After a long, painful series of trials and hardships, Dirie finally arrives in Mogadishu and is allowed to stay at her older sister’s house. Dirie survives the attack, but only after fighting the trucker with her hands. For example, in the desert Dirie encounters a truck driver who tries to rape her. Not long after running away, Dirie understands why so many women stay behind in bad situations, rather than face the countless dangers of escaping. First, however, Dirie must cross a stretch of desert full of natural and man-made dangers. Dirie also hopes that the relatives she knows in and around the city will accept her into their home. Her ambition is to reach Mogadishu, Somalia's capital and also its largest city. To avoid marrying the old man, Dirie runs away from her family. In exchange for her hand in marriage, Dirie’s father is set to receive five camels from the groom. At the age of 12, Dirie learns she is to be wed in an arranged marriage to a 60-year-old man. Her mutilation, however, is only the beginning of her suffering as a woman. Female genital mutilation is a cultural practice often done out of a sadistically misguided interest to preserve a young woman’s “purity.” The author reveals that as a five-year-old she was a victim of female genital mutilation, a extremely painful procedure that usually causes lifelong damage to the reproductive organs and that often result in fatal bleeding and infections. But while many of the family’s traditions are crucial to their survival, other practices of the nomads are not only extremely outdated, but they also result in horrific pain and long-term trauma for young girls like Dirie.
They live in the tradition of their ancestors moving around frequently with the animals they herd, among other ancient survival tactics passed on to each successive generation of wandering desert-dwellers. As pastoral nomads, Dirie and her family live in the harsh and unforgiving desert, constantly moving and cut off from the cosmopolitan influences of large and small cities alike. Her parents are both Somali, but they do not live according to the contemporary customs that most do in their country. Dirie's story begins in 1965 when she is born in the East African country of Somalia, in a city called Calkayo. The book recounts Dirie’s harrowing life story, from her roots as a member of a nomadic family and the unspeakable abuses she suffered as a child, to her extraordinary rise to international fame, first as a fashion model, then as an ambassador and advocate for women's rights, and later as an author. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad is a memoir published in 1998 by the Somali model, author, and activist Waris Dirie.
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