How does the text relate to the theme of a journey?
The story centered on the nomad life of a girl name, Waris Dirie, it started with Waris who ran away from her home in Somalia because she did not want to marry an old guy as arranged by her father. With only known relative living in Mogadishu, she decided to travel to there to find her aunt. All by herself, on the way to Mogadishu to find her relative, she met a lot of obstacles, nearly raped by a man whom she hitchhiked, been tricked by stranger into his house to have sex. However, every time she managed to escape from the devil’s grip.
Among all the relatives at there, she stayed the longest with Auntie Sahru and maintained a good relationship with their family members. With the urge to earn a living, she followed Uncle Mohammed to London, where she worked as a maid. Although being a relative, she did not enjoy any privilege compared to the chef and chauffeur. After working as maid for 4 years, Uncle Mohammed had to go back to Somalia since his job as ambassador has ended. However, Waris refused to go back because once she went home, she will never come to London again.
Waris met Halwu and stayed with her at YMCA. Waris worked as a cleaner in McDonald’s nearby. Her life started to change after she went for some photo shoot by Malcolm Fairchild. Her beautiful photos were discovered by famous photographer, Terence Donovan. There began her modeling career. After achieving much of a success, she was offered a chance to film a documentary film from BBC.
In New York, she met Dana in a jazz club. They fell in love with each other and after six months, they decided to get married. After having a family of her own (giving birth to Aleeke), Waris felt so contented with her life. That adventurous journey with all on her own before are now accompanied with the mental support from her own family members. She finally settled down her unstable nomad life.
What is the main issue in the text?
The story raised an important issue, the difficult life that people lead in Somalia, especially women. At the age of puberty, young girls are required to be circumcised. Because people there believe it is to keep the virginity of a girl and an uncircumcised woman is regarded as dirty, oversexed and unmarriageable. However, the process of circumcising is pain and suffering and yet it was carried out by using whatever piece of sharp object they could find, razor blade, scissor or knife. Young girls have to go through all these unwanted suffering just because of the selfishness and ignorance of the men who want to assure their ownership of their woman’s sexual favor. The aftermath of circumcising may bring illness, infections and sometimes death.
Other than that, Somalia’s women did not have chance to choose their partner. They were been treated as item to trade. For example, Waris’s father arranged a marriage for her daughter with an old man in exchange for 5 camels. To her father, it was a very profitable deal and his father was desperate to get her daughter married.
What quality do you admire or dislike in a character?
Of course, it’s Waris Dirie, the main character of the story whom I admire the most. First of all, she is a very brave woman. She fought back the man who tried to rape her, two times, different man! She dares to run away from home by herself and travelling to Mogadishu alone. Other than that, she even have the courage to risk her entire life been caught and send into prison by using her friend’s passport to go pass the custom just for the sake of casting in James Bond movie. However, this act should not be learned by us.
In addition, she has great perseverance and hardworking. In order to earn a living, she followed her relative to London and work as maid in the family. She did not receive any privilege however, despite she is their relative. She did not complain. She also portrays high determination to live on. While traveling around alone, she made friends and asked for their help to have a place to stay.
Last but not least, she is very concern about the people who live in Africa, especially women. She accepted the UN Population Fund’s offer and became the ambassador against the continuity of female genital mutilation (FGM). Despite having a risk of being threatened by her own people, she cares for the majority of the sufferers. Her ultimate goal was to help prevent the practice of FGM.
How does the text develop your understanding to the world?
After reading Desert Flower, I just discovered that how the life of African people was. They underwent so much of hardships, especially women. They need to be circumcised in order to get married, many of them of did not made it though (died). It was hard to believe that, despite the improvement of human society, this absurd practice and custom, ignorance is still happen in some of the places. While we are enjoying our life in home, there are people outside suffering from these cruel practices. In addition, Somalis women do not get to choose their husband, but their marriages were arranged by their parents and sometimes act as a trade. For example, Waris was to marry an old man in exchange of 5 camels. Women in Somalia were been discriminated.
The men there are even worse. They did not give up any chance to gain advantage over lone woman (rape, molest etc.). For example, even the friend of Waris’s father, Gudan offended her sexually even though she was just a little girl that time. Another example is when Waris was asking a nice looking man direction to her uncle’s house, that man tricked her into his house and tried to rape her.
These also gave us a lesson that, do not trust stranger especially lone women who travel around. Even though they look nice and treat you nice, it is better to keep yourself alert all the time. Dangers lie everywhere. The world is full with trickery. Another example, Harold Wheeler, the lawyer who “helped” Waris to get a passport, he scammed her two thousand pounds by giving her a passport that do not work and then ran away.
The whole story gave us a vivid look on the darker side of the world. We need to understand that the world is not perfect as we thought because there too much kind of people with different character and some of them may discriminate others to reach their goal. We could not judge a person’s character just by looking at their physical appearance. Ironically, most of the criminals used their good physical look to prey their victim.
Author : Waris Dirie.
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