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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.

I grew up in Sudan and Kenya, and lived in both the rural and urban centers of both countries throughout my life.

I grew up in a small town in Sudan. There weren't many cars, so we did things in the countryside near where we lived.

It's a small world when you're from South Sudan.

When I was 10 years old, I fled my homeland amid the bomb blasts of civil war in Sudan.

I spent about a year traveling overland from Egypt through Sudan and Ethiopia, and eventually into East Africa.

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 mean, I can look back with great pleasure on what has happened in Sudan, and our commitment to people who are persecuted in that kind of way.

South Sudanese people are rich like the soil; they just need a little water, and they will grow.