Book Report

By: Laura Olson


Something I learned early on; Time moves slowly in Cambodia. During training, time moved slowly but I was so busy that I didn't have time to realize it...odd, I know. Training was long; at times pretty boring and other times challenging, stressful, and all-in-all, draining. There wasn't a lot of room for philosophical, deep, intellectual thought. I'm also not much of a future thinker. I'm more of a "it's so damn hot and I'm sweating" in-the-moment thinker. Therefore, I was ill-prepared for the reality of my actual service which coincided with a complete lack of pre-arranged structure.

I remember explaining the benefits of the Peace Corps experience to friends and family before I left and "structure" was one of the words I used. I always wanted to travel and experience different ways of living but couldn't just get up and leave the way some wanderers and explorers do. I'm surprisingly too responsible and not surprisingly too obsessed with saving money to just get up and go. Peace Corps would provide me with the structure and new cultural experience that I was too scared to set off for on my own.

And here I am! I'm finally serving in the Peace Corps and have zero structure!!!! Woo-hooo!! Oh, this world is just so funny sometimes. The world of Cambodia is especially funny.

Henceforth! I read books to pass the time. Here we go with the main subject of this blog post! Onward soldiers march! I'm a slow reader and I'm not like every other PCV with a fancy touchscreen book face reader thing. I got me some real live books! They're made of paper and smell delicious. So far, almost every book I've read since in Cambodia, I've been able to relate to my life in one way or another. Is this something everyone does? Probably, but my experience is COMPLETELY UNIQUE compared to everyone else's so I'm special. Just kidding. What am I talking about?? Focus Laurax.

Book #1: Naked in Dangerous Places: The Chronicles of a Hungry, Scared, Lost, Homesick, but Otherwise Perfectly Happy Traveler

By Cash Peters (in my head I keep thinking his name is Cash Powers...)

Don't worry, I'm only getting naked in appropriate and safe places


This book was a gift from my dear friend Geneva before I left Minnesota. It was a perfect gift (given my history with Geneva) because it was in the perspective of a person, Peters, that was not much of a traveler but was hired to be in a reality TV show about traveling to obscure and exotic lands.

I read it so slowly, especially in comparison to other PCTs, so slow that I hadn't even finished it yet and another person finished their 12 book since training started. Holy geez, what's wrong with my brain? It's hard to stuff a lot of things in there all at once.
Either way, I enjoyed reading this book during my first month of training and introduction to Cambodia. There was a chapter dedicated to Peters' short stay in the Kingdom of Wonder and I knew he was talking about Cambodia before he even mentioned his location. Within the first couple of sentences he mentioned something about monks and how it's not even 7AM and it's hot as balls. Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

When reading this book, I was very fresh to Cambodia as was Peters' and I was able to laugh out loud in agreement with his initial feelings and reflections of his visit.


So that turned out to be the only book I brought with me to Cambodia other than my travel book and Birds of Southeast Asia book (which I love!!!! Thank you, Auntie Barb!)

So now what? Luckily, my friend Amanda let me borrow her Kindle for a little while and I went for a classic Book #2: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.
This book let me escape the world around me when I was tired and sweaty. I had very little emotional attachment to the book (perhaps because I was reading it with a Kindle...?) however it did make me yearn to read more books. It felt extremely strange reading a book about a society that burned all of it's books to keep from polluting their minds ON AN ELECTRONIC READER! It didn't feel right. But it kept me distracted.


I lucked out during my one day vacation to Phnom Penh before moving out to permanent site. There are kids in the tourist area of PP that sell books for cheap. The quality is not always that great because they're photocopied versions of the originals and then bound with a cover. I bought two books for $8 (I'm sure I coulda bought them for cheaper but I liked the kid selling them. He was really great to talk to.) The first book I chose was a no-brainer.

Book #3: Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind

By: Loung Ung


The second book by Loung Ung; highly recommended by yours truly


I was extremely happy to acquire this book since I read Ung's first book, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers before I left the states. I left the book with my parents hoping that maybe one of them would read it (AHEM, Mom. Maybe she did?)
Ung recalls her dark childhood under control of the Khmer Rouge in "First They Killed My Father" and I was captivated by her story. One of the most challenging things for me was retelling the story to my friends and family back home. I wanted them to know about her experience as well as the millions of others that suffered during the Khmer Rouge genocide but it's not something many people want to sit and talk about while drinking coffee and eating brunch.

Once in Cambodia, I found other PCVs that either read the book or wanted to read the book for obvious reasons. Cambodia was making great progress as a nation before the Khmer Rouge trampled on all the efforts made by its people in 1975. It makes me wonder how necessary Peace Corps Volunteers would be had it never happened.

I read Ung's second book, Lucky Child, during my first couple of weeks at permanent site and was probably one of the best books for me to read given my situation. Ung is the "lucky child" as she was chosen to follow her eldest brother to America after they sought refuge in Thailand. All the while, much of Ung's family including her older sister, Chou, remain in Cambodia. Her family in Cambodia continue to endure attacks from the Khmer Rouge soldiers as well as struggle everyday to find enough food to survive.

Ung's new life in America is not comparable to that of her family's suffering in Cambodia however she experiences many personal and emotional challenges that are not apparent to the naked eye and possibly harder for others to understand. Ung is in a new foreign land where she doesn't speak a word of the language and completely depends on her brother and his wife for everything. She eventually begins school but is behind because of her lack of English skills and finds it difficult to integrate for more reasons than just the difficult language.

I was able to relate to Ung's difficulties with finding a place in the United States because I was going through very similar challenges here in Cambodia. How can anyone make real friends and real connections with a new community when everything is foreign and strange? Ung became the token Asian girl at times and I find myself being the token "barang" or foreigner to so many people in my community. Because I am! I look really weird! I have whitish skin, blondish hair, and a big nose! I get that but I yearn for the words to explain to others who I am beyond "I'm Laura, I'm from America, I'm 26 years old, I have one brother, I'm not married yet, I'm a volunteer, I'm not a doctor, I'll live here for two years."


Time heals all wounds. In time, I will grasp the language and hold deeper conversations with my family, friends, and co-workers. While this is still very raw and bpi-baak (difficult) now, I keep telling myself that in one year, I will barely even remember how challenging life is right now. Or I'll look back and laugh at how ridiculous it all was. And even better yet, this isn't even as difficult as it will get! Hooray!

In conclusion, this post took me about a week to finally shell out because it was basically homework. See title (Book Report.) I have more books to review and blabber on about and how I can relate so well to the characters, fictional or not. Books are good! Books are fun! Books are pretty! On to the next one, on to the next one.

And to end this blog post even more narcissistically, here's the most recent photo of myself. Please note that I accidentally cut my bangs. I like them! Sorta! Mostly! Don't worry, I'm still growing my hair out. Never give up! Also, other than the constant compliments about my beautiful skin color, I also get constant compliments about my nose. Now, this is funny to me because I've never been a huge fan of my nose and it's right out there in the open for everyone to see! Either way, the compliments about my nice nose are frequent and coincidently, two babies that are currently cooking here will come out with my nose! My host sister is pregnant and said at dinner last night that she wants her baby to have my nose. One of the nurses at the Health Center is also pregnant and she stated something similar a few weeks ago. So there you have it folks: my nose, my book report, my life. I hope I didn't bore you too much. This was really difficult to write!


OOOooh hair and nose.


I'm out!