Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad

Uncle Mohammed comes to get Dirie the next day. Dirie is terrified to learn that she will be traveling on the plane by herself; Uncle Mohammad needs to convince her to board. Dirie sits down in a first-class seat as soon as she gets on the plane and needs to be escorted to her actual seat. She is offered candy and scoops up a handful, putting the candies in a pouch in her dress as if they are fruit she gathered in the desert. The air hostess is appalled.

When Dirie uses the toilet, she cannot work out how to flush it. Not wanting everyone to see her urine, she uses a cup to carefully fill the entire toilet bowl with clean water from the sink. By the time she emerges, a long line of angry people are waiting.

At Heathrow Airport, the sight of white people shocks Dirie; she assumes that they are white because they haven’t had enough sun, which seems logical to her given the fact that England is cold and snowy. The escalator fascinates and terrifies her, and she loses a sandal on it. A Somali chauffeur finds Dirie and escorts her through customs. Dirie objects to being labeled as 18 on her passport; she believes that she is about 14. The driver insists that she is now 18, as this is what her passport says.

Dirie is fascinated during their drive through London. They arrive at her uncle and aunt’s home. Exhausted, Dirie asks to sleep before she is taken on a tour of the house. Her aunt takes Dirie to her own bed, and she is amazed by its size and softness.

Dirie is inducted into her position, which involves preparing breakfast for her uncle, aunt, and cousins and then cleaning the palatial house thoroughly from top to bottom. Her days are long and exhausting; she works until 11 o’clock at night, has no days off, and is paid a meager salary.

Dirie makes friends with her cousin Basma, who tells Dirie about the books she reads. Dirie longs to learn English and starts secretly attending night school, but her aunt and uncle find out and put a stop to her classes. She continues trying to learn English by eavesdropping outside the television room, although she is not allowed to watch television, and trying to read Basma’s books.

One day, Dirie is devastated by a call from her mother, who tells her that Old Man and Aman have both died.

Dirie often makes the family laugh by dressing in her uncle’s clothes. She learns about Iman, a Somali friend of the family who is a model, and she grows interested in the profession. When she is walking her cousin Sophie to school, the father of one of Sophie’s friends tries to approach Dirie. She assumes that he is a sexual predator and yells at him in Somali to go away. He follows Dirie home and speaks to her aunt, who also tells him to go away. Dirie’s aunt does not tell Dirie what he wants. Eventually, the man, Malcolm Fairchild, gives Dirie a business card. Basma, who interprets the card at home, tells Dirie that Malcolm is a fashion photographer.

Haji, Dirie’s male cousin, begins coming into Dirie’s room after nights out drinking with friends. Feeling threatened, Dirie hides a rolling pin from the kitchen in her bed. When Haji goes to touch her thigh, she smashes his face with it, breaking his glasses. The family is woken up by the commotion.

The family never speaks of the incident between Haji and Dirie. One day, Uncle Mohammad tells the family that they will be returning to Somalia. They have been in London for four years. Dirie wants to save to buy her mother a house and begs to remain in London, but her aunt and uncle refuse, pointing out that she doesn’t speak English and has no money apart from the tiny amount she has saved from her meager wages.

Dirie secretly buries her passport in the yard. When the time comes for the family to leave, she cannot come as she has no passport. Her aunt and uncle are suspicious but have no choice but to leave without her.

Dirie walks around shops, feeling free. She tries on many clothes. She approaches a Somali woman who is looking at sweaters and begins talking to her; luckily, she speaks Somali. Dirie tells the woman, Halwu, that she has been homeless since her family left, and Halwu suggests that Dirie sleep on the floor of her bedroom at the YMCA. Dirie is thrilled to be able to watch the television in Halwu’s room for as long as she wants.

Dirie manages to get a room in the YWCA building across the road and begins working at McDonald’s, cleaning the kitchen. She does not have a working visa, and McDonald’s pays her a meager wage under the table, as they do with many other refugees and foreigners without paperwork.

Halwu takes Dirie out to clubs, where they meet and dance with men. Halwu warns Dirie not to have sex, as Western men don’t know about the Somali culture of FGM.

Malcolm Fairchild sees Dirie at McDonald’s and tries to talk to her; Dirie greets him politely but leaves quickly. Later, Dirie shows Halwu Malcolm’s card. Halwu calls him, and he invites the girls to his studio.

Malcolm explains to Halwu that he just wants to take Dirie’s photograph. Meanwhile, Dirie looks at the huge photographs of beautiful women lining the studio walls; she feels excited and inspired. Dirie has her makeup done and her photo taken.

Later, Malcolm calls Dirie and tells her that agencies are interested in her. He gives her the address of Crawford’s modeling agency. She goes there and has a stilted conversation with a woman at the agency, Veronica, who explains that there is a casting that she should go to. Dirie takes a cab there with Veronica’s money. However, she is disgusted when she learns that she must take her top off for the shoot. Angry and devastated, she leaves.

Veronica calls Dirie that night and explains that the photographer is not predatory. Dirie goes again the next day. The photographer, Terence Donovan, is patient and kind with Dirie, showing her the artful photos he has taken of other women. Dirie’s photo is taken, and she is chosen for the job and travels to Bath. One of the photos from this shoot ends up being on the front cover of the Pirelli calendar.

Dirie gets another job as a Bond girl in an upcoming film, The Living Daylights. She is excited until she hears that it is being shot in Morocco. Veronica is angry when Dirie admits that she does not have a working visa and can’t leave the country. Dirie assures her that she will figure it out.

Dirie convinces her friend, Marilyn, who is also Somali but grew up in England, to give Dirie her paperwork so she can have a passport made with Marilyn’s details and Dirie’s photo. Marilyn agrees, but once the passport arrives, she hesitates and takes it. Dirie finds it in Marilyn’s bedroom and goes to Morocco.

In Morocco, Dirie shocks her castmates by entering into a camel race and coming in second. She is relieved that her parts in the movie do not require speaking.

Coming back through Heathrow, her fellow cast members see that her passport says Marilyn Monroe, and Dirie panics. She had no idea that her friend was named after a famous person, and she thinks that everyone is drawing too much attention to her fake passport. She is relieved to make it through customs.

William, a man living at the YMCA, asks Dirie on a date; she thinks about the FGM she underwent and says no, assuming he’ll want to have sex at some point. Dirie hears other women urinating in a loud stream; she contrasts this with her own experience of urinating, which takes about 10 minutes as urine drips from the small hole in her vulva. Dirie experiences significant pain every time she has her period, as the menstrual blood blocks up in her body. She remembers burying the bottom part of her body in a hole in the desert in Somalia to try to relieve the pain; her father once found her like this and thought that it was hilarious.

In London, doctors prescribe her birth control to manage the pain without examining her, but she does not like the side effects, including weight gain, and stops taking it. Finally, she decides to tell a doctor that she is a survivor of FGM.

Dr. Macrae, the doctor at the hospital, insists on examining Dirie, reassuring her that he has seen this before. They bring a Somali hospital cleaner to translate Dr. Macrae’s recommendation that they need to operate on Dirie as soon as possible to reverse the procedure. The cleaner advises Dirie in Somali that it is against their culture and that she should talk to her family. Dirie leaves without having the surgery performed, but she decides to have the surgery once her aunt and uncle leave London for Somalia.

Dirie shows Marilyn her vulva. Marilyn, who was not subjected to FGM, cries, grief-stricken that Dirie was mutilated as a child. Marilyn accompanies Dirie while the operation is performed. Dirie is amazed at the existence of anesthetic during the surgery, although the recovery afterward is very painful. After a three-week healing period, she is amazed to be able to urinate quickly and without pain.