Deep in the Ratanakiri region there is a tribe called Kreung. The Kreung people get up with the sun every day and work in their crops harvesting rice and vegetables off in the jungle. Electricity and running water are not common. While in most other areas in Cambodia it is traditionally frowned upon for women to smoke or drink, the Kreung girls take part just like the boys.

District Judge John F. Walter expressed reluctance to approve the prison term of eight years and eight months sought by prosecutors under a plea deal with Dodd, indicating he thought the sentence was too lenient for the crime. But imposing the maximum possible sentence of 30 years in prison would have required a jury conviction, and the Cambodian victim would have been expected to travel to the United States to testify against Dodd. Walter said he was unwilling to force her to suffer that ordeal.

When Cha Bai was 15 years old, in the early s, she stopped sleeping in her parent's house. A few strong boys from her village, Krolah in Ratanakkiri, Cambodia had gone into the forest, where they gathered brown leaves, split bamboo, cut branches, and then built her a small sleeping hut within the protective enclosure of the village. For the next five years, before she married, Cha Bai slept in the hut. Some cold nights, her sisters or a friend would join her to keep warm and gossip.