The narrator recalls the night the djellabas, the Arab army, arrived in the middle of the night in Duk Payuel, his home village: He is sleeping in a large tent with a group of other children when he suddenly hears gunfire. He escapes and runs to the forest. A man he assumes is his father pulls him to the ground so they can hide together in the brush. After the gunfire fades, Dau takes “stock of [his] situation” (6): He is 13, naked, with no food or water. His village is in ruins, and he’s separated from his mother and siblings (6). As daylight emerges, he realizes that the man sitting next to him isn’t his father.

The narrator admits that his story is “like those of tens of thousands of boys who lost their homes, their families, and in many cases their lives in a civil war between north and south that raged in Sudan from 1983 to 2005” (7). However, he wants to use his education and experiences in America to tell his story and hopefully improve lives in Africa.