First They Killed My Father

One day, a girl from Keav’s labor camp arrives in Ro Leap to tell the Ungs that Keav is sick and wants to see them. Her illness began with diarrhea because of some bad food she ate. In Keav’s camp, called Kong Cha Lat, girls are given very little to eat. Only Loung’s mother is able to travel to see Keav. As the men work, Loung imagines what happened to her sister.

Loung imagines Keav waking up with a horrible pain in her belly. Despite her pain, she follows the rules of the camp and goes to work. Loung thinks about how beautiful Keav once was and how the camp’s hardships made her beauty hard to see. During work, Keav occasionally runs into the bushes to relieve herself. After a while, she asks her supervisor if she can go to the infirmary. The supervisor refuses until an hour later, when Keav defecates in her clothing. Unfortunately, the infirmary is a filthy place with unclean cots, no doctors, and no medicine.

Once the family is finished working, they wait for Loung’s mother to return. When she arrives, she tells the family that Keav is going to die that night. She describes the filth in the infirmary and how Keav was lying in her own sickness without anyone cleaning up after her.