A Long Walk to Water

“Like the pond back home, the lake was dried up, but because it was so much bigger than the pond, the clay of the lakebed still held water.”

Nya’s family’s desperation is evident in this passage. There is so little water that they must resort to digging it out of the muddy lakebed. The situation is unsafe, as the water isn’t sanitary and rival tribes roam the area, but they must take their chances or die of dehydration. Here, Park deepens the conflict that will be resolved with the end of Salva’s journey.

“The Nile: the longest river in the world, the mother of all life in Sudan.”

This passage from early in the novel suggests the importance of water as a symbol in A Long Walk to Water. The river isn’t just a topographical feature to the Sudanese people, it’s “the mother of all life,” it sustains people, crops, and animals. Water in the Sudan is nourishment. Later in the novel, another river, the Gilo, will be the source of death, as thousands die when soldiers force them into the river with crocodiles.

“The water from the holes in the lakebed could be collected only in tiny amounts. If mother tried to boil such a small amount, the pot would be dry long before they could count to two hundred.”

This passage relates the conundrum facing Nya’s family when her sister, Akeer, becomes sick from drinking the dirty water. While they don’t wish to become ill from the water, they have barely enough to sustain them, let alone enough to waste in boiling and sanitizing it. They must risk illness to avoid death by dehydration, a problem that Salva is inspired to fix after his journey.

“It was easy to grow food when there was a whole river to water the crops.”

Salva once again recognizes the importance of water when he sees how food-rich the people who live around the Nile are. He is impressed with the bounty of food they have, and this likely inspires him to find ways of providing fresh water to other parts of Sudan.

“Each time, Salva would think of his family and his village, and he was somehow able to keep his wounded feet moving forward, one painful step at a time.”

This quote offers Salva’s personal philosophy, as his uncle taught him to move one step at a time. The smaller picture here—Salva walking on wounded feet—is symbolic of his larger journey. Though his childhood and young adulthood (his “walk”) have been difficult and painful, he knows that he can make it to safety if he takes it one small step at a time.

“A red giraffe that made very loud noises.”

Nya, unaccustomed to heavy equipment, compares Salva’s well drill to something she is familiar with—a giraffe. Park’s word choice here shows the wonderment and naivete of a child experiencing something for the first time, and this perspective helps the reader understand Nya’s uncertainty about the drilling of the well.

“Do you see that group of bushes? […] You need only to walk as far as those bushes.”

Uncle Jewiir’s encouragement to keep walking, even though Salva feels he can’t possibly take another step, forms Salva’s personal philosophy. He feels overwhelmed by all the tragedy he’s witnessed and the loss of his family, but when he sets small goals, like walking only to the next set of bushes, he’s able to keep going.

“The Lost Boys. That is what they were being called in America—the 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.”

This passage relates to the theme of identity, as the Americans identify Salva as a “lost boy,” a term he is hearing here for the first time. Though Salva might’ve been a lost boy early in the novel, having tagged along with others, by the time he heads for America, he has gained a sense of purpose and direction. He is not a lost boy anymore, but a leader of lost boys, as Park indicates when he leads a huge group of boys to a new refugee camp.