I am addicted to audiobooks as my Los Angeles commute can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours at times and unless i have a good story playing on the radio i risk shooting the other drivers :D. I already told my husband i am leaving him during the week and renting an apartment close to work and somehow he didn’t find that funny ha ha.
Anyway, last week, in a rare change in schedules, my husband had to stay at work for another hour over his regular time. Great! I didn't have to pick him out right away after my own work day ended. An hour to kill gave me the perfect opportunity to stop by one of my favorite Los Angeles playgrounds: the downtown Los Angeles City public library. I love the "Popular Library" section in particular because it is all audiobooks and movies. I usually order my audiobooks to be delivered to the branch closest to work, but that means i have to know what i want. The local branch has only a handful of audiobooks and I have been trhough all of them. I go online and look at titles but browsing online is not half as efficient and not near as much fun as to being in front of hundreds of titles. I read the backs without having to wait for the screen to change, i flip the CDs to make sure they are in good shape, look at the art, the face of the author in the back... I have a lot of fun. Hmmm... I actually don't understand electronic readers either. How can you not miss the feel of the actual paper. Yes, audiobooks have no paper, but listening to the excellent actors simply makes the stories real. So, there i was, at the popular library with like five titles under my arm when i saw Somaly Mam's "The road of lost innocence." I already had another non-fiction title "Stolen Innocence" about a girl forcibly married to her first cousin when she was just 14 and living under the rule of the Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints. Somaly on the other hand, was sold as a sex slave at age 16 in Cambodia but the book summary said that Somaly now helps such young girls rehabilitate and have a better life. I had my hands full, but i took Somaly's book as well. No shopping bags at the library... i carried everything to the car... slowly.
Elissa's recount is riveting and totally enticing. I was really moved by the way she made me respect the people of that strange religion when at first i thought i would just hate their ignorance and horrible treatment of young girls. But Elissa not only tells her story, she tells the life of her people. I had read another similar book by Carolyn Jessop, another really young bride under the FLDS church (for short) and so i knew a little about the subject. But Elissa expands her account to include more of the day to day in the religion, the feelings, the love. She sued "The Prophet" Warren Jeffs, and won. A really interesting, painful but full of courage story.
Time to start Somaly's book . I was just not prepared for such material. Somaly is a woman who has endured unspeakable hardships from poverty to torture to total dehumanization. Even Elissa's troubles seemed small compared to what Somaly recounts: "yes i suffered torture, slavery, etc., but it was better back then, we see much more horrible things happen to girls as young as 5 or 6 nowadays" [not a direct quote but Somaly's words are similar]. The everyday life of these children is not something people can even fathom. The torture is mental, physical, sexual and a daily routine. How do they survive for so long? How can their bodies and minds not simply shut down and kill them somehow?
I felt like a cry baby after I listened to her story. If this woman survived such horror, thrived and is now helping others escape her fate, how can I even complain about my life????? I can tell you, Somaly made me wake up this morning and tell myself "get off of bed and stop complaining."
I invite you to read/listen to her story. You can also check her website, just google her name. She has a store dedicated to raising funds to save the girls but also hope to change the way the government of Cambodia rules over the perpetrators of this cruelty. I saw some neat items on Somaly's website but I found them sort of prohibitive in price. However, anybody can still donate a few bucks or just buy the book the help out.
Child slavery, abuse and sexual exploitation is never a nice subject. But i believe we are better off knowing this exist and maybe, just letting people be aware of this evil, things can get better.
If you read the book or has read the book make sure you comment here!
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