The author, who believes she was a man in an earlier life, feels doomed to suffer punishments for his sins as a woman in this life. She escaped the horrors of the Communist invasion of her native Louang Namtha district of Laos only to find herself half-way around the globe, needing to learn a new language and way of life just to continue to stay alive.In this book she shared her journey to survive from homeless refugee to homeowner.