During the Southern Sudanese Civil War, over 300,000 women and children died from trying to escape the warzone in 1982, Sudan. This was one of the most devastating humanitarian crisis in the world. In the novel, God Grew Tired of Us, John Bul Dau tells the first-hand experience of how he survived the horrid and treacherous war. John taught the reader about how to never give up, even thru the toughest situations man has to offer, to always be in a positive/optimistic attitude, and hard work eventually pays off.
John Bul Dau learned a life lesson while he was surviving during the civil war, to never give up. In the beginning of the novel, John was very dehydrated, so dehydrated to the point he almost died. However, he never gave up. "I decided if I was going to die, I was going to die…show more content… So the four of us started walking. We walked about till 1a.m. and then settled for sleep," (Bul Dau 72). This shows that he never gave up, because of how much determination he had to find water. Not to long after they had found refuge, one of his friends had died from a disease, and this made him very depressed. "It was my duty as leader of my group to appoint a burial detail. I put my own name on it, and we carried Manyok to the graveyard … I led our group in singing a hymn in Dinka for Mayok," (Bul Dau 81). This shows that he didn’t give up because he buried his friend and sang to honor him, he didn’t just give up and mourn. Once he had to abandon the safety of the UN, they had to cross a crocodile infested river as the enemy shot bullets past their heads, he had the determination to cross the river. "Bullets pinged into the water and screeched overhead. They made dull
