It Feels Like the Burning Hut

Martha Gatkuoch is a young Sudanese woman who lived through unthinkable trauma. She was a child when her idyllic rural village in Southern Sudan was attacked. She and her brothers were separated from their parents in a heartbreaking journey that took them from their homeland to a refugee camp in Uganda, and then through a difficult journey in the American foster care system. Against all odds, Martha has maintained a resilient peace. In this touching memoir, Martha shares the difficulties and joys of her adventures as a Sudanese woman forging her new life.

Martha can recite her lineage twelve generations back, remembering hundreds of years of peace isolated from the rest of the world along the Nile River. Martha's adoptive father, Brett Bymaster, traces the history of Sudan through the eyes of Martha's forefathers, in an attempt to explain Martha's experience in the broader global context. For centuries the impenetrable Sudd, the Sudanese swampland, held back Arab Islamic militants. When the British conquered the Sudd, the floodgates of war broke open. The civil war recently ended and Southern Sudan gained independence. With Martha's generation of resilient Sudanese nationals, there is again hope for peace and tranquility.