Yak Girl-Book Report (Elliot)

Yak Girl

By Dorje Dolma

This book is about a girl named Dorje Dolma with scoliosis, living in the remote Dolpo region, in Nepal. This book is a compilation book meaning that it is a book with a lot of stories in one big story. In this summary, I will tell you about the stories that I found most interesting.

One of the stories, when Dorje was about 5, was about her sister, Sumchog. The story of what happened to Sumchog goes like this. One night, Dorje’s mom went out to greet some visitors. She told Dorje to stay with Sumchog while she went out to greet the visitors to the house. At the time she was 5 and Sumchog was 2. Their house is 2 floors, the first floor as the storage room and the second as the living area. Her mother did not come in for a long time, so Dorje decided to go looking for her mother, which seems sensible. As she was walking out the door, she heard a scream from inside the house. She froze, then ran back in. What she saw was a terrible sight. Sumchog had fallen into the fire! Her head was in a nest of hot coals, and was steaming! Dorje quickly pulled her out and went outside to find her mother. When she found her mother, she showed her Sumchog. Her mother screamed and started tending to Sumchog. She survived, but didn’t have good balance and didn’t have hair until she got treatment about 7 years later.

Another story is one about her when she was herding, as her job was to be a herder from age 5 to 9.  One day, she went out with the hundred or so sheep and goats. She went out with her friend, Yuden. They were really good friends, yet their parents didn’t allow them to stay with each other. It looked like a clear day, and they met somewhere in the mountains. The day before this one, it had snowed and there was still fresh snow on the ground. Then they heard an animal cry and saw their goats and sheep crowding together in small groups. Then they saw a snow leopard killing their animals! Yuden stayed away, but Dorje was mad. She ran after the snow leopard and threw sticks and rocks at it. It ran away, but 3 of Yuden’s goats and one of Dorje’s goats did not make it. They got back to their houses later and got scolded for letting their animals die.

A third story comes later in the book, and it is about what happened when her case of scoliosis got bad enough that they had to go to Kathmandu, a city about 100 miles away from where she lived. It took them a month to get there from her house, and when she got there, they had to live homeless for a few days. Then, when her aunt was ready to take their family in, they moved to her house. That night, when she was ten, was the first time she slept in a real bed. She stayed there for a long time, until the rest of her family left to return to their mountain village, and she stayed because  a soup kitchen that doubled as a boarding school was able to take her in. She stayed at the boarding school a long time until someone from America came and said that they would adopt her. It took a long time to make her passport, and then her new family picked her up one day, and then the next day, they took a flight to first Bangkok, Thailand, from there to Los Angeles, California, and finally to Denver, Colorado. Near Boulder is where her new parents live, and, where she would get the operation on her back to improve her scoliosis. There, she lived, until she went to college and got a masters degree in arts.

The main thing I learned from this book was that some countries are very different, because they are richer, or poorer, and some are different because it is just a different landscape. Dorje had never ridden in a plane until she went to Bangkok, when she was ten showing that Nepal is not a very rich country. However, it is a very interesting country.

I truly recommend this book to all readers, especially ones who like adventure stories.