Desert Flower Read Online Free PDF

worked so hard for this shit!” I screamed. “I did all this work for you, and this is it? I get a pair of cheap rubber sandals? Fah!! I’d rather go barefoot - I’ll go barefoot till my feet bleed before I wear this garbage!” and I motioned toward his gift.
    Uncle Ahmed just looked at me, then raised his eyes to heaven and moaned, “Oh, Allah.” He stooped with a sigh, picked up his flip-flops, and took them back home.
     
    I was not content to give up so easily, however. \020After that day I kept sending my uncle messages by every relative, friend, or stranger heading to Galcaio: “Waris wants shoes!” But I had to wait many years until I realized my dream of owning a pair. In the meantime, however, I continued to raise Uncle Ahmed’s goats, and help my family care for our herds, walking thousands of miles barefoot.
    Several years before the shoes episode with Uncle Ahmed, when I was a tiny girl, around four years old, we had a visitor one day. The man, Guban, was a good friend of my father’s and frequently came to see us. At twilight he stood talking with my parents, until finally my mother, staring at the sky, watching the bright planet maqal hid hid emerge, said it was time to bring in the lambs. Guban said, “Oh, why don’t you let me do that for you? Waris can help me.”
    I felt important at being chosen over the boys to help Papa’s friend with the animals. He took my hand and we walked away from the hut and began to round up the herd. Normally I would have been running everywhere like a wild animal myself, but it was getting dark now, and since I was frightened, I stayed close to Guban. Suddenly he took
     
    off his jacket and laid it on the sand and sat down on top of it. I stared at him, confused, and protested: “Why are you sitting down? It’s getting dark we have to get the animals.”
    “We have time. We’ll do that in a minute.” He rested on one side of his jacket and patted the empty space next to him. “Come sit down.” Reluctantly I came to him. Since I always loved stories as a kid, I realized this might be a good opportunity to bear one. “Will you tell me a story?”
    Guban patted his coat again. “If you sit down, I’ll tell you one.” As soon as I sat next to him, he started trying to push me back onto his coat. “I don’t want to lie down. I want you to tell me a story,” I insisted stubbornly and squirmed upright.
    “Come, come.” His hand pushed my shoulder firmly. “Lie down and look at the stars and I’ll tell you a story.” Stretching out with my head on his jacket, I stuck my toes in the cold sand and stared at the phosphorescent Milky Way. As the sky deepened from indigo to black, the lambs ran in circles around us, crying in the dark, and I waited anxiously for the story to begin. Abruptly, Guban’s face came between me and the Milky Way; he squatted between my legs and yanked up
     
    - the little scarf wrapped around my waist. Next I felt something hard and wet pressing against my vagina. I froze at first, not understanding what was happening, but I knew it was something very bad. The pressure intensified until it became a sharp pain.
    “I want my Mama!” Suddenly I was flooded with a warm liquid and a sickening acrid odor permeated the night air. “You pee peed on me!” I screamed, horrified. I jumped up and rubbed my scarf against my legs, mopping off the foul smelling liquid.
    “No, no, it’s okay,” he whispered soothingly and grabbed my arm. “I was just trying to tell you a story.” Jerking free, I ran back to my mother, with Guban chasing after me, trying to catch me. When I saw Mama standing next to the fire, the orange light glowing off her face, I ran up and threw my arms around her legs.
    “What’s wrong, Waris?” Mama said in alarm. Guban ran up behind me panting, and my mother looked at him. “What happened to her?”
    He laughed casually and waved his arm at me. “Oh, I was trying to tell her a story and she got scared.” I