"Another benefit of growing up in Africa was that we were part of pure nature, pure life. I new life --I wasn't sheltered from it. And it was real life--not some artificial substitute on television where I'm watching other people live life. From the beginning, I had the instinct for survival; I learned joy and pain at the same time. I learned happiness is not what you have, because I never had anything, and i was so happy" (Dirie 234-5).
"I feel that God made my body perfect the was I was born. Then man robbed me, took away my power, and left me a cripple. My womanhood was stolen. If God had wanted those body parts missing, why did he create them?" (Dirie 238).
"As the days passed, I got more and more frustrated. I wondered how many more hopeless situations I was going to have to go through to make things better, push myself forward, and find whatever that mysterious opportunity was that I knew was waiting for me. Everyday I wondered, 'When is it going to happen? Is it today? Tomorrow? Where am I going to go? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?' Why I thought this, I've never known. I guess at that time I thought everyone had these voices inside them. But as far back as I can remember, I always knew my life was going to be different than those around me; I just had no idea how different" (Dirie 73).
- This quote displays the differences in cultures between Dirie's African upbringing compared to the Western world where she cuttently lives. Dirie lived with only the bare essentials needed for survival, and she was happy. She went from that world to a world that revolves around material objects in the world of modeling.
"I feel that God made my body perfect the was I was born. Then man robbed me, took away my power, and left me a cripple. My womanhood was stolen. If God had wanted those body parts missing, why did he create them?" (Dirie 238).
- This quote discusses Dirie's opinion of Female Genital Mutilation. She struggled her whole life to understand the concept. When she was younger, she saw it as a right of passage, but as she got older, she realized that it is a horrible thing that no woman should ever have to go through.
"As the days passed, I got more and more frustrated. I wondered how many more hopeless situations I was going to have to go through to make things better, push myself forward, and find whatever that mysterious opportunity was that I knew was waiting for me. Everyday I wondered, 'When is it going to happen? Is it today? Tomorrow? Where am I going to go? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?' Why I thought this, I've never known. I guess at that time I thought everyone had these voices inside them. But as far back as I can remember, I always knew my life was going to be different than those around me; I just had no idea how different" (Dirie 73).
- This quote highlights Waris's need to escape her life in African and fulfill her desires to expand her horizons and discover what more life could offer. This quote occurs while she is still in Mogadishu, unhappy with her decision to stay with members of her mother's family caring for their families. She knows her life was meant for something more.