65. the ROAD of LOST INNOCENCE

Somaly Mam 2008
originally published in French 2005

An awe-inspiring and riveting memoir of Somaly Mam. Born in Cambodia, she was sold to prostitution at twelve years old, suffered abhorrent sexual and physical abuse and torture, endured and fought her way out, and is currently dedicating her life to a relentless fight to end human trafficking and sex slavery in Asia and around the world through the Somaly Mam Foundation.

'My name is Somaly. At least that's the name I have now. Like everyone in Cambodia, I've had several. Names are the result of temporary choices. You change them the way you'd change lives.(opening line)

'...the name Somaly: "The Necklace of Flowers Lost in the Virgin Forest."(1)

'I was very unhappy not to have a mother like everyone else. My only confidants were the trees. I talked to them and told them about my sorrow. They listened, understood, and made discreet signs in my direction. They were my only true friends, along with the moon. When things got unbearable, I confessed my secrets to the waterfalls, because the water couldn't reverse its flow and betray me. Even today, I sometimes talk to trees. Other than that, I almost never spoke as a child. There wouldn't have been much point--nobody would have listened.(5)

'People learned from those years that they couldn't trust anyone--friends, neighbors, not even their own family. The more you let people know about yourself--the more you speak--the more you expose yourself to danger. It was important not to see, not to hear, not to know anything about what was happening. This is a very Cambodian attitude toward life.'(14)

'I learned to shut down all my feelings so that none of it mattered--so that it never even happened. Pain is temporary. It goes away if you let your brain go numb.'(25)

'Ideally in Cambodia a woman walks so quietly you can't hear her footsteps. She smiles without showing her teeth and laughs softly. She never looks directly into the eyes of any man. A woman must not talk back to her husband. She must not turn her back to him in bed. She must bow before she touches his head, and if she walks over his legs she will become ill. In Cambodia, you must respect and care for your parents, and your husband is your master--second only to your father.(28)

'But I wasn't frightened of ghosts. The dead don't scare me. I cried, but it was because I had no parents, because I was helpless, because I had been raped and beaten, and because I was hungry and exhausted. I cried from emotion, not from pain. I cried from frustration, because I couldn't kill them.'(46)

'Some prostitutes are sold to the meebon by their parents or relatives, or by their husbands. The price depends on their freshness and beauty, as well as the cleverness and connections of the seller.(47)

'Nowadays the girls are much younger too. This is because men in Cambodia will pay a thousand dollars to rape a virgin for a week--it's always a week, for a virgin. Sex with a virgin is supposed to give strength, to lengthen a man's life span and even lighten his skin.'(59)

'It's still happening, today, tonight. Imagine how many girls have been raped and hit since you started to read this book. My story doesn't matter, except that it stands for their story too, and their stories are why I don't sleep at night. They haunt me.(61)

'There was a creature growing inside me who moved and kicked and soon would need me, but I felt paralyzed by the thought of being a mother to someone. I had never had a mother and I painfully felt that hole in my life. To be a mother myself felt impossible.(123)

'In the beginning of 1996, Pierre, Eric and I finalized our project to create a charity to fund a proper center to help prostitutes. We decided to call it something mild--we knew we had to avoid attracting a stigma to the girls who would be living there. We settled on AFESIP, which translates from French as: Acting for Women in Distressing Situations.'(126)

'In Cambodia we're like frogs in front of the king. When the king orders it, we poke our heads above water and sing. When he signals, we go back into the water. But if we poke our heads out without having been invited to, the king cuts them off with his sword.'(128)

'I've seen everything and lived everything... It's all useless. You want to understand a great many things. It's no use. I fought all my life and for nothing: now I wait for death. The only thing to hope for in this world is the peace you need to look after your own garden.'(128)

'I wanted to show those villagers that even if you have been a prostitute, even if your skin is dark, you can still be a good person. You can be clever, and you can succeed. After the way they had treated me, I had made good life for myself. I was helping others and they could do that too.'(147)

'A seed is like a girl: it can look small and worthless, but if you treat it well then it will grow beautiful.'(147)

'What you have learned, from experience, is worth much more than gold. If you have a house it may burn down. Any kind of possession can be lost, but your experience is yours forever. Keep it and find a way to use it.'(156)

'Writing this book has brought everything back, and I can no longer sleep. It makes me sick. I have nightmares remembering all the horrors. Sometimes I don't know if I can bear to keep living with them. There are times when I'd like to get rid of the burden of memory that weighs me down, the roll call of misery that forces me to have shower after shower, rubbing myself down as hard as possible before covering myself in cream and drowning myself in perfume.'(187)

'People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I'll tell you. The evil that's been done to me is what propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?'(190)

2009 Spiegel & Grau Trade paperback Edition
190 pages
Borrowed from AH