My favorite books about strong Somali women

Hope is sometimes a rare commodity in a land torn by war, famine, and drought for decades.

Blessed help is often even rarer. Dr. Hawa Abdi is that rare person who pours hope into such a desolate environment and saves lives. Dr. Hawa Abdi created a hospital out of nothing, treating all who came to her doorstep, no questions asked. It sits in northern Somalia, with trained nurses and medical supplies brought in from donations.

Dr. Hawa Abdi is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee for her unrelenting work to help Somalia, her home, bringing hope to many hundreds of her people. Indeed an inspirational story of compassion, and making dreams come true.

Shugri is the last nomad in her family. There are no more.

She fled the wars, the famines, the torture that had become Somalia and, through a treacherous journey became a refugee in hostile places, landing finally in California. Along with her constant confusion with escalators and washing machines, she overcame her fears of torture, and her suspicions, to become a nurse, a wife and a mother, a valuable citizen of her community.

I have met Shugri, and she is now one of the kindest, gentlest people I know. She has a lot to teach all of us about strength of character, and loving.

Ayaan is a brilliant woman who escapes the brutality of African culture to become a leader in international politics.

When I write of the African custom of female circumcision, I suspect that many doubt me. I am not African. But when Ayaan writes of her own experience, there is no doubting. Her life is real. Her challenges are real. Every hurdle thrown in her path is real.

It is absolutely astonishing that a once insignificant African woman, a woman treated by the worst of Somali customs, that such a woman could rise to the heights that she has. Her brilliance simply cannot be questioned. A huge bonus is that her writing style is truly lyrical.

I attended college in Ripon, Wisconsin, a stunningly beautiful area that dumped inconceivable snow, ice, and cold all winter long.

As someone from California, I was not prepared for it, and I nearly froze that first winter. Green Bay is but a stone's throw away from Ripon, and it is just as bitterly cold. But that is the environment that greeted several immigrant Somali families.

The teenage girls contended not only with limited knowledge of English, but with sandals made for the desert, and cotton clothing designed to protect them from the sun. It was a bitterly cold winter, but they made it.

Not only did they survive that first winter, but they excelled in English, turning their experiences into captivating tales and eloquent poetry. They write of personal experiences too, like wearing a hijab, one young lady writing that some people thought she wore it because she had no hair, or was having a bad hair day.

I celebrate these young women for all of their many accomplishments.

Bashir’s father was Somali, and she is a first-generation American.

Her breath taking poetry echoes her heritage in poems like “We call it dark matter because it doesn’t interact with light.” She doesn’t identify herself as “Somali,” but her heritage is there. Her blackness is there. Her womanhood is there. A jazz trumpet is there. A spinning sky is there.

I watched Somalis as their world began to fall apart. I could only vaguely comprehend the complexity of their emotions, the loss they would feel when they were forced to leave. I doubt that even they did not know what it meant to lose a homeland.

It seems that women need dirt, dirt to grow from, dirt to grow into. When that dirt is snatched from under us, so many of us lose our footing in the world. A few strong women like Samiya Bashir find their footing in poetry, splashing notions, leaving us common folk to gasp in wonderment.