Alek Wek's Memoir

Wanted to write so many things but everything ended up in drafts. But I will post this surely. This is a book I read before Ramadhan. It is the memoir of Alek Wek, a supermodel from Sudan.

I picked up this book from the library, at that time they were hosting a 'Refugee Week', and they featured this book on the front desk, so I quickly grabbed it. Alek Wek was a refugee from Sudan and this book tells her story camping in the African bushes to escape the civil war to the glamorous runaways of supermodels.

When I picked this book I was thinking, weii aku lagi cantiklah, apasal kau jadik model?  :P (no need translation). Apart from that she is much taller and slimmer.. hehehe I suppose she fits better in those beautiful dresses.

She and her family left their modest town home for safety from rebels and militants to remote villages of Sudan. There they found tribes who lived centuries away from us. People who still hunt and cook using woods and live in houses made of cow dungs. Boys who washed theirs heads with cow's urine to treat lice infestation. During sleepless nights her mother would teach her children listening to the various sounds of the African jungle and her father showed them the constellations of the stars. No tv, books etc, no electricity or clear water.

Boy treating his head lice with cow's urine

They made a miraculous escape to London and obtained refugee status. There she was discovered by a modeling agency and later made her way through to New York. Now she spends her night in New York, the next day dinner in London and the weekend in Milan. Her involvement with the modeling world was a turning point to the industry that has always label beauty as fair, blond hair and blue eyes.

From a refugee to a supermodel, how easily and quickly a person can be easily spoiled, this she admitted herself.

The funny thing is, the fashion designers told her that she was fat. She has always been hungry and was close to being malnourished and they told her she was fat. What a weird world.