When he looks, he sees cigarettes and rice beer, a new vest for himself. “You had better get a good price for them,” he says. He flicks the ash from his cigarette and squints. Lately, I want to tell her, my stepfather looks at me the same way he looks at the cucumbers I’m growing in front of our hut. “Lakshmi, my child,” she says, “You must stay in school, no matter what your stepfather says.” “I can work for a rich family like Gita does, and send my wages home to you.”Īma strokes my cheek, the skin of her work-worn hand as rough as the tongue of a newborn goat. An American comes to the brothel and asks her where she’s from, and then he comes back and saves her at the end.” But instead, she gets sold to an Indian brothel. When someone comes to the village offering domestic work, her mother decides to send her. She feels bad - she wishes she could contribute somehow. She has to work every day in the fields to help her mom because her stepfather has only one arm and cannot work. She’s a young girl growing up in this very small village in rural Nepal, and her family is very, very poor. The story is written in the form of journal entries, and it’s told from her perspective.
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