A long walk to water by Linda Sue Park

ISBN: 9781786074621

Brilliant historical fiction writer, Newbery medalist, Linda Sue Park retells the events in the life of one of the “Lost Boys” – ‘boys who had lost their homes and families because of the war and had wandered, lost for weeks or months at a time, before reaching the refugee camps’, at a time during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005).

11-year old Salva, a boy from the Dinka tribe in Sudan is all too grateful to be at school, even though it means he has to learn Arabic, the official language of their government. To him it is a privilege to be able to attend school, because his family moved away from the village during the dry season, closer to where water was more easily accessible, making it impossible for him to go to school.

But one day, while in school, gunfire interrupts their lesson and the few who were lucky to survive are scattered into the bush, and Salva is separated from his family. The Rebels, who fought against the government marched the people to their rebel camp, and after Salva gets separated from the rebel-controlled group, a few of his tribe, none that he knows, find him, but they are reluctant to take him with them – because a child will slow them down, he is another mouth to feed while food is already hard to come by, he can’t do any real work, and seems to be of no use to them, explaining why the previous group didn’t even bother about leaving him behind.

Their journey to the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia is full of hardships – finding and getting food, not even to speak of water, and still having to walk through lion-country, having to make boats from reeds to be able to cross the Nile River, and having to walk through the blistering hot Akobo desert, barely surviving it. All the while Salva keeps wondering whether his family back home was “killed by bullets or bombs, starvation or sickness” as were most of the people of his village. One light point is at least that his uncle meets up with him and encourages him in his walk. But it is short-lived when looters brutally kill him right in front of Salva.

Six years later, when the Ethiopian government, run by foreign aid groups, was near collapse, they closed the refugee camps, and all refugees were forced to leave Ethiopia. They were forced by gunfire to cross the crocodile-infested Gilo River, and many innocently paid with their lives. But the survivors made their way to the Refugee camps in Kenya. Salva learns to read, write and speak English, and one day an opportunity to go to America arises – and it is from here Salva fights for help for the people of Sudan, remembering the words of his uncle to just “walk as far as those bushes…” – to get through the desert one step at a time. He establishes “Water for South Sudan” – an organization that “delivers direct, transformative and sustainable quality-of-life service to the people of South Sudan by efficiently providing access to clean, safe water and improving hygiene and sanitation practices in areas of great need”, impacting the lives of thousands of people.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Salva (from the Dinka tribe spanning from 1985), as well as 11-year old Nya from the Nuer tribe from 2008 onwards – tribes who often fought “over the land surrounding the lake“, where the Nuer stayed during the dry season.

The book carries forth Salva’s encouraging message of hope and perseverance when all hope is lost – day by day solving one problem at a time, moving towards your goal. Brilliantly told, as was A single shard (read more here!).