Dau summarizes the political tensions that lead up to the civil war and the subsequent attacks on his village in 1987. When he first learns about the escalating war and hears the bombs, he becomes so anxious that he can’t eat. This is OK, however, because his village is so overcrowded with refugees that there isn’t much food to go around. The SPLA soldiers visit in hope of recruiting capable men, and they let everyone know that Ethiopia is safe because they are headquartered there. But the villagers don’t want to leave; they just want the war to leave them alone.

The Arab army kills indiscriminately when raiding a village. As the bombs and army move closer to Duk Payuel, “the social order that had knit the Dinka together since God created the world began to unravel” (46). Social life all but ceases because people are hungry and scared. One night the Arab army attacks Duk Payuel. Dau explains in detail the night first mentioned in the Introduction: After running into the forest and hiding with a man he thinks is his father, Dau realizes the man is not his father but instead Abraham Deng Niop, his older neighbor. Aware they can’t go back to the village, the narrator and Abraham walk east because they don’t hear gunfire in that direction.