The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had to deal with in captivity.

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

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.

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, more accurately, my quivering bank balance, accessed through foreign ATMs—would give out, and I’d fall to the ground.

I have watched lives change. I have seen women gain confidence.

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