When she was twelve, her father arranged for her to marry an old man in exchange for five camels.The man was sixty. It was such a horrible idea that she decided to run away to the capital, Mongadishu. There, she moved from one relative to another. Finally, a kind aunt get her a job as a maid in the Somalian Embassy in London. When the ambassador returned to Somalia, she lost her job. Suddenly, she was in real trouble. Waris was on her own and out of work in a foreign country. She lived by herself, had no money and her English was so bad that it was difficult for her to find work. Eventually, she got a job as a cleaner in McDonald's.
One day, everything changed. By chance, a fashion photographer came in for a burger and saw Waris cleaning the floor. She looked like a perfect model so he immediately offered her work. Within months, she had started a new career. She became a top fashion model, advertising Revlon beauty products, and her face was on the covers of hundred of magazines around the world. She was even in James Bond film, The Living Daylights, in 1987.Waris had such a warm and attractive face that her modelling career was a huge success. Howeverm in 1997 she decided to give up her life as a model. She wrote her autobiography, Desert Flower, about her exciting and exceptional life. "It's very sad," she says. "I had to make the choice to leave my country. What was it like in Africa? Africa was different," she continues. "I was young. I had nothing to worry about. I had my family, I had my animals, I had my simple life."
Waris now lives in New York. She works for the United Nations and campaigns for women's rights all over the world. There is never a dull moment. "I'm trying to sit down for a moment and there's no time for that," she laughs. "In Somalia, we don't care what time it is!"
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