ATLANTA _ The chasm separating Garang Buk Buk Piol from his dream of attending Emory University in 2018 was wide.
The former child soldier from the Republic of South Sudan would need proof before being allowed into the U.S. that he had money to support himself and pay tuition that his partial scholarship did not cover.
He had struggled eight years before to pay a dowry of cattle for the woman he loved, Awau. Her family had demanded 100 head.
In the years after the war's ending in 2005, he had worked as an electrician, then managed the compound of the Catholic school where he found a chance at education. After, he worked for Atlanta's Carter Center in South Sudan, helping eradicate Guinea worm disease, but his salary paid his living expenses and for his education at the Catholic University in Kenya, where he earned a degree in sustainable development.
In the end, with Awau cajoling her parents, Garang succeeded in winning her hand for 16 head.
But there was no bargaining with the U.S. for the visa. The projected cost of his education and living expenses at Emory was about $90,000.
"Where there's a will, there's a way. I felt it was possible," though things looked improbable, he said.
Friends, determination and chance intervened _ just as when he survived the brutal civil war, found jobs, and seized the minuscule chance that an illiterate fighter from a poor country would graduate from college. Now, he is one year into earning master's degrees at Emory in international development and public health. When he returns home in about 18 months, his goal is to pay back his good fortune.
