Desert Dawn
by Waris Dirie
Reviewed by Selina
Summary è Criticism è Topic è A Reading Sample è ç BACK
Summary:
In the year 2000, nineteen years after Waris ran away from her home Somalia, she stays in Los Angeles to give a talk about female genital mutilation. She has become a model and speaks a lot about Somali traditions in public. This is difficult for her, because she thinks she could betray her family.
Back in New York, Waris wants to find her mother and return to her country. But the travel agent and her friends look at her as if she was crazy, because Mogadishu has become a war zone. The United States warns against all travel to Somalia.
Waris feels really alone because nobody wants to help her. Also her boyfriend Dana, with whom she has a son, refuses to even talk about going to Somalia.
In her feeling of loneliness and emptiness she thinks about a horrible experience, in which she was abused by a man in the bush, where nobody was able to see them. But in those times she didn’t know what had happened to her, because her family never talked about sex – it was a taboo.
Later on Waris decides to go to Amsterdam, where her brother Mohammed lives. They make an agreement to travel to Somalia together to find their family. Waris decides to leave her son with Mohammed’s wife, whom she doesn’t know, but she hopes that she will look after her son Aleeke well.
Waris and Mohammed have to make a stop in Abu Dhabi during their flight to Somalia. There they lose their baggage and miss the airplane to Somalia. So they have to wait for two days in that stinking airport. So Waris just prays to Allah for help.
A couple of days later they finally land in Somalia. There they meet a man, called Abdillahi, who should take them to their home. Abdillahi is also Majeerteen, their father’s clan. So they know that they can trust him. Abdillahi has got an old station wagon, in which they spend a very hot and long time travelling through a silent desert full of poverty. At night the siblings and their guide arrive at the huts where their Somali family are living at the moment, because they lead a nomadic life. The encounter between Waris and her mother is a very magical moment, in which Waris is holding her mother’s face and is pressing her cheek to hers, so she can feel Waris` tears running down in the darkness.
The next day Waris find out that her father lives with another wife not far from the village where they are and that his eyes were operated on two days ago somewhere in the bush. Within the next days Waris and her brother visit their sick father and bring him home. There, Waris` mother takes care of her husband and they spend the following days together, during which love and coherence are very important, but there are still many disagreements between Waris and her family, because she is an independent and dominant young woman, who has a son and who has broken family traditions by confounding the father. These are two totally different cultures, which don’t understand each other’s ways of managing life.
Then the day comes when they have to leave that village as they do not have enough water, no electricity and no doctor, but anyway it’s a place full of spirit and love. On the return journey Waris sees a building where some women are sitting. It belongs to an organisation, which wants to abolish female genital mutilation. She goes in and talks to these women and makes arrangements to work with them. They give her the courage to change something in her country. One of Waris` last sentences is that she prays to Allah that he will give her the strength she needs to speak to her own people in a way they can hear and understand.
Criticism:
Desert Dawn is an autobiographical novel. The model Waris talks about her childhood in Somalia, about her life in New York and about the voyage back to her country and her mother. I think this book very interesting and exciting because Waris tells of many experiences of her own life and about the Somali culture. I have learned a lot about how the Somali people survive in different clans while there’s still a war going on.
The language isn’t complicated because it is written in colloquial speech and she uses basic vocabulary.
The relationships between Waris and other characters, especially her parents are very important to understand her character and how she acts. I’m going to describe these three most important characters.
Waris:
Waris is a very courageous, self-confident and stubborn woman. In the book it’s said that she wants to be independent although it’s not always possible. Especially not during the journey to Somalia: The men there don’t take her seriously and ignore her. So her brother has to clear up the situation. As a young woman she ran away from home because she didn’t want to marry the man she was promised to. She never understood that she wasn’t allowed to look directly into her father’s eyes. Although she thinks in a modern way, she still keeps many of her mother’s traditions. For example she doesn’t buy a stroller but she wears a baby-sling, so that she can feel her baby. At the end of the book she cries because she wants her mother to come with her to New York. In that part we see that she missed a part of her youth because she ran away when she was so young. In this part of the book she is very childlike and a bit naive to believe that it’s a good idea to take her mother with her.
Mother:
Because Waris loves her mother very much, we get a good impression of her. For example that she is a wonderful mother and is gifted with witchcraft. She is able to heal animals and certain people. She is also a very powerful woman because she does all the housework and she always protects her children from her husband when he is furious.
Father:
He is a typical Somali man, who has three wives and a lot of children. He always treats Waris severely and sometimes he is so aggressive that he beats his relatives. He has a special relationship with Waris because he keeps saying that she can’t be his child because she is so wild, loud and always had a yearning for independence. Although he says this, he is very emotional and proud when he sees that Waris has grown up well and become a respectable person.
Topic:
I think one of the most important topics of the book, is the difference between the Muslims of Somalia and our own culture. In the book “Desert Dawn” we can feel the ambivalence of Waris: She ran away from her country because she couldn’t accept that her family would force her into a marriage with a man she didn’t even know. But in New York and London she misses her mother and their way of life: They are pleased with the small things in their lives, such as the rain or having enough milk.
One important aspect in the description of the different cultures is the female genital mutilation. Concerning this subject we see that it is omnipresent in Somalia. 90 per cent of the women are circumcised. It’s a sign of cleanliness and they can’t marry without being circumcised because it would be a shame for the family. Furthermore should this female genital mutilation reduce sexual lust and assure the woman’s premarital virginity and her subsequent loyalty. It can be a risk to the health of the young girls because of the bad hygienic conditions and the old-fashioned medicine they use. In Waris` family one girl died of her circumcision. Because of these dangerous consequences Waris fights against this tradition. Also at the end of the book she wants to work with an aid organisation to inform the people in less developed countries.
Another topic is the relation between men and women. In Somalia it’s normal that men have several wives. In the book it is described that Waris` father has another wife and Waris has got siblings she doesn’t know about. On one page they have an emotional conversation about how Waris lives her life. The women just can’t understand that Waris broke up with her boyfriend and that she is a single parent now. In Somalia the women have to marry a man who is unknown to them and they have to accept it and can’t run away just because he beats them. According to Muslim traditions the women have to cover their bodies. This is the opposite of Western culture, where the fashion becomes more and more revealing. Waris has many disputes with her brother Mohamed because of she prefers wearing short pants whereas he doesn’t want her to wear such clothes.
Another point is that in Somalia people live according to tradition and have many rules, for example about the way they have to eat: people have to eat with their left hand because with the right hand they do the dirty things like cleaning the backside. But I think the people there are more religious because they live closer to nature. For example if it doesn’t rain, it could be that they have to die because they will have nothing to eat. Their religion gives them a lot more hope in their lives: that it will be better when they can pray to Allah.
I think Waris knows a lot about the culture and traditions in her country, but sometimes she doesn’t accept them, for example when she takes pictures of the Somali people although they become furious and are scared. Sometimes I can’t understand why she is so insubordinate although she knows that the people in her country don’t understand Western culture.
A Reading Sample:
(p.163/164)
	My father said, “There is no use living if you have no family and no children.”
	I said, “You know, Father, it’s not how many children you have; it’s how strong and healthy and how united you are that is more important.”
	He said,” Don’t tell me.”
	That night around the fire we had a big discussion about men. Burhaan told me that my sister-in-law was asking why I wasn’t married.
	I said, “It’s not that easy. It’s not like one of your camels or goats. You can’t buy it and then sell it when you don’t want it anymore. Nhur just looked at me and I knew she couldn’t understand. That is how they are brought up and that is the only thing that they know - obeying a man. Nhur and her mother asked me if I had a baby.
	“Yes I have a beautiful baby boy,” I told them.
	My mother asked, “Is he anything like you?”
	“In every way,” I assured her. She looked at me and rolled her eyes up to Allah. She didn’t say anything but “Uh huh!” but everybody laughed especially my father. Mama shook her head and said, “If your child is anything like you, you are going to have some interesting times with him, and you deserve it!”
	Nhur said, “Well, where is his father?”
	I said, “I kicked him out of my life.”
	“Why?” they all cried together.
	I said, “Because I had no use for him in my life or my son’s life; not at this point anyway.” They all laughed at that, but they were shocked.
	“How did you do that?” asked Asha. “Didn’t he kick you out? I thought the man kicked the woman out.”
	I said, “No.”
	My sister-in-law stopped laughing and she got very serious. She said, “We are weak here. The women in this country couldn’t do that.”
I’ve chosen this text because it is shown how the family responds to Waris.
It is about her return to Somalia with all the obstacles and fears that Waris has to go through as she will meet her mother and doesn’t know how her family will treat her.
I think on this page it is shown well how the other women react to what Waris tells them about her life in the USA. We see that there are two different worlds, which don’t understand each other. They find the other way of life funny or it actually upsets them.
In this reading sample Waris, her parents, Nhur – Waris` brother’s wife – and her mother sit around the fire and have a discussion about men and children. This takes place several days before Waris has to leave. Waris tries to talk about her small family in New York to show how she deals with men and that the women have enough power to be independent and manage their lives by themselves.
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