She was eight when the civil war broke out. She thought the sound of guns was thunder and was looking forward to playing in the mud. Before the day was out, her neighbors were being shot in the street. Sarah Gabriel remembers the run to the border, refugees eaten by crocodiles, her time in a rebel training camp and then, like magic, being whisked away to a residential boarding school in Cuba. This was a trial all on its own because her father, the SPLM ambassador from South Sudan, was recalled and he and her mother then disappeared.A compelling theme of this book is how she found the inner strength to overcome these obstacles, finish sakriti opis