  But I was desperate.  Maybe if I was cruel enough, mean enough,
I could finally get through to him.

He looked so sad and pathetic that I felt guilty.  "Okay, you've made
your point.  I shouldn't have ' come.  I'll take the first flight home
tomorrow."

"Good!  Go!  I don't want to see you in that apartment when I get home
from the studio.  I'm working here this isn't a holiday.  I don't have
time for your craziness."  But when I got home the next evening, he
hadn't budged.  He was sitting there looking out the window of the dark
apartment listless, lonely, miserable but there all the same.  When I
started screaming, he agreed to go the next day.  And the next. Finally
he left and went back to Wales, and I thought: Thank you, God; finally
I can have some peace.  My stay in New York lengthened as the work
continued to pour in.  However, Nigel didn't permit me any peace for
long.  He flew back to New York again twice more, three times in all,
each time showing up unannounced.

In spite of the absurd situation with Nigel, everything else in my life
was heavenly.  I was having a great time meeting people in New York,
and my

career took off like a rocket.  I worked for Benetton and Levi's, and
appeared in a series of commercials for a jeweler, Pomellato, wearing
white African robes.  I did makeup ads for Revlon, then later
represented their new perfume, Ajee.  The commercial announced, "From
the heart of Africa comes a fragrance to capture the heart of every
woman."  These companies were utilizing the thing that made me
different my exotic African look, the same look that had kept me from
getting modeling jobs in London.  For the Academy Awards, Revlon filmed
a special commercial where I appeared with Cindy Crawford, Claudia
Schiffer, and Lauren Button.  In this spot, each of us kept asking and
answering the same question: "What makes a woman revolutionary?"  My
answer summed up the bizarre reality of my life: "A nomad from Somalia
becoming a Revlon model."

Later, I became the first black model ever to be featured in ads for
Oil of Ulay.  I made music videos for Robert Palmer and Meat Loaf.
These projects kept snowballing and soon I was in the big fashion
magazines: Elle, Allure, Glamour, Italian Vogue, French Vogue.  Along
the way, I got to work with the biggest photographers in the business,
including the legendary Richard

Avedon.  In spite of the fact that he's more famous than the models he
photographs, I loved Richard because he's so down-to-earth and funny.
And even though he's been doing this for decades, he would constantly
ask my opinion about shots: "Waris, what do you think about this?"  The
fact that he cared enough to ask meant a lot to me.  Richard joined my
first great photographer, Terence Donovan, as a man I respected.

Through the years, I've developed a list of favorite photographers.  It
sounds easy to have a job taking pictures all day, but after I became
more experienced, I started to see a huge difference in quality, at
least from my perspective of being the subject of those photographs.  A
great fashion photographer is one who is able to bring out the true
individuality of the model and enhance it, instead of imposing a
preconceived image on her.  Part of my appreciation may be that as I
get older, I appreciate more who I am and What makes me different from
the women I Constantly work with in the modeling business.  To be black
in this industry, where everybody's six feet tall and has silky hair
down to her knees and porcelain-white skin, is to be an exception.  And
I've worked with photographers who used lighting and makeup and hair
stylists to make me

look like something I wasn't.  But I didn't enjoy it, and I didn't
like the end result.  If you want Cindy Crawford, you should definitely
use Cindy, instead of taking a black woman and slapping a long wig and
a bunch of light foundation on her to make a weird, black Cindy
Crawford look alike.  The photographers I enjoyed working with
appreciated the natural beauty in women and tried to seek out that
beauty.  In my case, they no doubt had their work cut out for them, but
I respected the effort.

As my popularity grew, my commitments grew, and my schedule was packed
with castings, shows, and shoots.  All of it was very difficult for me
to keep track of, with my bias against wearing a watch.  I discovered
problems trying to tell time the old way; it was tough to observe the
length of my shadow amidst Manhattan skyscrapers.  I started to get in
a lot of trouble for showing up late for appointments.  I also
discovered that I was dyslexic when I kept showing up at the wrong
address.  My agency would write down the address for me, and I would
always reverse the numbers.  They'd give me an address, 725 Broadway,
and I'd show up at 527 Broadway wondering what happened to everybody. I
had done this in London, too, but since I was working so much more in

New York, I began to realize this was a constant problem.

As I became more experienced and confident in my career, my favorite
part of modeling emerged: the runway.  Twice a year, the designers hold
shows to announce their new line.  The circuit for the fashion shows
begins in Milan and lasts for two weeks.  Next it's on to Paris, then
London, then New York.  My nomad days prepared me well for this life:
traveling light, moving on when the work did, accepting what life had
to offer and making the most of it.

When the shows begin in Milan for the season, every woman and girl in
modeling heads there, along with every woman and girl who's ever
dreamed of becoming a model.  Suddenly the city is mobbed by extremely
tall mutant women, running everywhere like ants.  You will see them on
every street corner, at every bus stop, in every cafe models.  Oh,
there's one now.  There's another one.  Yes, there's one.  There's no
mistaking the look.  Some are friendly.  "Hi!"  Some just look each
other up and down.  "Um-hmmm."  Some know each other.  Some are
complete strangers, there for the first time all alone and scared to
death.  Some get along.  Some

don't.  There are all kinds, all types.  And anybody who says there's
no jealousy, well, that's complete bullshit.  There's plenty of that
going on, too.

The agency sets up your appointments, then the models run around Milan
going to castings, trying to secure a spot in the shows.  This is when
you realize that modeling is not all about glamour.  Hardly.  You might
have seven, ten, eleven appointments in a single day.  And it's very,
very hard work, because you're running around all day; you don't have
time to eat because you have one appointment and are late for two
others.  When you finally make it to your next casting, thirty girls
are lined up waiting.  And you know that every single one of them has
to go before you do.  When it's your turn, you show your book your
portfolio with your photographs.  If the client likes you, he'll ask
you to walk.  And if he really likes you, he'll ask you to try
something on.  Then that's it: "Thank you very much.  Next!"

You don't know if you made it or not, but you don't have time to worry
about it, because you're on to the next one.  If they're interested,
they contact your agency and book you.  Meanwhile, you better learn
quickly not to dwell on the job, or get upset about losing jobs you
really wanted, or feel hurt being rejected by your favorite
designers.

When you start thinking, Oh, did I get it?  Am I going to get it?  Why
didn't I get it?  you drive yourself absolutely crazy, especially when
you're turned down for assignments.  If you let it bother you, you'll
soon start falling to pieces.  Eventually you realize the whole casting
process is mostly about disappointment.  In the beginning, I used to
worry, Well, why didn't I get that one?  Damn, I really wanted that
job!  But I later learned to live by my motto with this business: C'est
la vie.  Well, shit, it just didn't work.  They didn't like you, simple
as that.  And it's not your fault.  If they were looking for somebody
seven feet tall with long blond hair who weighs eighty pounds, well,
they're not interested in Waris.  Just move on, girl.

If a client books you, you go back and do the fitting for the clothes
you'll wear in the show.  All this activity is going on, and we haven't
even gotten to the show yet.  You're getting run-down and exhausted,
and you haven't slept well, and you don't have time to eat right.
You're looking tired and skinny.  And then skinnier and skinnier, while
every day you're fighting to look your best, because your career
depends on it.  Then you're wondering, Why am I doing this?  Why am I
here?

When the fashion shows begin, sometimes  you're still doing castings
at the same time, because the whole process only lasts two weeks.  On
the day of the show, you have to be there about five hours before it
begins.  All the girls are packed in, you get your makeup done, then
you sit around, then you get your hair done, then you sit around
waiting for the show to start.  Next, you put your first outfit on,
then you stand around, because you can't sit down and wrinkle the
clothes!  And when the show starts, suddenly it's chaos complete
madness.  "Whoa!  Where are you?  What are you doing?  Where's Waris?
Where's Naomi?  Come here.  Come front hurry up.  You're number nine.
You're next."  You jerk your clothes on in front of all these strange
people you don't know.  "Ah, ah, I'm coming, yeah hold on." Everybody's
pushing everybody.  "What are you doing?  Get out of my way I'm on!"

And then, after all that hard work is the best little bit: you're on.
You're next, standing off stage.  Then BOOM!  You walk out on the
runway, and the lights are blazing, and the music's blasting, and
everybody's staring, and you're sashaying down the walk for all you're
worth, thinking, I AN IT.  ALL OF YOU LOOK AT ME You've had your hair
and makeup done by the best in the business, and you're wearing an
outfit that's so

expensive you could never dream of buying it.  But for a few seconds
it's yours, and you know you look like a million bucks.  The rush
shoots through you, and when you leave the runway, you can't wait to
change and get back out there again.  After all that preparation, the
whole show lasts only twenty or thirty minutes, but you may do three,
four, five shows in a day, so you have to tear out and head to your
next one as soon as you're finished.

When the two weeks of insanity is finished in Milan, the colony of
designers, makeup artists, hairstylists, and models moves on to Paris
like a band of gypsies.  Then the whole process repeats itself, before
they go on to London and New York.  By the end of the circuit, you're
barely hanging on, and when you finish in New York, you better take
some time off.  You're ready to go to some little island somewhere with
no telephones to try and relax.  Otherwise, if you don't, if you try to
keep working, you'll go absolutely mental from being worn out.

While modeling is fun and I admit to loving the glamour and glitter and
beauty of it there's a cruel side that can be devastating for a woman,
especially a young one, who's insecure.  I've gone for jobs and had the
stylist or photographer

exclaim in horror: "My God!  What is wrong with your feet!  Why do you
have those ugly black marks all over them?"  What can I say.) They're
referring to the scars caused by stepping on hundreds of thorns and
rocks in the Somalian desert; a reminder of my childhood, when I walked
for fourteen years with no shoes.  How can I explain that to a designer
in Paris?

When they'd ask me to try on a miniskirt at a casting, I'd immediately
feel sick.  I'd walk out and stand on one foot, twisting around, hoping
they wouldn't notice my problem.  I've got bowlegs the legacy of
growing up in a nomadic family without proper nutrition.  And I've been
fired from jobs because of these bowlegs, a physical ailment I had no
control over.

I used to be so ashamed, so hurt, because of my legs that I once went
to a doctor to see if he could fix them.  "Break nay legs," I ordered
him, 'so I won't have to feel humiliated anymore."  But thank God, he
said I was too old, the bones were already set, and it wouldn't work.
As I got older, I thought, Well, these are my legs, and they're a
result of who I am and where I'm from.  And as I got to know my body
better, I came to love my legs.  If I had broken them so that I could
do some runway show for five minutes, I would be very, very

angry with myself today.  I would have broken my limbs for what so I
could make some guy's clothes look good?  Now I'm proud of these legs
because they have history; they're part of the history of my life.  My
bowlegs carried me thousands of miles across the desert and my slow,
undulating walk is the walk of an African woman; it speaks of my
heritage.

Another problem with modeling is that the fashion business, like any
other industry, has its share of unpleasant people.  Maybe because so
much is at stake in some of the decisions, people let the stress get to
them.  But I remember working with a particular art director at one of
the major fashion magazines, who for me epitomized the bitter, bitchy
attitude that made a photo shoot feel like a funeral.  We were in the
Caribbean, shooting on a beautiful little island.  This place was like
paradise, and all of us should have been having a great time, since we
were getting paid to work in a setting most people would pay dearly to
visit for a holiday.  But not this woman.  From the minute we arrived
she was on my back.  "Waris, you really need to get yourself together.
You need to get up and get moving you're just lazy.  I can't stand
working with people like you."  She called the agency back in New York
and complained that I

was just a moron and refused to do any work.  They were quite
mystified, but no more so than I was.

This art director was a heartbreakingly sad woman.  She was obviously
frustrated, she didn't have a man, no friends, nobody to love.  And all
her life, love, and passion were poured into this business because she
had nothing else going for her.  So she took all her frustration out on
me, and I'm sure I wasn't the first one or the last.  After a few days
of this, however, I lost my sympathy for her.  I looked at her and I
thought, There are things I can do to this one: I can slap her across
the face, or I can just look at her and smile and say nothing.  And I
thought, It's best to say nothing.

The saddest thing is to see a woman like this art director get hold of
young girls who've just starting out in the business.  Sometimes these
girls, who are no more than children, leave Oklahoma or Georgia or
North Dakota and fly to New York or France or Italy alone and try to
make it.  Often they don't know the country or the language.  They're
naive and get taken advantage of.  They can't deal with the rejection
and fall apart.  They don't have the experience or wisdom or inner
strength to realize the fault doesn't lie with them.  Many wind up
coming back home sobbing, broken and bitter.

Crooks and con artists also abound in this business.  Many young girls
want desperately to be models, and they fall into these scams where a
so called agency charges them a fortune to put a portfolio together.
Having been a victim of this type of thief when I met up with Harold
Wheeler, this outrages me.  Modeling is about making money, not paying
money.  If a person wants to be a model, the only money she needs is
bus fare to visit the agencies.  She can look in the Yellow Pages, call
up, and make an appointment for a visit.  And if the agency starts
talking about fees she should run!  If a legitimate agency thinks
someone has the right look, the look for the times, they'll help her
put together a book.  And then, they'll book her appointments and
castings, and she's working.

If some of the people in modeling are unpleasant, some of the
conditions are not always the best either.  I accepted one project that
I knew involved a bull, but until I had flown from New York to Los
Angeles, then taken a helicopter into the desert, I didn't know exactly
how much bull.

We were completely isolated in the California desert, just me, the
crew, and a monstrous black

bull with long pointy horns.  I went into the little trailer and had
my hair and makeup done.  When I finished, the photographer led me
outside to this animal.  "Say hello to Satan," he said.

"Ohhh, hello, Satan."  I loved him.  "He's beautiful.  Fantastic.  But,
is he safe?"

"Oh, yeah, of course.  This is the owner."  The photographer pointed at
a man holding Satan's lead.  "He knows what to do."  The photographer
explained the project to me.  The shot would appear on a liquor bottle
label.  I would be sitting on top of the bull.  Naked.  This news was a
big shock indeed, because I'd had no idea about any of this before I
arrived.  But I didn't want to make a big fuss in front of all these
people, so I figured I might as well get it over with.

I felt sorry for the bull because it was miserably hot in the desert,
and his nose was dripping.  All his feet were manacled in position so
he couldn't move, and this huge beast stood there humbly.  The
photographer put his hands down to act as a step to boost me up on the
bull's back.  "Lie down," he commanded, waving his arm.  "Stretch out
across the bull put your upper body down across the bull and stretch
your legs out."  The whole time I was trying to look beautiful and
relaxed and playful and sexy, I was thinking: If this thing

bucks me off I'm dead.  Suddenly I felt his furry back flex beneath my
naked belly, and I saw the landscape of the Mojave fly by as I sailed
through the air and hit the baked dirt with a thud.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah."  I was playing tough now, trying not to act shook up.  I
didn't want anybody to call Waris Dirie a coward- afraid of an old
bull.  "Yeah, let's go.  Help me back on top again."  The crew picked
me up and dusted me off, and we started again.  Evidently the bull was
not enjoying the heat, because he bucked me off twice more.  On the
third landing I sprained my ankle, which began to swell and throb
immediately.  "Well, did you get the shot?"  I called from the
ground.

"Oh, it would be beautiful if we could get one more roll..."

Fortunately, that bull shot never appeared.  For some reason they never
used it, and I was glad.  The thought of a bunch of old men sitting
around drinking liquor and looking at my naked butt was very sad. After
this project, I decided not to do any more nude shots, because I simply
didn't like it.  The money was not worth the feeling of being
vulnerable, standing there in front of people

feeling completely awkward and helpless, waiting for a break when I
could run grab my towel.

Although the bull job was probably my worst, most of the time when I'm
modeling, I love it; it's the most fun career anybody could ask for.  I
could never get used to the idea, from the time Terence Donovan took me
to Bath and stood me in front of a camera, that anybody would pay me
simply for the way I looked.  I never really thought that I'd be able
to make a living from something that seemed so little like work.
Instead the whole business just seemed like a silly game to me, but I'm
glad I stuck it out.  I've always felt grateful that I got the
opportunity to succeed in this business, because not every girl can get
that break.  Sadly, so many young girls try so hard, and often it just
doesn't work out.

I remember when I was young, working as Uncle Mohammed's maid, and
dreaming of being a model.  And that night I finally worked up the
courage to ask Iman how to get started.  Ten years later, I was working
on a Revlon shoot in a New York studio when the makeup artist came in
and said Iman was next door photographing her new line of cosmetics.  I
rushed out and went to see her.  "Oh, I see now you're doing your own
product line.  Why didn't you use me, a Somali

woman, to pose in the ads for your makeup?"  I asked.

She looked at me defensively and mumbled, "Well, I can't afford you."

I said to her in Somali, "I would have done it for you for free."
Funny, she has never realized that I'm the same little girl, the maid,
who used to bring her tea.

The odd fact is that I never went in search of modeling, it came to me;
maybe that's why I never took it too seriously.  The thrill didn't lie
in being a 'super model' or a 'star," because I still can't understand
why models have become so famous.  Each day, I watch the whole fashion
scene become more and more frantic with magazines and TV shows about
supermodels, and I wonder: What is it all about?

Simply because we're models, some people treat us like goddesses and
some people treat us like idiots.  I've run into this last attitude
plenty of times.  It's as if because I make my living with my face, I
must be stupid.  With a smug expression, people say, "You're a model?
Oh, too bad no brains at all.  All you have to do is just stand there
and look pretty for the camera."

However, I've met all types of models, and yes, I've met some who were
not very bright.  But the majority are intelligent, sophisticated, well
traveled, and as knowledgeable about most subjects as any other worldly
person.  They know how to handle themselves and their business, and act
completely professional.  For people like that insecure bitchy art
director, it's tough to handle the fact that some women can be
beautiful and smart.  So there's a need to put us in our place by
talking down to us, as if we're just a flock of gawky dimpled
dimwits.

I find the moral issues surrounding modeling and advertising incredibly
complicated.  I believe the most important priorities in the world are
nature, personal goodness, family, and friendship.  Yet I make my
living by saying, "Buy this because it looks beautiful."  I'm selling
stuff with a big smile.  I could be cynical about it all and say, "Why
am I doing this?  I'm helping destroy the world."  But I believe almost
anybody in any career could say that about their work at some point.
The good that comes from what I do is that I've met beautiful people
and seen beautiful places ad experienced different cultures that have
made me want to do something to help the world instead of destroy it.
And instead of being another poverty stricken Somali, I'm in a
position to do something about it.

Instead of wanting to be a star or celebrity, I've enjoyed modeling
mostly because I felt like a citizen of the world, and was able to
travel to some of the most phenomenal places on the planet.  Many times
when I was traveling for work, we'd go to some beautiful island and I
would escape to the beach every chance I got and just run.  It felt so
wonderful to be free in nature, back in the sun again.  Then I would
sneak off into the trees and sit quietly and just listen to the birds
singing.  Ahhh.  I would close my eyes, smell the sweetness of the
flowers, feel the sun on my face, listen to the birds, and pretend I
was back in Africa.  I would try to recapture that feeling of peace and
tranquillity I remember from Somalia, and pretend I was back home
again.

\020BACK TO SOMALIA

In 1995, after a long stretch of photo shoots and fashion shows, I
escaped to Trinidad to relax.  It was Carnival time and everyone was in
costume, dancing and rejoicing, reveling in the sheer joy of life.  I
was staying at the home of a family I knew; I'd been there a couple of
days when a man came to their door.  The matriarch of the family, an
elderly woman we called Auntie Monica, went to answer the door.  It was
late afternoon, and the sun was hot outside, but the room where we sat
was cool and shady.  The man standing at the door was in silhouette
against the bright light; I couldn't see him, but I heard him say he
was looking for

somebody named Waris.  Then Auntie Monica called, "Waris, you have a
phone call."

"Phone call?  Where is the phone?"

"You have to go with this man.  He'll take you there."

I followed him back to his place.  He was a neighbor of Auntie Monica's
who lived a few doors away and was the only person in the area with a
telephone.  We walked through his living room to the hall where he
pointed to a receiver lying off the hook.  "Hello?"  It was my agency
in London.

"Oh, hello, Waris.  Sorry to trouble you, but we've been contacted by
the BBC.  They say it's urgent you get in touch with them right away.
They want to talk to you about making a documentary."

"Documentary about what?"

"About being a super model, and where you came from and, you know, how
does it feel living your new life."

"That's not a story.  I mean, for goodness sake, can't they find
something better?"

"Well, anyway, you talk to them about it.  What time should I tell them
you'll call?"

"Look, I don't want to talk to anybody."

"But they really want to talk to you right away."

"Hey, whatever.  Just tell them I'll talk to them when I get to
London.  I have to go back to New York when I leave here, then fly to
London.  I'll call them when I get there."

"All right, then.  I'll tell them."

But the next day, while I was out carousing around town, the man came
back to Auntie Monica's again, saying there was another phone call for
Waris.  I completely ignored this news.  Again, the next day, another
phone call.  This time I went back with the gentleman, because
obviously they were going to wear him out running over to get me.  Of
course, it was my agency again.  "Yeah, what is it?"

"Yes, Waris, it's the BBC again.  They say it's very urgent they talk
to you; they're going to call you tomorrow at this same time."

"Look, it's my break time, okay?  No way I'm talking to anybody.  I've
escaped from all that, so leave me alone and quit bothering this poor
man."

"They just want to ask you a couple of questions."

I sighed.  "For God's sake.  All right.  Tell them to call me tomorrow
at this number."  The next day I spoke with the director, Gerry
Pomeroy, who makes films for the BBC.  He asked me questions about my
life.

I replied curtly, "First of all, I don't want to talk about this now.
I'm supposed to be here on holiday.  You know?  Can't we talk another
time?"

"I'm sorry, but we have to make a decision, and I need some
information."  So I stood in a stranger's hallway in Trinidad, telling
the story of my life to a stranger in London.  "Okay, great, Waris.
We'll get back to you."

Two days later the man came to Auntie Monica's again.  "Phone call for
Waris."  I shrugged at him, shook my head, and followed him down the
street.  It was Gerry from the BBC.  "Yes, Waris, we really want to do
a documentary of your life.  It will be a half-hour episode for a show
called The Day That Changed My Life."

In the meantime, between the first phone call from my agency and the
second call from the BBC, I'd been thinking about all this documentary
business.  "Well, listen, uh, Gerry I'll make a deal with you.  I'll do
this with you guys if you take me back to Somalia and help me find my
mother."  He agreed, thinking my return to Africa would make a good
conclusion to the story.  Gerry told me to call him as soon as I got
back to London; then we'd sit down and plan the whole project:

Returning with the BBC would be the first

opportunity I'd had to go home since I left Mogadishu, because of my
myriad passport problems, tribal wars in Somalia, and my inability to
locate my family.  Even if I'd been able to fly to Mogadishu, it wasn't
exactly as if I could call my mother and tell her to meet me at the
airport.  From the moment the BBC promised to take me, I could think of
nothing else.  I had numerous meetings with Gerry and his assistant,
Colm, to plan the project and elaborate on the story of my life.

We started filming in London right away.  I returned to all my old
haunts starting with Uncle Mohammed's house the Somalian ambassador's
residence which the BBC got permission to enter.  They filmed All Souls
Church School, where I was discovered by Malcolm Fairchild.  Later they
interviewed him on camera, asking why he was so interested in
photographing an unknown servant.  The crew filmed me doing a photo
shoot with Terence Donovan.  They interviewed my good friend Sarah
Doukas, the director of Storm, a London modeling agency.

The heat on the whole project was turned up considerably when the BBC
decided to follow me on a gig hosting Soul Train, a TV program that
features the best in black music.  I had never done

a project like this before and was a complete nervous wreck.  Added to
that was the problem that when we got to L.A."  I had a terrible cold
and could barely talk.  And the whole time I was traveling from London
to Los Angeles, blowing my nose, reading my script, getting ready for
the show, riding in the limo, I was being filmed by my constant
shadows: the BBC film crew.  The insanity was multiplied when we went
to the studio and the BBC documentary crew was filming the Soul Train
crew filming me.  And if there was ever an act that I didn't want to
have documented, this had to be the one.  I'm sure I was the worst host
in the history of Soul Train, but Don Cornelius and the production crew
were so patient with me.  We started at ten in the morning and worked
till nine that night.  I think it was their longest day ever.  My old
difficulty with reading still plagued me, as it had in my James Bond
film debut.  Although my skill was much improved, I still struggled
reading aloud.  And trying to read from cue cards in front of two film
crews, dozens of dancers, and a handful of internationally famous
singers, while lights blazed in my eyes, was more of a challenge than I
was up for.  They were Screaming, "Take twenty-six Cut!"  "Take
Seventy-six .. . Cut!"  The music would start

playing, dancers would start dancing, and everybody would start
filming, then I'd bungle my lines: "Take ninety-six .  Cut!"  The
dancers would freeze, then let their arms flop down to their sides and
glare at me as if saying, "Who is this stupid bitch?  Oh, God, where
did you find her?  We just want to go home."

My host's duties included welcoming Donna Summer, which was a big honor
for me, because she's one of my all-time favorite singers.  "Ladies and
gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome the lady of soul,
Donna Summer!"

"CUT'

"WHAT NOW?"

"You forgot to say her label.  Read the cue card, Waris."

"Ohhhh, Fucking-A!  Will you pick this shit up, pick it up?  I can't
see it.  And don't put it down.  Put it up straight these lights are
right in my eyes.  I can't see a thing."

Don Cornelius would take me into the corner and say, "Take a deep
breath.  Tell me how you're feeling."  I explained to him that this
script just wasn't working for me it wasn't my groove the way I
speak.

"How do you want to do it?  Go ahead.  Take over take it all."  They
were amazingly patient and

calm.  Don and the crew let me take over and make a mess out of
everything, then helped me fix it up again.  The best part of that
whole experience was working with them and Donna Summer, who gave me an
autographed CD of her greatest hits.

Then the BBC and I moved on to New York.  They followed me out to do a
job on location where I was being photographed in the rain, walking up
and down the streets of Manhattan wearing a black slip and a raincoat
and holding an umbrella.  On another night, the cameraman sat quietly
in the corner filming while I cooked dinner with a group of friends at
an apartment in Harlem.  We were having such a good time that we forgot
he was there.

The next phase required me and the whole crew to meet in London and fly
to Africa, where I would reunite with my family for the first time
since I'd run away.  While we were filming in London, Los Angeles, and
New York, the BBC staff in Africa began searching diligently for my
mother.  In order to locate my family, we went over maps, and I tried
to show them the regions where we Usually traveled.  Next, I had to go
over all the

tribal and clan names of my family, which is very confusing,
especially for Westerners.  For the past three months the BBC had been
searching without success.

The plan was that I would remain in New York working until the BBC
found Mama, then I'd fly to London, and we'd all go to Africa together
and film the conclusion of my story.  Shortly after the BBC began
looking for Mama, Gerry called one day and said, "We found your
mother."

"Oh, wonderful!"

"Well, we think we found her."

I said, "What do you mean "you think" ?"  "Okay, we found this woman,
and we asked her if she had a daughter named Waris.  She said, yes,
yes, she has a daughter named Waris.  Yes, Waris lives in London.  But
she seems awfully vague on the details, so our people in Somalia aren't
sure what's going on if this woman is the mother of another Waris or
what."  After further questioning, the BBC disqualified this woman, but
the search was just beginning.  Suddenly the desert was alive with
women claiming to be my mother; they all had daughters named Waris who
lived in London, which was especially odd, considering I have never met
another human being with my name.

I explained what was going on.  "See, these people are so poor over
there, they're desperate.

They're hoping if they say "Yeah, we're her family"

you'll come to their little village and make a film, they can get some
money, get some food.  These women are pretending to be my mother, ping
they'll get something out of it.  [ don't know how they think they're
gonna get away with it, but they'll try."

Unfortunately, I had no pictures of my mother, but Gerry came up with
another idea.  "We need some kind of secret that only your mother would
know about you."

Well, my mother used to have a nickname for me, Avdohol, which means
small mouth."  "Will she remember that?"  "Absolutely."

From then on, Avdohol became the secret password.  When the BBC was
interviewing, these women would make it through the first couple of
questions; then they'd always flunk out on the nickname.  Bye-bye.  But
finally one day they called me and said, "We think we've found her.
This woman didn't remember the nickname, but she said she has a
daughter named Waris who used to work for the ambassador in London."

I hopped a flight out of New York the next day.

man.  We're almost at the end of this project; you can't do this to
us.  We need this story to end in Africa, which means we've got to take
Waris there.  Now, for God's sake, please..."  But Nigel wasn't
interested.  He went back to Wales with my passport.

I made the trip to Wales alone and begged him.  Again and again, he
refused to give it to me unless he got to go to Africa with us.  It was
a hopeless bind for me.  I'd prayed for the chance to see my mother
again for fifteen years.  With Nigel there, the whole experience would
be ruined.  No doubt about it he'd make sure of that.  If I didn't take
him, I had no chance of seeing her, because I couldn't travel without
my passport.  "Nigel, you can't be following us around and making a
bloody headache for everybody.  Don't you see it's my chance to see my
mother for the first time in fifteen years!"

He was so bitter that we were going to Africa and it had nothing to do
with him.  "I swear, you're just being so fucking unfair!"  he cried.
Finally, in the end, I convinced him to give me my passport by
promising I'd take him to Africa some day, when this job was done just
the two of us.  It was a cheap trick, and I wasn't proud of it, because
that was a promise I knew I'd never keep.  But

when it came to Nigel, being a decent, reasonable adult never
worked.

twin-engine bush plane landed in Galadi, Ethiopia, a tiny village where
Somali refugees had gathered across the border to escape the fighting
at home.  As we hit the red desert soil strewn with rocks, the plane
bounced wildly.  You must have been able to see the trail of dust for
miles, because the entire village ran toward us.  They'd never seen
anything like this before.  The BBC crew and I all climbed out of the
plane, and I began trying to speak Somali to the people hurrying to
meet us.  I was struggling to communicate with them, because some were
Ethiopians and some were Somalis, but they spoke a different dialect.
Within a few minutes I gave up.

I smelled the hot air and the sand and suddenly I remembered my lost
childhood.  Every little thing came flooding back to me and I began to
run.  The crew was yelling, "Waris, where are you going?"

"Go on... go wherever you have to go .. . I'll be back."  I ran and
touched the ground and rubbed the earth between my fingers.  I touched
the trees.  They were dusty and dry, but I knew it

was time for the rains soon, then everything would blossom.  I sucked
the air into my lungs.  It held the scents of my childhood memories,
all those years when I lived outside and these desert plants and this
red sand were my home.  Oh, God, this was my place.  I started to cry
with the joy of being back home.  I sat down under a tree and felt at
the same time overwhelming happiness that I was back where I belonged,
and deep sadness that I missed it so much.  Looking around me, I
wondered how I could have stayed away so long.  It was like opening a
door that I hadn't dared open before today, and finding a part of me
that I'd forgotten.  When I walked back to the village, everyone
gathered around me, shaking my hand.  "Welcome, sister."

Then we found out that nothing was what we expected.  The woman who'd
claimed to be my mother was not, and nobody knew how to find my family.
The guys from the BBC were despondent; they didn't have the money in
their budget to come back a second time.  Gerry kept saying, "Oh, no,
without this portion, there's no ending.  And without this ending,
there's no real story to the whole film.  It's all wasted.  What are we
going to do?"

We combed the village, asking everybody if

they'd heard of my family, or had any information about them.  People
were all anxious to help, and word of our mission spread quickly. Later
that day, an older man walked up to me and said, "Do you remember
me?"

"Well, I'm Is mail; I'm the same tribe as your father.  I'm a very
close friend of his."  And then I realized who he was and felt ashamed
for not recognizing him, but I hadn't seen him since I was a little
girl. "I think I know where your family is.  I think I can find your
mother, but I'll need money for gas."  Right away, I thought, Oh, no. 
How can I trust this guy?  Are all these people trying to con us?  If I
give this guy some money, he's just going to bugger off and we'll
probably never see him again.  He went on, "I have this truck here, but
it's not much..."

Is mail pointed to a pickup truck the type you'd never see anyplace but
Africa or a junkyard in America.  On the passenger's side the
windshield was shattered; on the driver's side it was missing
altogether.  This meant that all the sand and flies in the desert would
come sailing into his face as he drove.  The wheels were warped and
dented from driving over rocks.  The body looked like someone had taken
a sledgehammer to it.  I

shook my head.  "Hold on a minute, let me talk to the guys."

I went to find Gerry and said, "This man over here thinks he knows
where my family is.  But he says he needs some money for gas to go look
for them."

"Well, how are we going to trust him?"

"You're right, but we have to take a chance.  We have no choice."  They
agreed and gave him some cash.  The man hopped in his truck and took
off immediately, raising a cloud of dust.  I saw Gerry staring after
him with a depressed look on his face, as if to say, "There went more
money wasted."

I patted him on the back and said, "Don't worry.  We're going to find
my mother I promise you.  By the third day."  My prophecy did little to
ease the crew's minds.  We had eight days here before the plane would
come back to pick us up.  And that was it.  We couldn't say to the
pilots, "Uh, yeah, we're not quite ready, try us again next week."  Our
tickets were scheduled for return from Addis Ababa to London; we would
have to leave, and that would be the end of it, Mama or no Mama.

I had a good time hanging out with the villagers in their huts, sharing
their food, but the English guys did not fare so well.  They found a

building with busted-out windows to sleep in,

and rolled out their sleeping bags.  They had brought some books and a
flashlight, but they couldn't sleep at night because the mosquitoes
drove them crazy.  The BBC crew was living on canned beans, and
complaining they were sick of their food, and there was nothing else to
eat.

One afternoon, a Somali man decided he'd give them a treat and brought
around a beautiful little baby goat; the guys were all petting it.
Later, he brought it back skinned, and proudly presented it: "Here's
your dinner."  The guys looked shocked, but didn't say anything.  I
borrowed a pot and built a fire, then cooked the goat with some rice.

When the Somali man left, they said, "You don't think we're going to
eat that, do you?"

"Yes, of course.  Why not?"  "Oh, forget it, Waris."

"Well, why didn't you say something?"  They explained they felt it
would be rude, because the man was trying to be polite, but after
petting the little goat, they couldn't eat it.  They never touched it
again.

My three-day deadline for finding Mama passed with no sign of her.
Gerry grew more anxious by the day.  I tried to reassure these guys
that my mother was coming, but they thought I was being

ludicrous.  I said, "Look.  I promise you my mother will be here
tomorrow evening by six o'clock."  I don't know why I had this belief,
but it just came to me, so I told them.

Gerry and the guys started ribbing me about my latest prediction.
"What?  Yeah?  How do you know that?  Oh, yes, Waris knows!  She
predicts everything.  She knows!  Just like she predicts the rain!"
They were laughing because I kept telling them when it was going to
rain, because I could smell it.

"Well, it did rain, didn't it?"  I demanded.  "Oh, come on, Waris.  You
were just lucky."

"It has nothing to do with luck.  I'm back in my element now I know
this place.  We survived here on our instincts, my friends."  They
started looking sideways at each other.  "Okay.  Don't believe me.
You'll see six o'clock."

The next day I was sitting talking to an elderly lady when Gerry jogged
up at about ten minutes to six.  "You're not going to believe it!"

"What?"

"Your mother I think your mother is here."  I stood up and smiled.
"But, we're not sure.  The man is back and he's got a woman with him;
he says it's your morn.  Come have a look."

The news had spread like a brushfire through

the village; our little drama had definitely been the biggest thing to
happen here for God knows how long.  Everyone wanted to find out: Is
this Waris's mother or just another impostor?  By now it was nearly
dark and a crowd gathered around us till I could barely walk.  Gerry
led me down a little alleyway.  Up ahead was the man's pickup truck
with the hole in the windshield, and a woman was climbing down from the
seat.  I couldn't see her face, but from the way she wore her scarf I
could tell immediately that it was my mother.  I ran to her and grabbed
her.  "Oh, Mama!"

She said, "I drive for miles and miles with this awful truck and oh,
Allah, what a horrible ride that was!  And we're driving two solid days
and nights all for this?"

I turned to Gerry and laughed.  "It's her!"

I told Gerry that they had to leave us alone for the next couple of
days, and he kindly agreed.  Talking to Mama was awkward; my Somali, I
discovered, was pathetic.  Tougher than that was the fact that we'd
become strangers.  At first, we just discussed little everyday things.
But the gladness I felt at seeing her overcame the gap between us; I
enjoyed  just sitting close to her.  Mama and Is mail had driven for
two days and two nights straight, and I could see she was exhausted.
She had aged a great deal in fifteen years the result of a relentlessly
hard life in the desert.

Papa wasn't with her.  He was off searching for water when the truck
came.  My mother said Papa was getting old, too.  He would go off
chasing the clouds looking for rain, but he desperately needed glasses
because his eyesight was terrible.  When Mama left, he'd been gone for
eight days, and she hoped he hadn't gotten lost.  I thought back to how
I remembered Papa, and realized how much he'd obviously changed.  When
I left home, he'd been able to find us even if the family moved on
without him, and even on the blackest night with no moon.

My little brother, All, was also with her, along with one of my
cousins, who happened to be visiting my mother when Is mail came.  All
wasn't my little brother anymore, however.  At six four he towered over
me, which pleased him no end.  I kept holding All, and he would cry,
"Get off now!

I'm not a baby no more.  I'm getting married."  "Married!  How old are
you?"

"I don't know.  Old enough to get married."  "Well, I don't care.
You're still my baby brother.

Come here' And I'd grab him and rub his head.  My cousin laughed at
this.  I said to him, "I used to whip your ass!"  - I used to baby-sit
him when he was little and his family came to visit us.

"Yeah?  Well, come try it now."  He started shoving me and dancing
around.

"Oh, no, don't!"  I cried.  "Don't even try.  I'll beat you up."  My
cousin was getting married soon, too.  "If you want to make it to your
wedding day, boy, don't mess with me."

At night, Mama slept in the hut of one of the families there in Galadi
who had taken us in.  I slept outside with Ali just like in the old
days.  As we lay there at night, I felt such a state of peace and
happiness.  We'd stare at the stars and talk deep into the night:
"Remember the time we tied up Papa's little wife?"  and then both of us
would roar.

All was so shy at first, but he confided, "You know, I really miss you.
You've been gone for so long.  It's so strange to think you're a woman
now and I'm a man."  It felt wonderful to be back with my family again,
and talk and laugh and argue in my language about familiar things.

All the villagers were incredibly generous to us.  We had invitations
to a different home each day for lunch and dinner.  Everybody wanted to
spoil

us and show us off, and hear all the stories about where we'd been.
"Oh, come on, you've got to meet my child, meet my granny' and they'd
drag us off and introduce us.  And none of this was about my being a
'super model," because they had no idea about any of that.  I was one
of them a nomad and I'd come back home.

My mother, bless her heart, couldn't understand what I did for a
living, no matter how hard I tried to explain.  "Now, what is it again?
What's modeling?  You do what?  What does that mean exactly?"  At some
point, someone traveling through the desert brought my mother a copy of
The Sunday Times of London with my picture on the cover.  Somali people
are fiercely proud, and they were delighted to see a Somali woman on
the cover of this English newspaper.  Mama looked at it and said, "It's
Waris!  Oh, my daughter!"  She carried it around showing all the
villagers.

She got over her shyness after that first night, and quickly warmed up
enough to boss me around: "You don't cook like that, Waris!  Tsktsk,
come, now!  Let me show you.  Don't you cook in that place where you
live?"

Next, my brother started asking me what I thought about this and that.
I'd tease him, "Oh please shut up, All.  You're just stupid, ignorant

bush people.  You've lived here too long and you don't know what
you're talking about."

"Oh, yeah?  You're famous, so you come home and put on your bullshit
Western attitude?  Now you live in the West and you know everything?"

We argued back and forth for hours.  I didn't want to hurt their
feelings, but I figured if I didn't tell them certain things, who else
was going to?  "Well, I don't know everything, but I've seen a lot and
learned a lot I didn't know living back in the bush.  And it's not all
about cows and camels.  I can tell you other things."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one thing you're destroying your environment by cutting all
the trees.  You cut all the little trees before they have a chance to
grow, using the saplings to make pens for these stupid animals."  I
pointed at a nearby goat.  "It's not right."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the whole land is a desert now because we've cut all the
trees."

"The land is a desert because it doesn't rain, Waris!  It rains in the
north and they've got trees."

"That's why it rains there!  It rains because there's a forest there.
And every other day you're cutting any little twig, so no forest ever
has a

chance to grow here."  They didn't know whether to believe this
bizarre idea or not, but there was one topic they felt confident I
couldn't argue with.

My mother started.  "Why are you not married?"  This subject was still
an open wound with me after all these years.  As far as I was concerned
it was the issue that had cost me my home and family.  I know my father
had meant well, but he'd offered me a terrible choice: do what he said,
and ruin my life by marrying that old man, or run away, and give up
everything I knew and loved.  The price I paid for my freedom was
enormous, and I hoped I'd never have to force a child of mine to make
such a painful decision.

"Mama, why must I marry?  Do I have to be married?  Don't you want to
see me a success strong, independent?  I mean, if I'm not married, it's
just because I haven't found the right man yet.  When

I find him, then it will be time."

"Well, I want grandchildren."

Now they decided to all gang up on me.  My cousin joined in: "Too old
now.  Who'd want to marry you?  Too old."  He shook his head at the
horror of anybody marrying a twenty-eight year-old woman.

I threw my hands up.  "And who wants to get

married if you're going to force them to?  Why are you two getting
married?"  I pointed at All and my cousin.  "I bet somebody pushed you
into it."  "No, no."  They both agreed.

"Well, okay, but just because you're boys.  But as a girl, I have no
say.  I'm supposed to marry who you tell me to, when you tell me to.
What is that shit?  Who came up with that idea?"

"Oh, shut up, Waris," my brother groaned.  "You shut up, too!"

When we had two days left, Gerry said we had to start filming.  He got
several scenes of me with my mother.  But Mama had never seen a camera
before and she hated it.  She said, "Get that thing out of my face.  I
don't want that," and she'd swat at the cameraman.  "Waris tell him to
get that thing out of my face."  I told her it was okay.  "Is he
looking at me Or is he looking at you?"

"He's looking at both of us."

"Well, tell him I don't want to look at him.  He's not going to hear
what I say, is he?"  I tried to explain the process to her, but I knew
it was hopeless.

"Yeah, Mama.  He hears everything you say," I said with a laugh.  The
cameraman kept asking me

what we were laughing about.  "Just the absurdity of it all .. ."  I
answered.

The crew spent another day filming me, as I walked through the desert
alone.  I saw a little boy watering his camel at a well, and I asked
him if I could feed it.  I held a bucket up to the animal's mouth for
the crew.  Throughout all this, it was hard for me to hold back my
tears.

The day before we left, one of the women in the village did my
fingernails with henna.  I held my hand up to the camera, and it looked
like I had mushy cow poop glob bed on the tip of each finger.  But I
felt like a queen.  These were the ancient beauty rituals of my people
the type they normally save for a bride.  That night we had a
celebration and the villagers were all dancing, clapping, and singing. 
It was like old times I remembered from childhood, when everyone would
rejoice over the rain such an uninhibited feeling of freedom and joy.

The next morning before the plane came to get us, I got up early and
had breakfast with my mother.  I asked her if she would like to come
back and live with me in England or the States.

"But what would I do?"  she said.

"That's precisely it.  I don't want you to do anything.  You've done
enough work in your time.  It's

time for you to rest put your feet up.  I want to spoil you."

"No.  I can't do that.  First of all, your father's getting old.  He
needs me.  I need to be with him.  And second, I have to take care of
the children."

"What do you mean, children?  All of us are grown!"

"Well, your father's children.  Remember what'sher-name, that little
girl he married?"

"Ye-s-s."

"Well, she had five kids.  But she couldn't take it anymore.  I guess
our life was too tough for her, or she couldn't handle your father.
Anyway, she ran away disappeared."

"Mama .. . how dare you.  You're getting too old for that kind of
stuff!  You shouldn't be working that hard chasing kids around at your
age."

"Well, your father's getting old, too, and he needs me.  Besides, I
can't just sit around.  If I sit down, I'm going to be old.  I can't
stay still after all these years that would drive me crazy.  I have to
keep moving.  No.  If you want to do something for me, get me a place
in Africa, in Somalia, that I can go to when I'm tired.  This is my
home.  This is all I've ever known."

I gave her a big hug.  "I love you, Mama, and I'm

coming back for you, don't you forget that.  I'm coming back for
you..."

She smiled and waved goodbye.

Once we got aboard the plane, I broke down.  I didn't know when or if
I'd ever see my mother again.  While I was staring out the window
crying, watching the village, then the desert, slip away, the crew was
filming a close-up shot of me.

16.

THE BIG APPLE

In the spring of 1995, I finished the documentary with the BBC, which
they titled A Nomad in New York.  And I was indeed a nomad after all
these years, since I still didn't have a real home.  I moved around,
following the work: New York, London, Paris, Milan.  I'd stay with
friends, or in hotels.  What few things I owned a few photos, some
books and CDs were stashed away at Nigel's house in Wales.  Since most
of my work was in New York, I spent more time there than anywhere.  At
one point I actually rented my first apartment a studio in SoHo. 
Later, I had a place in the Village, then a house on West Broadway.

But I didn't like any of these places.  The place on Broadway was
total madness it drove me crazy.  Every time a car passed by, it
sounded like it was inside my house.  There was a firehouse on the
corner, and I heard sirens going off all night.  I couldn't get enough
rest, and after ten months I gave up and went back to my nomadic
existence.

That fall I did the runway shows in Paris, then decided to skip the
shows in London and come straight to New York.  I felt it was time to
get my own place and settle down a bit, and while I apartment hunting,
I stayed in the Village one of my closest friends, George.  While I was
there one night, another friend of George's, had a birthday.  She
wanted to go out on the to celebrate, but George announced he was
tired, and he had to get up early in the for work.  I volunteered to go
out with Lucy.

We walked out of the house, with no idea where we were going.  On
Eighth Avenue, J stopped and pointed out my old apartment.  used to
live up there, above that jazz place.  always played good music, but I
never went As we stood there, I listened to the music out the door. 
"Hey, come on, let's go in.  You to)'

"Nah.  I want to go to Nell's."

"Oh, come on.  Let's go in and just check it out.  I really like this
music they're playing I feel like dancing."

Reluctantly, Lucy agreed to go in.  I walked down the steps into a tiny
little club, and straight ahead was the band.  I walked up to the stage
and stopped.  The first person I saw was the drummer; the light was
shining on him in the otherwise dark room.  He was banging away, and I
just stood there staring at him.  He had kind of a big seventies Afro,
with a funky style.  When Lucy caught up to me, I turned to her: "No,
no, no.  We're staying.  Sit down, have a drink.  We're staying for a
little bit."  The band was really jamming and I started dancing like
crazy.  Lucy joined in, and soon all the other people, who had been
kind of subdued, sitting around just watching, got up and started
dancing with us.

Hot and thirsty, I got a drink and stood next to a woman in the
audience.  I said, "Oh, this is bright music.  Who are they, anyway?"

She said, "I don't know because they're all freelancers, but my husband
is the one playing sax."  "Uh-huh.  And who's the one playing drums?"
She smiled slowly.  "Sorry, but I don't know."  In a few minutes the
band took a break, and when the drummer walked by, this lady grabbed
his arm  and said, "Excuse me, but my friend would like to meet
you."

"Oh, yeah?  Who's that?"

"Her' and with that she pushed me forward.  I was so embarrassed I
didn't know what to say.

Finally, after standing there frozen for a few moments, I said, "Hi."
Play it cool, Waris.  "I like the music."

"Thanks."

"What's your name?"

"Dana," he said, and looked around shyly.

"Oh."  And he just turned and walked away.  Damn!  But I wasn't letting
him get away that easily.  I followed him to where he sat down with his
buddies from the band, yanked up a chair, and sat next to him.  When
the drummer turned around and saw me, he jumped.  I scolded, "Wasn't I
just talking to you?  That was rude.  You walked away from me, you
know?"  Dana looked at me, bewildered, then cracked up laughing and
doubled over the table.

"What is your name?"  he said, when he straightened himself up.

"It doesn't matter now, anyway," I replied in my cockiest manner,
sticking my nose in the air.  But then we began to talk about all kinds
of things until he said he had to play again.

"Are you leaving?  Who are you here with?"  he asked.

"My friend.  She's in the crowd over there."  On his next break, he
said the band only had a couple of more sets, and if I wanted to, after
they finished we could go somewhere.  When he came back, we sat talking
and talking about anything and everything.  Finally, I said, "It's too
smoky in here.  I can't breathe.  You want to go outside?"

"Okay.  We can go outside and sit on the steps."  When we reached the
top of the stairs he stopped.  "Can I ask you something?  Can I have a
hug?"

I looked at him like it was the most natural request in the world, like
I'd known him forever.  So I hugged him really tight, and I knew that
was it, just like I knew about going to London, and I knew about
modeling.  I knew this shy drummer with the funky Afro was my man.  It
was too late to go anyplace that night, but I told him to call me the
next day and gave him George's number.  "I have appointments in the
morning.  But call me exactly at three o'clock.  Okay?"  I just wanted
to see if he would call me when I told him to.

Later, he told me that on the way home that night, he went to catch the
subway to his place uptown in Harlem.  When he was entering the
station, he looked up and there was a huge billboard

of my face staring down at him.  He'd never noticed it before, and had
no idea I was a model.

The next day the phone rang at twenty past three.  I jerked up the
receiver.  "YOU'RE LATE."

"I'm sorry.  Do you want to meet me for dinner?"  We met at a little
cafe in the Village and again talked and talked.  Now that I know him,
I realize how unlike him that was, because he's phenomenally quiet with
anyone he doesn't know.  Finally I started laughing.  Dana looked
startled.  "What are you laughing about?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy."

"Go ahead.  I already think you're crazy."

"I'm going to have your baby."  He did not look pleased to find out he
would be the future father of my child.  Instead, he stared at me with
a look that said, This woman is really crazy, not just hey, let's
party, crazy.  "I know you think that's strange, but I just wanted to
tell you.  But anyway, drop it.  Let's forget it."

He sat silently staring at me; I could see he was shocked.  And no
wonder.  I didn't even know his last name.  Later, he said he was
thinking, I don't want to see her again.  I've got to get rid of this
woman.  She's like that loony stalker in Fatal Attraction.

Dana walked me home after dinner, but he was very quiet.  The next day
I was thoroughly

disgusted with myself.  I couldn't believe I'd said something so
obviously uncool.  But at the time, it just seemed like the most normal
thing to say, like "Oh, it's going to rain today."  Not surprisingly, I
didn't hear from him for a week.  Finally, I gave in and called him.
"Where are you?"  he asked.

"At my friend's.  You want to get together?"  "Oh, God.  Yes, all
right. We can go for lunch."  "I love you."

"I love you, too."  I put the phone down in absolute shock and horror
that I'd just told this man I loved him after I swore to myself I'd be
good.  No more talk about babies any of that and now here I go and tell
him I love him.  Oh, Waris, what is wrong with you?  Always, when any
man was interested in me, I ran.  I would disappear.  Now here I was,
chasing this man I barely knew.  The night I met Dana, I was wearing a
green sweater and had my hair in a wild Afro.  He later told me that
everywhere he turned that night, all he could see was GREEN SWEATER
WITH AFRO.  I explained that if I wanted something I went after it, and
for some reason for the first time in my life I very much wanted a man.
The thing I couldn't explain was why I felt like I'd known him all my
life.

Dana and I met for lunch and again talked and

talked and talked about everything in the world.  Two weeks later I
was living with him at his place in Harlem.  After six months we
decided we wanted to get married.

After we'd been together nearly a year, one day Dana said unexpectedly,
"I think you're pregnant."

I cried, "What are you talking about, for God's sake!"

"Come on, we're going to the pharmacy."  I protested, but he was not
giving in.  We went to the pharmacy and bought a home pregnancy test.
It turned out positive.

"You don't believe this piece of shit, do you?"  I asked, pointing at
the box.

He picked up the pack and pulled out another one.  "Do it again."  That
one was positive as well.  I had been feeling sick, but I always felt
sick when it was time for my period.  But this time was different.  I
felt worse than usual, with even more pain.  However, I didn't think I
was pregnant.  I thought something critical was wrong with me I thought
I was going to die.  I went to the doctor and explained the situation.
He did a blood test and I waited an agonizing three days to hear from
him.  hell What is going on here?  I've got

some horrible disease and he just doesn't want to have to tell me?

Finally, I came home one afternoon and Dana said, "Uh, yeah, the doctor
called."

My hand flew to my throat.  "Oh, God, what did he say?"

"He said he'd talk to you."

"Didn't you ask him any questions!?"

"Look, he said he'd call you tomorrow around eleven or twelve."

That was the longest night of my life, lying there wondering what my
future would hold.  The next day when the phone rang, I grabbed it. The
doctor said, "I have news for you.  You're not alone."  There you go
that's Not alone -full of tumors all over my body

"Oh, no.  What does that mean?"

"You're pregnant.  You're two months pregnant."  And when I heard those
words I just flew over the moon.  Dana was delighted, too, because all
his life he'd wanted to be a father.  We both knew instantly the baby
was going to be a boy.  But my first concern was about the baby's
health.  I went to an obstetrician the second we found out I was
expecting.  When the doctor did the ultrasound, I told her not to tell
me the sex.

"Please, just tell me, is the baby okay?"

She said, "It's a fine baby, perfectly fine."  Those were the words I
was waiting to hear.

Of course, there was one very large barrier to my happy marriage to
Dana: Nigel.  When I was four months pregnant, we decided to go to
Wales together and deal with him once and for all.  By the time we
arrived in London, I was ill with morning sickness and a bad cold.  We
stayed at a friend's house, and after I recuperated a couple of days, I
got up the nerve to call Nigel.  But when I called him he said he had a
cold, too, so I'd have to postpone my visit.

Dana and I waited in London for over a week before Nigel was feeling up
to a visit.  I called and gave him the train schedule so he could pick
us up at the station, and said, "I just want to let you know that Dana
is coming with me.  And I don't want any problems, okay?"

"I don't want to see him.  I'll tell you that now.

This is between me and you."

"Nigel '

"I don't care.  I don't care.  This has nothing to do with him."

"It has a lot to do with him now.  He's my fiance.  He's the man I'm
going to marry.  Okay?  And

whatever I have to do here, he's doing it with me."

"I don't want to see him and that's it."  So Nigel had it in his head
that I was taking the train to Wales alone.  When I got off, he was
waiting, leaning up against a post in the parking lot, smoking a
cigarette as usual.  He looked worse than the last time I'd seen him.
His hair was longer now, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

I turned to Dana and said, "Okay, there he is.  Now be cool."

We walked over to him, and before I could get a word out of my mouth,
Nigel said, "I told you I didn't want to see him.  I told you that.  It
was very clear.  I made it very clear.  I want to see you alone."

Dana dropped the bags on the pavement.  "Look, you don't talk to her
like that, and you don't talk to me like that.  Why do you want to see
her alone?  What is the deal here?  You want to see her alone?  Well, I
don't want you to see her alone.  And if you say it one more time, I'm
going to kick your fucking ass!"

Nigel turned even paler than he already was.  "Well .. . there's not
enough room in the car."

"I don't give a fuck about your car.  We can take a cab.  Let's just
get this thing over with."

By now Nigel was moving rapidly toward his car, calling over his
shoulder, "No, no, no.  That's

not how I do things."  He jumped in, started the engine, and roared
past us as Dana and I stood there next to our bags, watching him drive
by.  We decided it was best to find a hotel.  Luckily, there was a
bed-and-breakfast right by the station.  It was a depressing little
dump, but under the circumstances, that was the least of our worries.
We went out and ordered Indian food, but had no appetite, so we
basically just sat there staring at it glumly, until we decided to go
back to our room.

The next morning I called Nigel again.  "I just want to get my things.
Okay?  If you don't want to deal with this, then forget it.  Just give
me my stuff."  No deal.  Now Dana and I had to move to a hotel because
the bed-and-breakfast, where we had spent the night, was booked solid,
and it looked like we better get comfortable.  With Nigel, only God
knew how long this process would take.  We found another place to stay,
and after we'd moved, I called again.  "Look, why are you being such an
asshole?  Why are you doing this?  How many years has this been going
on?  Seven?  Eight?  Now, come

"Okay.  You want to see me, all right.  But just you.  I'll pick you up
from the hotel, but if he comes out, that's it.  I'll drive away.  No,
just you."

I sighed, but couldn't see any other way out of this mess so I
agreed.

I hung up the phone and explained the situation to Dana.  "Please,
Dana, just let me go over there alone and see if I can talk to him.
Just do this for me."

"All right, if you think it's going to work.  But if he touches you,
he's had it.  I'm telling you now, I don't like this shit, but if
that's what you want to do, I can't stop you."  I told Dana to stay
around the hotel and I'd call him if I needed him.

Nigel picked me up and we drove to the cottage he was renting.  We went
inside and he made me a cup of tea.  I said, "Look, Nigel.  This is the
man I'm going to marry, and I'm pregnant with his child.  There's going
to be no more bullshit of your little fantasy world where I'm your
precious wife and we have a life together.  It's over.  Okay?  Got it?
Now, come on, let's just get on with it.  I want a divorce now, this
week.  And I'm not going back to New York until we get this garbage
straightened out."

"Well, first of all, I'm not divorcing you unless you give me all the
money you owe me."

"Um, I owe you money?  How much?  Who's been working and giving you
money for years now?"

"That all went to pay for the food you were eating."

"Oh, I see.  When I wasn't even here.  Well, since you're so obsessed
with this money, how much is it?"

"At least forty thousand pounds."

"Hah!!  Where am I going to get that kind of money?  I haven't got
it."

"I don't care.  I don't care.  I don't care.  I mean, this is how it
is.  You owe me money, and I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not giving
you a divorce or anything else.  You're never going to be free, unless
you come up with the money you owe me.  I sold my house because of
you."

"You sold your house because you couldn't pay the mortgage, and I got
sick of paying it.  All you had to do was get yourself a job, but you
couldn't even do that."

"What?  Job to do what?  What kind of job was I going to get work at
McDonald's?"

"If that's what you had to do to pay your mortgage, why not?"

"That's not what I do best."

"What the fuck did you ever do best?"

"I'm an environmentalist."

"Yeah, right.  I got you a job and they sacked you and told you not to
come back.  You've got

nobody but yourself to blame, and I'm not putting up with this shit.
And I'm not giving you a fucking penny.  You know what You can take
your stupid passport and shove it up your ass.  There's obviously no
point talking to you anymore.  Ours was never a real marriage, and it
wasn't legal, because we were never intimate."

"That's not true.  Not now.  That's not how the law reads now.  You're
married to me and I'll never let you go, Waris.  Your baby is going to
be a bastard for the rest of his life."

I sat there staring at him, and any pity I ever felt hardened into
hatred.  I realized the awful irony of the situation.  I decided to
marry him when he was so eager to help me 'because it was Allah's
will."  Since his sister was a good friend of mine, I felt if there
were any problems, she'd intercede.  But she wasn't around.  "I'm
getting a divorce, Nigel, with or without your consent.  We have
nothing else to talk about."

He looked at me solemnly for a minute, then said quietly, "Well, if I
don't have you, I have nothing.  I'll kill you, then kill myself."

I froze, trying to decide my next move, then started bluffing.  "Dana
is coming here to get me.  I wouldn't try anything if I were you."  I
knew I had to get out of there immediately, because this

time he'd really gone over the edge.  I bent over to pick up my bag
from the floor, and he shoved me from behind.  I went crashing into the
stereo face first, then rolled off onto the hardwood floor, landing on
my back.  I just lay there, scared to move.  Oh, my God my baby!  I was
so paralyzed with fear that I'd harmed my baby.  Slowly I got to my
feet.

"Oh, fuck, are you all right?"  he cried.

"Yeah.  I'm okay," I said calmly.  I realized now what a fool I'd been
to come here alone, and just wanted to get out in one piece.  "It's
okay.  I'm all right."  He helped me up.  Pretending to be very
collected, I put my jacket on.

"I'll take you home.  Get in the fucking car."  Now he was angry again.
While he was driving, I sat there thinking: He hates this baby and
nothing would make him happier than to see it dead.  Maybe he's going
to try to drive us off a cliff.) I put my seat belt on.  In the
meantime, he was screaming, cursing, calling me every name he could
think of.  I just sat there, quietly staring straight ahead, afraid to
say a word or he'd hit me.  By this point, I was so numb, I didn't even
care about myself, but I cared deeply about my baby.  I'm a fighter,
and if I hadn't been pregnant, I would have ripped his balls off.

When we got to the hotel, he screamed, "That's

it?  You're just going to sit there and say nothing after all I've
done for you!"  The second he stopped the car, he reached across me,
opened the door, and pushed me out onto the ground.  One of my legs was
still inside, lying across the floorboard; I struggled to untangle
myself from the car and ran inside and up to our room.

By the time Dana opened the door, tears were pouring down my face.
"What happened?  What did he do to you?"

I could see it all clearly: if I told Dana the truth, he'd kill Nigel,
then he'd go to prison and I'd get to raise my baby alone.  "Nothing.
He's just being an asshole, as usual.  Wouldn't give me my stuff."  I
blew my nose.

"That's it?  Oh, Waris, forget that shit.  That's not worth crying
over."  Dana and I took the first flight we could get back to New
York.

Now looking back on this time, despite the way he behaved towards me at
the end, I feel grateful for the fact that he often went to battle on
my behalf and helped me so much when I was really alone in Britain.

When I was eight months pregnant, an African photographer heard I was
having a baby and said

he wanted to photograph me.  He asked me to come to Spain where he was
working.  By this point I felt great, so I wasn't afraid to travel.  I
knew I wasn't supposed to fly after six months, but I wore a loose
sweater and sneaked on board the flight.  He did some brilliant shots
for Marie Claire.

But I had to fly pregnant one more time.  Twenty days before I gave
birth, I flew to Nebraska to be with Dana's family so they could help
me with the baby after he was born.  I stayed with Dana's parents in
Omaha.  He had gigs scheduled playing in the clubs, and planned to fly
out the following week.  Shortly after I arrived, I got up one morning
and noted my stomach felt funny; I kept wondering what I'd eaten the
night before that would cause such indigestion.  This continued for
that day, but I didn't mention it.  By the next morning I had a really
bad stomachache.  Then it occurred to me that maybe this wasn't a
stomachache.  Maybe I was having the baby.

I called Dana's morn at work and said, "Look, I've got this weird pain
and it comes and goes.  It was happening all day yesterday and last
night.  But it's getting worse.  I don't know what I could have eaten,
but it feels strange."

"Waris, for God's sake.  You're having contractions!"

Oh!  Then I was really happy, because I was so ready to have the baby.
I called Dana in New York and told him, "I think I'm having the
baby!"

"No, no, no!  You can't have it till I get there.  HOLD THAT BABY!  I'm
coming, I'm getting on a plane."

"You fucking come and hold it!  How am I supposed to do that?  Hold the
baby!"  God, silly men!  But I did want Dana to be there for the
delivery of our first baby, and I was going to be disappointed if he
didn't see it.  After I had talked to his mother earlier, she called
the hospital, and the nurse called to check on me.  She said if I
wanted to have the baby, I should walk around.  I figured if I didn't
want to have the baby, that meant I should do the reverse, so I lay
absolutely still.

Dana didn't arrive until the following evening.  By this time I'd been
having contractions for three days.  When his father went to pick him
up at the airport, I was panting hard.  "Oh, oh, oh, EEEI

AH!  SHIT!  OH GOD!"

"Count, Waris, count!"  Dana's mom yelled.  We decided it was time to
go to the hospital, but we couldn't go because Dana's father had the
car.  When he drove up, they didn't even make it into the house before
we started yelling, "Get back to the car, we're going to the
hospital!"

We arrived at the hospital at ten o'clock; at ten o'clock the next
morning, I was still in labor.  "I want to swing upside down from the
tree!"  I kept screaming.  This I knew was pure animal instinct, like a
monkey's instinct, because that's how animals do it.  They move around,
they sit, they squat, they run and swing until they give birth.  They
don't just lie there.  And since that day, Dana still calls me Monkey.
In a falsetto voice he'll cry, "Ahhh, I want to swing upside down from
the tree!"

While we were in the delivery room, the expectant father would coach,
"Breathe, baby, just breathe."

"FUCK!  Get the luck away from me.  I'll fucking kill you, you
motherfucker!"  Oh, my God, I wanted to shoot him.  I wanted to die,
and before I died, I wanted to make sure I killed him.

Finally, at noon, the moment came.  I was so grateful to that doctor in
London who operated on me, because I couldn't even imagine trying to go
through that delivery when I was still sewn up.  And then, after
waiting nine months and suffering for three days, magically there he
was. Ooooh!  After all this time, I was so glad to see him this little,
little thing.  He was so beautiful, with silky black hair, a tiny, tiny
mouth, and the longest of

feet and fingers.  He stretched over twenty inches but weighed only
six pounds and thirteen ounces.  Immediately my son said, "Ah," and
began looking around the room, very curious.  This is what it's all
about, then?  This is it?  This is the light?  Must have felt good
after being in the dark for nine months.

I had told the staff that as soon as the baby was born, I wanted them
to lay him on my chest, with all that goo and everything.  They did,
and in that instant I first held him, I realized that the old cliche
that every mother told me was true: When you hold that baby, suddenly
you forget the pain.  In that moment, there is no pain.  There is only
joy.

I named the baby Aleeke, which in Somali means strong lion.  But right
now, with his tiny bow mouth, chubby cheeks, and halo of curls, he
looks more like a little black Cupid than a lion.  His big, smooth
forehead looks exactly like mine.  When I talk to him, he puckers his
mouth like a tweety bird preparing to sing.  Since the moment he was
born, he's been eternally curious, quietly looking at everything and
exploring his new world.

When I was a little girl, I so much looked forward to coming home at
night after tending my animals, and lying in Mama's lap.  She would
stroke my head, giving me such a feeling of peace and security.  Now I
do this to Aleeke, and just as I did, he loves it too.  I'll massage
his head and he immediately falls asleep in my arms.

From the day he was born, my life changed.  The happiness I get from
him is everything to me now.  I pushed aside all the stupid little
things that I used to complain and worry about.  I realized that none
of that matters at all.  Life the gift of life is what matters, and
that's what giving birth to my son made me remember.



THE AMBASSADOR

In my culture, a woman earns a badge of respect when she becomes a
mother.  She has brought another human being into this world,
contributed to the gift of life.  When Aleeke was born, I, too, was a
mama, a woman who had come of age.  After going through the cycle of
womanhood that began prematurely with my circumcision at age five, and
came full circle with my baby's birth when I was about thirty, I had
even more respect for my own mother.  I understood what incredible
strength the women in Somalia possess to bear the burden they carry
simply because they're born female.  As a woman living in the West, I
struggled

to do what I had to do, and some days didn't think I'd make it: trying
to work scrubbing floors at McDonald's when my periods were so painful
I thought I'd pass out.  Having surgery to open the crude scars of my
genitals so that I could urinate properly.  Waddling around nine months
pregnant, taking the subway uptown to Harlem, climbing the stairs, and
shopping for food at the market.  Spending three days in labor and
thinking I would surely die right there in the delivery room in front
of the doctors.

The reality is that I'm the lucky one.  What about the girl back in the
bush, walking miles and miles to water her goats, while she's in such
pain from her period that she can barely stand up straight?  Or the
wife who will be sewn back up with a needle and thread like a piece of
cloth as soon as she gives birth, so her vagina will remain tight for
her husband?  Or the woman nine months pregnant hunting for food in the
desert to feed her other eleven starving children?  Or what happens to
the new wife who's still sewn up tight, and it's time for her first
baby to be born?  What happens when she goes out into the desert alone,
as my mother did, and tries to deliver it by herself?.  Unfortunately,
I know the answer to that question.  Many bleed to death out there
alone,

and if they're lucky, their husbands will find them before the
vultures and hyenas do.

As I grew older and more educated, I learned that I was not alone.  The
health problems I've coped with since my circumcision also plague
millions of girls and women throughout the world.  Because of a ritual
of ignorance, most of the women on the continent of Africa live their
lives in pain.  Who is going to help the woman in the desert like my
mother with no money and no power?  Somebody must speak out for the
little girl with no voice.  And since I began as a nomad just like
them, I felt it was my destiny to help them.

I could never explain why so many things happened in my life by pure
chance.  But I don't really believe in the concept of pure chance;
there has to be more to our lives than that.  God saved me from a lion
in the desert when I ran away from home, and from that moment on, I
felt he had a plan for me, some reason to keep me alive.  But if it was
for a reason, what was that reason?

Some time back, a writer for the fashion magazine Marie Claire made an
appointment to interview me.  Before our meeting, I gave a lot of
thought to

what I wanted to say in the article.  When I met the writer, Laura
Ziv, for lunch, I took one look at her face and liked her right away. I
said, "You know, I don't know what kind of story you wanted from me but
all of that fashion model stuff's been done a million times.  If you
promise to publish it, I'll give you a real story."

She said, "Oh?  Well, I'll do my best," and switched on her tape
recorder.  I began telling her the story of my circumcision when I was
a child.  Suddenly, halfway through the interview, she started crying
and turned off the tape.

"Oh, what's the matter with you?"

"I mean, it's horrible.."  it's disgusting.  I never dreamed such
things still happen today."

"Now there you go.  That's the whole point, people in the West don't
know.  Do you think you can put that in your magazine your fabulously
glossy, gorgeous magazine, which nobody reads but women?"

"I promise I'll do the best I can.  But the decision will be up to my
boss."

The next day after the interview, I felt stunned and embarrassed at
what I'd done.  Everybody would know my business now.  My most personal
secret.  Even my closest friends didn't know what had happened to me as
a little girl.  Being from a

very private culture in Somalia, it simply wasn't the type of thing I
could ever talk about.  Now here I was talking about it to millions of
strangers.  But finally I decided: Let it be.  Lose your dignity if
that's what it takes.  So I did.  I removed my dignity, as if I were
taking off my clothes.  I put it to the side and walked around without
it.  But I was also worried about the response of other Somalis; I
could imagine them saying, "How dare you criticize our ancient
traditions!"  I could imagine them echoing my family when I saw them in
Ethiopia: "You think because you moved to the West, you know
everything?"

After much thought, I realized I needed to talk about my circumcision
for two reasons.  First of all, it's something that bothers me deeply.
Besides the health problems that I still struggle with, I will never
know the pleasures of sex that have been denied me.  I feel incomplete,
crippled, and knowing that there's nothing I can do to change that is
the most hopeless feeling of all.  When I met Dana, I finally fell in
love and wanted to experience the joys of sex with a man.  But if you
ask me today, "Do you enjoy sex?"  I would say not in the traditional
way.  I simply enjoy being physically close to Dana because I love
him.

All my life I've tried to think of a reason for my  circumcision.
Maybe if I could have thought of a good reason, I could accept what
they'd done to me.  But I could think of none.  The longer I tried to
think of a reason without finding one, the angrier I became.  I needed
to talk about my secret, because I kept it bottled up inside me all my
life.  Since [ didn't have any family around me, no mother or sisters,
there was no one I could share my grief with.  I hate the term 'victim'
because it sounds so helpless.  But when the gypsy woman butchered me,
that's exactly what I was.  However, as a grown woman, I was no longer
a victim, and I could take action.  By doing the Marie Claire article,
I wanted the people who promote this torture to hear what it feels like
from at least one woman, because all the females in my country are
silenced.

It occurred to me that after people learned my secret, they were going
to look at me oddly when they saw me on the street.  I decided I didn't
care.  Because the second reason for doing the article was the hope of
making people aware that this practice still occurs today.  I've got to
do it not only for me but for all the little girls in the world who are
going through it now.  Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of
girls are living with it and dying from it.  It's too late to change my
own

circumstances, the damage has already been done; but maybe I can help
save somebody else.

When my interview "The Tragedy of Female Circumcision' came out, the
response was dramatic.  Laura did a great job, and publishing it was a
courageous act on the part of Marie Claire.  The magazine and Equality
Now, an organization that fights for women's rights, were swamped with
letters of support.  Like Laura the day I told her, the readers were
obviously horrified:

One month ago today I read with horror the story in the March issue of
Marie Claire on female 'circumcision," and have not been able to get it
off my mind.  I would find it difficult to believe that anyone, male or
female, could forget or pass off something as cold and inhuman as this
treatment of the gender which God created as man's friend and
companion, his 'helpmate."  The Bible says men are to 'love their
wives."  Even if living in a culture where God is not known to exist,
people cannot help but realize that by the pain, trauma, and even death
this inflicts on their women that it is SO WRONG!  How

can they continue to allow this to happen to their wives, daughters,
and sisters?  Surely they must know they are destroying their women in
so many ways!

God help us, we have to DO SOMETHING.  I wake up thinking about it, I
go to bed thinking about it, and throughout the day I cry about it! 
Surely with World Vision or another such organization these people can
be educated and taught how their marriages and intimacy could be so
much better for the men as well as for the women, as it was meant to
be, and that women were born with certain body parts for good reason,
just as men were!

And another:

I just finished reading your article on Waris Dirie, and am sick to my
soul that such torture and mutilation is still endured by little girls.
I can hardly believe that something this sadistic is being practiced
today.  The problems these women face their whole lives resulting from
this are incredible.  Tradition or not, these outrages against females
worldwide need to end.  Let me slice open one man' genitals and sew
them back up and I

can guarantee this practice would stop.  How can you want to be with a
woman physically when her pain is severe and never-ending?  This story
has brought me to tears and I am writing the Equality Now organization
for information on how to help.

Another letter addressed to me read:

There are a lot of tragic stories that have been told, and there will
be more told in the future, but Waris, there are not any more to be
told of an entire culture that can be more horrifying than what these
people are doing to their children.  I cried and felt deeply when I
read this.  I want to do something to change things, but I don't know
what one person can do.

I was relieved by the letters of support; I received only two negative
responses criticizing me, and not surprisingly they came from
Somalia.

I began giving more interviews and speaking at schools, community
organizations, and basically anywhere I could to publicize the issue.

Then another stroke of fate occurred.  A makeup artist was on board a
plane flying from Europe to

New York; she picked up Marie Claire and read my interview.  During
the flight she showed it to her employer, and said, "You should read
this."  Her employer happened to be Barbara Waiters.  Barbara later
told me that she couldn't finish the article because it was so
disturbing. However, it was a problem she felt needed to be addressed. 
She decided to do a segment for 20/20 using my story to make viewers
aware of female circumcision.  Ethel Bass Weintraub produced the
award-winning segment titled "A Healing Journey."

While Barbara was interviewing me, I wanted to cry; I felt so naked.
Telling the story in an article somehow put a distance between me and
the reader, I only had to tell Laura, and we were just two women in a
restaurant.  But when they were filming me for 20/20, I knew the camera
was doing a close-up of my face as I revealed secrets I had guarded my
entire life; it was if someone had cut me open and exposed my soul.

"A Healing Journey' aired in the summer of 1997.  Soon after that I
received a call from my agency saying they had been contacted by the
United Nations.  The UN had seen the 20/20 segment and wanted me to
contact them.

Events had taken another amazing turn.  The United Nations Population
Fund invited me to

join their fight to stop female circumcision.  Working with the World
Health Organization, they had compiled some truly terrifying statistics
that put the extent of the problem in perspective.  After seeing those
numbers, it became clear that this wasn't just my problem.  Female
circumcision, or as it is more aptly referred to today, female genital
mutilation (FGM), occurs predominantly in twenty-eight countries in
Africa.  The UN estimates that this practice has been performed on 130
million girls and women.  At least 2 million girls are at risk each
year of being the next victims that's 6,000 a day.  The operations are
usually performed in primitive circumstances by a midwife or village
woman.  They use no anesthetic.  They'll cut the girl using whatever
instruments they can lay their hands on: razor blades, knives,
scissors, broken glass, sharp stones and in some regions their teeth.
The process ranges in severity by geographic location and cultural
practice.  The most minimal damage is cutting away the hood of the
clitoris, which will prohibit the girl from enjoying sex for the rest
of her life.  At the other end of the spectrum is infibulation, which
is performed on 80 percent of the women in Somalia.  This was the
version I was subjected to.  The aftermath of infibulation includes the
immediate

complications of shock, infection, damage to the urethra or anus, scar
formation, tetanus, bladder infections, septicemia, HIV, and hepatitis
B. Long-term complications include chronic and recurrent urinary and
pelvic infections that can lead to sterility, cysts and abscesses
around the vulva, painful neuromas, increasingly difficult urination,
dysmenorrhea, the pooling of menstrual blood in the abdomen, frigidity,
depression, and death.

When I imagine that this year two million more little girls will go
through what I went through, it breaks my heart.  It also makes me
realize that each day this torture continues, angry women like myself
will be produced, women who can never go back and recapture what was
taken from them.

In fact, instead of dwindling, the number of girls being mutilated is
growing.  The large numbers of Africans who have emigrated to Europe
and the United States have taken the practice with them.  The federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 27,000 New
York State women have had or will have the procedure performed.  For
this reason, many states are passing laws to make FGM illegal.
Legislators feel that separate laws are necessary to protect the
children

at risk, because the families will claim it is their 'religious right'
to mutilate their daughters.  Many times an African community will save
enough money to bring a circumciser, like the gypsy woman, all the way
from Africa to America.  Then she'll cut a group of little girls all at
once.  When this is not possible, families take matters into their own
hands.  One father in New York City turned up the stereo so his
neighbors couldn't hear the screams.  Then he cut off his daughter's
genitals with a steak knife.

With great pride, I accepted the UN's offer to become a Special
Ambassador and join its fight.  One of the highest honors of my
position will be working with women like Dr.  Naris Sadik, the
executive director of the UN's Population Fund.  She is one of the
first women who took up the fight against FGM, raising the issue at the
International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in
1994.  I will travel back to Africa again soon to tell my story, and
lend support to the UN.

For over four thousand years African cultures have mutilated their
women.  Many believe the Koran demands this, as the practice is
nearly

universal in Moslem countries.  However, this is not the case; neither
the Koran nor the Bible makes any mention of cutting women to please
God.  The practice is simply promoted and demanded by men ignorant,
selfish men who want to assure their ownership of their woman's sexual
favors.  They demand their wives be circumcised.  The mothers comply by
circumcising their daughters, for fear their daughters will have no
husbands.  An uncircumcised woman is regarded as dirty, oversexed, and
unmarriageable.  In a nomadic culture like the one I was raised in,
there is no place for an unmarried woman, so mothers feel it is their
duty to make sure their daughters have the best possible opportunity
much as a Western family might feel it's their duty to send their
daughter to good schools.  There is no reason for the mutilation of
millions of girls to occur every year except ignorance and
superstition.  And the legacy of pain, suffering, and death that
results from it is more than enough reason for it to stop.

Working as a UN ambassador is the fulfillment of a dream so outrageous
that I never dared dream it.  Although I always felt I was different
from my family and fellow nomads when I was growing up, I could have
never foreseen a future for myself as

an ambassador working for an organization that takes on solving the
problems of the world.  On an international level, the UN does what
mothers do on a personal level: it gives comfort and provides security.
I guess that's the only past inkling of my future role with the UN;
during my early years my friends constantly referred to me as Mama.
They teased me because I always wanted to mother them and look after
everybody.

Many of those same friends have expressed concern that a religious
fanatic will try to kill me when I go to Africa.  After all, I'll be
speaking out against a crime many fundamentalists consider a holy
practice.  I'm sure my work will be dangerous, and I admit to being
scared; I'm especially worried now that I have a little boy to take
care of, But my faith tells me to be strong, that God led me down this
path for a reason.  He has work for me to do.  This is my mission, And
I believe that long before the day I was born, God chose the day I will
die, so I can't change that.  In the meantime, I might as well take a
chance, because that's what I've done all my life.

THOUGHTS Of HOME

because I criticize the practice of female genital mutilation, some
people think that I don't appreciate my culture.  But they're so wrong.
Oh, I thank God every day that I'm from Africa.  Every day.  I'm very
proud to be Somali, and proud of my country.  I guess some other
cultures might consider that a very African way of thinking you know,
being proud for nothing.  Arrogant, I guess you'd call it.

Other than the circumcision issue, I wouldn't trade with anyone the way
I grew up.  Living in New York, although everyone talks about family
values, I've seen very little of them.  I don't see

families getting together like we did, singing, clapping, laughing.
People here are disconnected from one another; there's no sense of
belonging to a community.

Another benefit of growing up in Africa was that we were part of pure
nature, pure life.  I knew life I wasn't sheltered from it.  And it was
real life not some artificial substitute on television where I'm
watching other people live life.  From the beginning, I had the
instinct for survival; I learned joy and pain at the same time.  I
learned that happiness is not what you have, because I never had
anything, and I was so happy.  The most treasured time in my life was
back when my family and I were all together.  I think of evenings when
we'd sit around the fire after we'd eaten, and laugh about every little
thing.  And when the rains began and life was reborn, we celebrated.

When I was growing up in Somalia, we appreciated the simple things in
life.  We celebrated the rain because that meant we had water.  Who in
New York worries about water?  Let it run from the tap while you walk
away and do something else in the kitchen.  It's always there when you
need it.  BOOM, you turn on the faucet and out it comes.  It's when you
don't have something that

you appreciate it, and since we had nothing, we appreciated
everything.

My family struggled every day to have enough food.  Buying a sack of
rice was a big occasion for us.  In this country, however, the volume
and variety of food is astonishing to anyone who comes here from a
Third World nation.  Yet, sadly, so many Americans are preoccupied with
not eating.  On one side of the world we're struggling to feed people.
On the other side of the world, people are paying money to lose weight.
I watch commercials on TV for weight-loss programs and I scream, "You
want to lose weight go to Africa!  How about that?  How about if you
lose weight while you're helping people?  Do you ever think about that?
You'll feel good and different, too.  You'll accomplish two powerful
things at one time.  I promise you, when you come back you will have
learned so much.  Your mind will be much clearer than when you left
home."

Today, I cherish the value of the simple things.  I meet people every
day who have beautiful homes, sometimes several homes, cars, boats,
jewels, but all they think about is getting more, as if that next thing
they buy will finally bring them happiness and peace of mind.  However,
I don't need a diamond ring to make me happy.  People

say, oh, that's easy for you to say now that you can afford to buy
what you want.  But I don't want anything.  The most valuable asset in
life other than life itself- is health.  But people ruin their precious
health worrying about all kinds of pointless little irritations "Oh,
here comes that bill, and another bill, and bills flying in from every
direction, and.."  oh, how am I going to pay them all?"  The United
States is the wealthiest country in the world, yet everybody feels
poor.

And more than bankrupt of money, everyone is bankrupt of time.
Everybody's got no time.  No time at all.  "Get out of my way, man, I'm
in a hurry!"  The streets are packed with people rushing here and there
and chasing God only knows what.

I am grateful that I've experienced both lives the simple way and the
fast way.  But without growing up in Africa, I don't know if [ would
have learned to enjoy life the simple way.  My childhood in Somalia
shaped my personality forever, and has kept me from taking seriously
trivial issues like success and fame that seem to obsess so many
people.  Frequently I'm asked, "How does it feel to be famous?"  and I
just laugh.  What does that mean, famous?  I don't even know.  All I
know is that my way of thinking is an African way, and that will never
change.

One of the greatest benefits of living in the West is peace, and I'm
not sure how many people realize what a blessing that is.  True, there
is crime, but that is not the same thing as having a war raging around
you.  I have been thankful for shelter here and the opportunity to
raise my baby in safety, because Somalia has seen constant fighting
since rebels ousted Siad Barre in 1991.  Rival tribes have fought for
control ever since, and no one knows how many people have been killed.
The beautiful city of white buildings that the Italian colonists built,
Mogadishu, has been destroyed.  Nearly every structure bears the marks
of seven years of nonstop fighting, with buildings bombed or shot full
of bullet holes.  There is no longer any hint of order in the city no
government, no police, no schools.

It is depressing for me to know that my family has not escaped this
fighting.  My uncle Wolde'ab, my mother's brother who was so funny and
looked so much like Mama, died in Mogadishu.  He was standing by a
window when his house was sprayed with gunfire.  The entire building
was shot full of holes, and a bullet came through the window and killed
my uncle.

Even the nomadic people are affected now.  When I saw my little
brother, All, in Ethiopia, he

had been shot also, and narrowly escaped getting killed.  He was
walking alone with his camels, when poachers ambushed him and shot him
in the arm.  All fell down and pretended to be dead, and the poachers
made off with his entire herd.

When I saw my mother in Ethiopia, she told me she was still carrying a
bullet in her chest after being caught in crossfire.  My sister had
taken her to the hospital in Saudi, but they said she was too old for
them to operate.  Surgery would be dangerous, and she might not
survive.  Yet, by the time I saw her, she seemed strong as a camel. She
was Mama, tough as always, and cracking jokes about getting shot. I
asked her if the bullet was still inside her, and she said, "Yeah,
yeah, it's in there.  I don't care.  Maybe I melted it down by now."

These tribal wars, like the practice of circumcision, are brought about
by the ego, selfishness, and aggression of men.  I hate to say that,
but it's true.  Both acts stem from their obsession with their
territory their possessions and women fall into that category both
culturally and legally.  Perhaps if we cut their balls off, my country
would become paradise.  The men would calm down and be more sensitive
to the world.  Without that constant surge of testosterone, there'd be
no war, no killing, no thieving, no rape.  And if we

chopped off their private parts, and turned them loose to run around
and either bleed to death or survive, maybe they could understand for
the first time what they're doing to their women.

My goal is to help the women of Africa.  I want to see them get
stronger, not weaker, and the practice of FGM simply weakens them
physically and emotionally.  Since women are the backbone of Africa,
and they do most of the work, I like to imagine how much they could
accomplish if they weren't butchered as children and left to function
maimed for the rest of their lives.

In spite of my anger over what has been done to me, I don't blame my
parents.  I love my mother and father.  My mother had no say-so in my
circumcision, because as a woman she is powerless to make decisions.
She was simply doing to me what had been done to her, and what had been
done to her mother, and her mother's mother.  And my father was
completely ignorant of the suffering he was inflicting on me; he knew
that in our Somalian society, if he wanted his daughter to marry, she
must be circumcised or no man would have her.  My parents were both
victims of their own upbringing, cultural practices that have continued
unchanged for thousands of years.  But just as we know today that we
can avoid disease and

death by vaccinations, we know that women are not animals in heat, and
their loyalty has to be earned with trust and affection rather than
barbaric rituals.  The time has come to leave the old ways of suffering
behind.

I feel that God made my body perfect the way I was born.  Then man
robbed me, took away my power, and left me a cripple.  My womanhood was
stolen.  If God had wanted those body parts missing, why did he create
them?

I just pray that one day no woman will have to experience this pain. It
will become a thing of the past.  People will say, "Did you hear,
female genital mutilation has been outlawed in Somalia?"  Then the next
country, and the next, and so on, until the world is safe for all
women.  What a happy day that will be, and that's what I'm working
toward.  In'shallah, if God is willing, it will happen.

Join the Fight Against FGM

If you would like to help us fight the mutilation of millions of girls,
you can send contributions to a special trust that has been set aside
to eliminate female genital mutilation.  These funds will be used to
promote educational and outreach programs in twenty-three countries. To
learn more about this program write to:

The Campaign to Eliminate FGM

UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) 220 E. 42nd Street

New York, NY 1 O017

USA

Visit their website at http://www.unfpa.org