Desert Flower

Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman whose spirit is as breathtaking as her beauty. She lives a double life - by day she is an internationally famous model and a spokesperson on women's rights in Africa - at night she dreams of her native Somalia. Waris Dirie (whose name means desert flower), was one of twelve children born into a traditional family of tribal desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree - running with her brothers, racing camels - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision. Waris suffered this torture when she was just five years old. Then at the age of twelve, when her father arranged her marriage with a sixty-year-old stranger in exchange for five camels - she ran away. After a death-defying escape through the dangerous Somalian desert she travelled to London and worked as a maid for the Somalian ambassador, until his family returned home. Penniless, and with little English, she started working as a janitor in McDonalds where she was famously discovered by a fashion photographer.