Watching the scenes out of New Orleans, if you turn down the sound it could be the Sudan or any Third World country. But it's not. it's the United States of America.
Going back to South Sudan after the independence took place was deeply emotional for me because I had gone through the civil war with my family just before going to seek refuge in London.
It's a small world when you're from South Sudan.
Having arrived in London to seek refuge during the civil war in Sudan, where I was born, the thing I'm most proud of is having totally evolved. I came here not knowing how to speak English, but I went to school and learned; I adapted to this new culture.
My life was filled with family in South Sudan. I am the seventh of nine children, and we grew up in what would be considered a middle-class family. We did not have a lot, but we did have more than a lot of other people.
I never thought I would see a free South Sudan.
When I was 10 years old, I fled my homeland amid the bomb blasts of civil war in Sudan.
When I was a girl, civil war in Sudan forced me to flee my home town of Wau.
Leaving southern Sudan as a child was terrifying. It was 1985, and my family and I were trying to escape to Khartoum, the capital in the North, to safety.
I grew up in southern Sudan, one of nine children. Our life was simple but very happy.
