But with every step he took, Akau's thoughts flitted restlessly back to his faraway homeland in Sudan--to the times of terror he had endured because of the bloody civil war that has ravaged his country, to the years he'd spent in a Kenyan refugee camp and most of all, to his parents who he wished were still alive to see him graduate.

Akau is one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan," one among millions who managed to escape alive from the longest civil war in African history--a religious and ethnic war between the predominantly Islamic North and a mostly Christian South that has meant the death of more than 2 million Sudanese and has driven more than 5 million of the country's population to other countries as refugees. These days Akau watches from far away as his country's war makes international headlines on television and in the newspaper.

Akau came to the United States in 2001 as part of a rehabilitation program orchestrated by the American government and several nonprofit organizations. And for the past three years, he has found a home in Silicon Valley. He attended De Anza College, taking courses in English for an associate degree, and has just been admitted to Stanford University for an undergraduate program in English and African Studies. He has received several scholarships and loans to help pay for his expenses. "When I came into this country, I did not know what Stanford was. I'd never heard of it," says Akau, his weathered face breaking into a smile.

And he didn't have a reason to. As a young boy growing up in Sudan, Akau says his life was full of adventure. Akau belongs to the Dinka tribe of Southern Sudan, and his family was fairly wealthy. They owned cattle, a symbol of wealth and prestige among the tribes. Akau spent most of his early years, from the age of 5, leading a nomadic life. His job, along with that of other members of his family, was to look after the cattle and herd them to greener pastures during different seasons.

But some of his fondest memories stray back to playing along the banks of the river Nile, hunting for antelopes and small animals in the tall grasslands of the African savannah with spears and clubs, talking about face-to-face encounters with lions and other wild animals with other young boys and listening to the folklore of his region. Growing up in a world that is far removed from the hustle and bustle of city life, there was no way Akau could have heard of Stanford University.

Akau did attend a small school in his village. But in 1987, when the shadow of war crept close to home, every last fragment of stability shattered in his world. "We heard that the army was coming toward our village, and I remember running away with my mother to another village to hide. When we came back, everything was broken: our house, all our things, our school," says Akau.

Even in the midst of the devastation around him, Akau recalls his eagerness for education. "I have seven brothers and sisters. Two of them died due to disease and one was a soldier in the Southern army and was away fighting. After the Northern army raided the house and we were trying to build something out of the shambles, I found a box that belonged to my elder brother that had some of his schoolbooks. I could not read nor could I understand any of it. It was in Arabic. But I was so fascinated by them that I'd sit down with the books and try to copy and write them. My mother would get angry with me, because she said it was a bad omen to take somebody else's things when they were away at war, that something bad would happen to my brother if I used his belongings."

Months after the army raid, when it became clear that his village school was not going to be rebuilt any time soon, Akau did what many other children in his tribe had done. He ran away from home. This was not something new to his family. Another one of Akau's brothers, Peter, had left home for Ethiopia and later Kenya to escape war. Peter is also a part of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" program and graduated from De Anza this year.

But when 8-year-old Samuel Akau ran away from home, he was not just running away from war; he was also running toward the only thing he knew could change his life--education. He went to a town almost 400 miles away from his village, where there was a school that was funded by the United Nations. "I felt bad about running away. But I knew that my parents would never give me the permission to go to this school and study."

But the threat of war followed him everywhere he went, and Akau was forced to flee again. For two years Akau was on the run. It was an arduous journey for a child crisscrossing the breadth of Sudan in search of a safe harbor. But then, he was just another face in the ocean of humanity that was escaping the bullets of war. "I moved to so many villages and cities that I can't begin to list them all," says Akau.

Then Akau heard about a refugee camp in Kenya. Around 1995 he crossed the border into the neighboring nation. And it was here that he met his older brother Peter. "We had not seen each other for so many years that I did not recognize him. But then we pieced our stories together, and we realized that we were brothers."

Akau attended school at the camp and "things were OK," he says. "OK" includes being beaten with a stick for discipline. But Akau is not too bothered by these episodes. "It was part of preparation for manhood. You don't cry when there are girls around," he says.

Around this time the United States government had cleared the way to accept more than 4,000 of these boys as new immigrants as part of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" program. And the Akau brothers were lucky enough to be a part of the program. "While I was boarding the plane to come here to the U.S., I was excited. It was the first time I'd gotten on a plane. But at the same time, it invoked a kind of fear," he recalls. "I had heard good things about the U.S. That it was a great place for education, a rich place where you can make money, and you can have a good and comfortable life. But I had just escaped a religious and racial war in my country, and I was not sure if I'd be faced with the same problems here in the U.S."

The first year, Akau had much to learn. "Initially, it was very difficult for me to interact with the students here. Though I could speak English, my accent was very pronounced, and I felt an inhibition. And the educational system here is very different from what I was used to. In Africa, we have to memorize everything and write our exams. But here, we have to think and present our perspective. Over the years, I found that the staff and student body in De Anza and the community I live in has been mostly accepting of me."

Akau says that his education in the United States has opened his mind to ideas and possibilities he had not considered before. "When I came here, I had finished only two years of high school. So I did some self-study to pass high school. I took courses in U.S. and world history and found that other nations in the world have been through the same issues of war. But looking at some of these nations, I realize that it is only through education and proper laws that you can make any change to improve the condition of the people."

In his 2¹/2 years at De Anza, Akau has become politically active. He was a member of the student body senate and worked as a peer adviser in the SLAMS (Student Leadership Academic Mentoring for Success) program. While attending college full time, Akau also worked part time to support himself. He worked as a security guard and as a clerk at a local Safeway grocery store. But none of his outside commitments have distracted Akau from his primary goal of education. He has a 3.9 grade point average out of a possible 4.0 and was accepted both by UC-Berkeley and Stanford. But Akau has decided to attend Stanford. He later plans to do law.

John Lovas has been teaching English to international students at De Anza since 1961 and says he rarely comes across a student like Samuel Akau. "He has an unusual, incisive and an almost poetic way of writing that is amazing coming from a person who has had a very disrupted schooling and not been exposed to the kind of literature students in the U.S. usually are," says Lovas.

Lovas says that Akau has a way of quietly and almost humbly making an impact on a group. "It is a very special quality. I remember the first time he was in my class. I'd asked all the students to bring in something to introduce themselves. And Samuel brought a picture of a boy from the Dinka tribe, dressed in their traditional costume and holding a spear in his hand. He told the class that if he had not left his home when he did, he would have been just like that boy in the picture. It was a jaw-dropping moment for everybody in the class," says Lovas.

While it seems that this tribal boy from the African savannah has hit the jackpot in terms of coming to America and enjoying its opportunities, Akau says there are times when he finds himself culturally isolated--when his heartstrings are pulled by roots that lie an ocean away. "There are days when I get depressed, when I think of my family, friends and cousins who are still stuck in the refugee camp in Kenya or still at my village in Sudan," says Akau. "It's not easy sending a simple letter to somebody in the camp. There is no address for a person in a refugee camp. If you want to communicate with a person there, they have to go to a neighboring village where there is a telephone connection, and we have to set up a time to call them, and all this can take many months to organize," he says.

Akau believes both his parents were killed in the war, but he says he has a younger brother still living in the same village he grew up in. "He must be 12 years old now. He was born after I ran away from home. So I have not seen him at all. But I dream that one day I can get him across to show him that there is a world of opportunity for all of us in this country."

While Akau is grateful for being a part of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" program, he has a burning sense of responsibility about his homeland. "This chance that I have received is not just for me. It is for all the people I have left behind. If everybody gets a chance and uses it on themselves, then what is the use of that opportunity?" he says.

Years down the line Akau says, he sees himself going back to Sudan to make a change in the system there. "Law and education are the only tools for social change. I see myself being an activist, trying to educate the masses with my writings and teaching my beliefs, attitudes and philosophies."

But for now, Akau is a long way from his war-torn village in Southern Sudan. Physically, he might have traveled thousands of miles across the scorching sands of Africa and crossed continents, but mentally he has traveled a lifetime. "On my graduation day, I realized how much progress I have made in my life. It made me look back on the day I ran away from home, even though I knew I was taking a big risk. I just wish my parents were alive, to show them that I did not fail them."