A little goes a long way in Somalia: $5 will feed a person there for about two weeks..

I am so proud to be a Canadian..

I don't only long for the thrill of being in the middle of a war, I must understand it; I must make other people understand..

Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain..

Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother's roast turkey..

I think it's the human spirit inside of all of us that has an enormous capacity to survive..

I used my captors names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in re….

We all waited on an afterlife. Only I planned to be alive for mine..

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me..

Being in the dark, there's a real weight to it. It's heavy..

I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms—or, mo….

After being in captivity for so long, I can't begin to describe how wonderful it feels to be home in Canada..

I'm not afraid of IED's, bullets, mortars..

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in..

I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world..

I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible..

In my version of paradise, the air was always cold and the rivers ran with candy..

I know firsthand how critical support systems are..

I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in..

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression..

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long..