WARIS DIRIE
(under construction)
Ich möchte euch auf dieser Seite
über Waris Dirie, ihr Buch "Desert Dawn" und vor allem
ihr Engagement im Kampf gegen FGM (Female Genital Mutilation - Weibliche
Genitalverstümmelung) informieren. Dazu stelle ich euch Materiel zur Verfügung, welches ich in meiner Schulzeit
teils selbstgeschrieben und verwendet habe. Es ist in sehr einfachem
Englisch geschrieben und somit, denke ich, leicht verständlich. Dieses Seite soll aus
den 5 Punkten "The book Desert Dawn", "Female Genital Mutilation",
"Somalia", "Islam" und "Actuel" (Jahr 2004) bestehen.
I. The book "Desert Dawn"
Chapter 1: Desert
Dreams
Waris Dirie tells us that in Somalia devils are white and they
call them djinn, they are everywhere. Thy crawl into animals and people and
cause illness and make them mad. When you lose something, it is the djinn and
when you find it again then the devil is away. Waris’ mother knows a lot about
djinn.
Waris was born in the Somali desert. She had many brothers and
sisters but she can’t remember how many, because many babies died after birth.
Like most of the Somalis they owned goats and camels and lived from their milk.
Boys have to look after the camels and girls have to look after the goats.
Somalis count their age with “gu” which are the raintimes.
Waris’ mother built their house always with mats which are made of
gras. Men never sit down on the earth, but women sometimes do.
Waris has a brother who’s called Old Man, because he got white
hair very early. The Muslims pray a lot. When you are ill, then you only have to
pray three times a day and not five times. As a Muslim you have to wash yourself
before you pray so that you are clean and pure when you talk to God. When you
pray you say “There’s no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” Waris and
her family had no clock so they parted the time in the daily five
prayers.
Her mother did the whole work in the family, she cooked, cared for
her children, built the house, made the mats, she was the doctor and
teacher.
Waris’ father is a Darod.
Twenty years ago, when Waris was old enough to marry, she ran away
from her father and the hard life in Somalia, but in the west it wasn’t easier.
She felt lonely in the west. Alone in a hotelroom in America or England, which
was full of devils, she longed for a human touch. For Somalis loneliness is
worse then death. Her relationship with her fiancé Dana wasn’t that good and she
didn’t know how her family was doing.
It’s the year 2000, 19 years have passed since Waris ran away from
home and she found out that there was war in Somalia.
Waris was invited to hold a speech in Los Angeles about female
genital mutilation. It is very difficult for her to talk about this topic. Waris
wanted the circumcision on herself because she thought that it would make her
clean and pure. She wasn’t much bigger than a goat when a woman cut off her
clitoris and sewed up her wound. Her sister Halimo died because of this. Women
who practise this circumcision mostly use a razorblade or a knife. Later when
the girl gets married, the husband tries to open the labia very violently. If it
is too small you open it with a knife. Nearly 130 million women worldwide are
victims of this mutilation. Every 15 seconds a girl is mutilated. The worst
mutilation happens in Somalia, they call it also infibulation. Waris’ mother
believed that the Koran forced this. Women have to marry in the desert, there’s
no other way if you want to stay alive.
Waris gave birth to a boy whom she calls Aleeke and now he is four
years old. The name Waris means “desert flower”.
Chapter 2:
Alone
Waris wants to go back to
Mogadishu, but all her friends can’t understand her, they try to make her clear
that there is war. The man in the travel agency tells Waris that Somalia is one
of the most dangerous areas in the world.
Muslims never drink alcohol but
Waris is so sad because she lost her family and her partner in the west, so she
does it. A woman can leave her husband when he doesn’t care for the family.
Waris wants that Dana leaves their flat, but he says that she has to go, but
Waris pays their flat.
When Waris was a child she was raped by an uncle of
her, but then she didn’t know what happened and she couldn’t tell it to her
mother. She was too little to know it, because in her family they never talked
about sex, it was tabu.
Later Waris lives alone without Dana. She feels very
lonely and longs for her mother, but there is no chance to go to
Somalia.
Chapter 3: Bushtelephone
Waris is invited to Oprah
Winfrey. She should talk about the soul but not about female geniatl
mutilation.
Waris’ brother calls her, he knows where their mother lives and
she is in safety. But Waris’ father lives together with another woman and he has
problems with his eyes. Her brother Mohammed became khat dealer. This is a drug.
Teeth become black when they chew it.
The war with Ehtiopia began in
1974.
Waris came to London. In December 1992 Waris came to New York. In 1995
Waris agreed to make a documentation for the BBC, because they wanted to help
her to find her mother. Then Waris could spent three days with her mother in
Ethiopia.
Her brother Mohamed wants to go with Waris to Somalia when she pays
for it, because he has not got enough money.
In
Manhattan Waris tries to find Somali clothes, but this is very difficult. Somali
clothes are called dirah. Waris searches for presents for her family, for
example she finds a nice mirror for her mother, so that she can see herself and
how beautiful she is.
Chapter 4:
Differences
Waris and her son Aleeke
go to Amsterdam by plane. Mohammed has a wife called Dhura. Waris believes that
she will be good to her son Aleeke.
For Waris as a Somali it isn’t okay to
eat a pizza while walking along a street and Somalis always pray before they eat
something.
Dana plays in a band. Waris loved Dana, she always felt so safe
when she was with him. but when Aleeke was born they began to quarrel a lot.
Waris doesn’t have a very bad relationship to Granny (Dana’s mother). But there
are a lot of things which are different when Waris cares for her son Aleeke.
Granny always seems to know everything better and doesn’t accept what Waris is
doing. Waris never wanted a pram for her son, because she always carried him on
her back. Waris also mentiones that her son Aleeke was circumcised when he was
born. That’s not the same as with women. This is a medical
reason.
Chapter 5: Endless Flys
Waris arrives in Amsterdam
and she is very happy to see Mohammed again. Dhura, Mohammed’s wife has two
children and one is called Mohammed (every first son gets the name of the
prophet), her daughter’s name is Zhara. Dhura will keep Waris’ son while she is
in Somalia.
When Mohammed and Waris arrive, they can’t find their suictcases
on the airport. Then they also get problems with their tickets to Somalia,
because they are for October the 2nd and they didn’t know it. A man
on the airport tells her that Waris has no visa and so she can’t leave the
airport.
Waris doesn’t know her age. Her mother believes that it rained when
she was born.
Then Waris takes a room in a
hotel, which is expensive, but she’s tired.
Chapter 6: Nightfly
Waris and Mohammed are back in Somalia. Abdellahi will bring
Mohammed and Waris to their mother. Abdellahi wants to get khat, because he says
that it keeps him awake.
Chapter 7:
Mother
When Waris, Abdellahi and
Mohammed arrive at their aim, they meet the wife of Burhaan (Waris brother). She
shows them the way to their mother. Waris says “Oh Mama I brought the rain!”,
but her mother looks angry, “you are not allowed to say and think this. It’s
Allah who brought the rain!”. Waris’ father has problems with his eyes and he
had an operation.
Chapter 8: Desert-dreams come
true
Waris thinks that
nothing has changed since she was away, only she has changed. She visits her
uncle who is very happy to see her. He says that Waris is very thin. She gets
“Angella” to eat, which she likes very much. You are not allowed to eat with the
left hand, you must do it with the right hand, because the left hand is unpure
(Waris forgot to do it).
Waris comes to the hospital where her father is. She
is very shocked about the circumstances and she wants to take her father home to
her mother. He isn’t happy about Waris’ decision but he agrees.
An uncle asks
Waris for help for his daughter, because she is ill. She should go with Waris to
the United States. He doesn’t accept her argument that this would be a problem
for Waris.
Chapter 9: Tribe Talking
Her father tries to convince Waris
that she shouldn’t trust Ragge.
Waris meets her little brother
Raschid.
Her family talks about the different tribes. Waris’ father is a
Darod and her mother comes from Mogadishu. The five stars on the Somali flag
stand for Somalia, Somaliland, Dijbouti, Ogaden and the Somali in Kenia. The
tribe Darod is the strongest tribe in Somalia and Waris is proud to be one of
them. Somalia has two presidents, one in the north and one in the south. The
tribes don’t stick together.
Waris shows her mother all the presents she
brought her and she gives her mother the mirror so that she can see herself, but
it doesn’t make her mother happy. She is shocked and says that she looks very
old.
Chapter 10: Fathers and
Men
Waris wants to give her
brother Burhaan and Nhur a tooth brush and toothpaste, but they say that they
can’t use these things. Since Waris is back everybody tries to teach her, but
she’s born there and she knows everything. She only wants to help her family
with these “modern” things e.g. Kakao butter, tooth brushes, tooth paste, soaps,
shampoo, but her family sees these things as useless.
When Waris sees her
father’s wounded eyes the first time she is very shocked. Waris meets her
father’s second wife again.
Waris is very self-confident and she was it who
left her friend in New York. This is unbelievable for the women in her family,
they say that they would be too weak to do it. Waris tells her family the first
time that little uncle raped her in the past.
Waris father is proud of her,
because she made a trip alone to an other “planet”, she earns her own money and
she is so self-confident.
”Chapter 11: Desert Life
Many people live in one hut, they often have only one
pair of shoes which everybody uses. Waris tries to make photos of her family,
but that’s very difficult, because her brother Mohammed tells them that she will
sell them to magazines. They believe that making photos steals their
soul.
Chapter 12: Somali
Education
Ragge teaches children in
their village. There are 100 children in only one room. Waris comes with Ragge
to see it. UNICEF made it possible to build a small school.
Chapter
13: Ummi (Alphabet)
Waris mother wants to slaughter one of the best goats
for Waris. It’s the first time that the whole family sits together around the
fire and her mother tells a story.
It’s time to say goodbye to her family.
She wants that her mother comes with Waris to New York, but she will never leave
her home, where she spent her whole life. She wants to die
there.
Chapter 14: Going Back
On their trip they come to a pub,
but there it is not allowed for women to eat. Waris brother gets angry and thy
go away. I think he begins to understand and see the problems in their land
where women have no rights.
Chapter 15: Desert
Twilight
Mohammed and Waris search for an accommodation in Bossasso. Then
thy meet a relative in a hotel and he gives Waris the room. Waris wishes that
she could sleep outside the room, because it’s very hot and dirty inside the
room.
The chapters:
The
book “Desert Dawn” is parted into 15 chapters and every chapter has it’s own
title. The different titles point out what we will read in the following
chapters. For example the title “Nightfly” tells us that the following chapter
is about Waris fly to Mogadishu.
Main characters:
Waris: She was born in the desert of Somalia as a daughter
of nomads. She was circumcised when she was 5 years old. Her name “Waris” means
“desert flower”. She has many sisters and brothers, but she can’t say how many,
because some of them died after their birth. As a child Waris had to look after
goats and she always had to do what her father told her to do. The traditions
are very important in her family. She never got the chance to attend school and
learn to read. She was always afraid of her father because he was very strict
and he often beat her. Waris fled from her family because of an arranged
marriage. She should have married an old man, but she didn’t want to. First
Waris came to Mogadishu and then to London where she became a fashion model. The
life in London and New York made Waris very self-confident. Waris also became a
UN embassdor and she holds speeches in many different countries. She tries to
make people clear what consequences female genital mutilation has. Waris is
mother of one son called Aleeke and she’s a very good mother, he grows up with
two traditions. His mother teaches him the history of Somalia and their
religion, but he also gets to know the life in the west. When he was small,
Waris didn’t breastfeed him, he had to drink from a cup, like Waris did it with
all her brothers and sisters in the desert.
Waris' mother: She is a
nomad, comes from Mogadishu and marries a man from the tribe Darod. She is
mother of many children and she always gives the best in every situation! She
teaches her children as well as possible, she knows everything about medicine.
She loves Waris' father although he often is very strict and beats her. When
Waris did something wrong, she also became very strict. She never thinks of
herself, no, she always want the best for other persons! When she was young she
was as beautiful as Waris is today. The time when Waris had to go back to
Amsterdam she asked her mother to come with her, but she said no, because she
never lft this country and she wants to die
there.
Waris' father: He is
a very strict man, but he wants the best for his children. In his life he had
many wives. He never talks a lot with Waris, he only gives her instruction.s The
traditions in Somalia are very important for him, so no one can say anything
against a marriage of Waris with a man he found for her. When he became older he
got problems with his eyes and became blind on one eye. First he doesn't want go
back to Waris' mother but he finally agrees. He wonders about Waris' character
when she visits him. He never saw such a strong and selfconfident woman and he
is proud of
her.
Mohammed
(Waris' brother): He always reacts as if he was the head of the family. He lives
with his wife Durah and his children in Amsterdam. Waris tells him that she
wants to go to Somalia to see her family againd and he says that he wants to
help her. So they make their trip together and on their trip they very often get
into troubles. In the end he begins to understand all the faults and the
difficulties in their land. He grew up with the opinion that women have nothing
to say and to obay the men. In her book Waris talks about the situation, when
she and her brother came to a pub, where they wanted something to eat and to
drink, but it wasn't allowed for Waris to be there. Then Mohammed became angry
and they went away. So I htink Waris is the one who opens her brothers
eyes.
Narrative technique:
In her first part
of the book "Desert Flower" Waris tells her story from the point of view of a
child, but when she becomes agrown up it changes. I think it's after the 11th
chapter. Waris is always very subjective. She tells us what she thinks in
different situations, but Waris also mentions what other people and her family
say. It becomes objective e.g. when she talks about the war in Somalia or the
history.
The second book "Desert Dawn" includes a lot of flashbacks, which
remember us back to her childhood and what happened in the first
book.