A brutal war has been raging in the Sudan for the past twenty years, largely pitting Northern Arab Islamic people against Southern black traditional and Christian African people. The Sudanese conflict has taken 2 million lives, displaced 4 million people, stopped healthcare, and has caused more than one generation to grow up without education. In late 1984, my family and I left the Sudan with little more than the clothes that we were wearing, and came to the United States as refugees. I came to the United States because I wanted a place where I could be free to be the person that I wanted to be, and to be able to give my children their childhood. The purpose of this book is to focus on women's experiences. I wanted to be able to understand and find factors that shape social structure, and look at the way it affects women's lives in what might be called a "real situation." The theme in Making Peace and Nurturing Life is centered in family life, religion, culture and gender in a multicultural, war-ravaged country. In a narrative that carries through the Nilotic way of life, we are helped to understand the Sudan's cultural and political complexities.