The first time I met Isaac in our little village of Turalei, in southern Sudan, I could tell he had a mind of his own. The other kids were laughing at the puppet I had pulled out of my pocket, but he stood back as if sizing me up. Like many of Sudan's young people, who have grown up during the longest-running civil war in Africa, Isaac is only too familiar with guns, bombs, and fighting. But maybe he had never seen a white person before.