"A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park

BOOK NOTES

NYA 2008 / SALVA 1985
  • Walks a long way to fill up buckets of water
  • It was hard work
  • Nya does not wear shoes
  • She has to walk on prickley thorns to get to the water
  • Fills up her gourd with muddy water
  • Longer trip back
  • Carries water on her head
  • She has a 5 year old little sister name Akeer
  • Mom wants Nya to teach Akeer about filling gourds with water
  • She takes to trips to the pond every day for 7 months
  • They moved to the lake because the pond has dried up
  • They live at lake for 5 months during the dry season when the pond has not water
  • She uses her hands to dig the clay until she has found water.
  • It takes forever for the gourd to be filled with water.
  • The water is muddy.
  • She has to wait a lot for the hole to fill up again with muddy water.
  • She waits.
  • She teaches Akeer to fill the gourds.
  • They are living in a refugee camp.
  • They have to make shelter.
  • They can only bring what they could carry from their home with them to the camp.
  • Nya's mother does not like the camp.
  • She is afraid her son Dep and her husband will never come back to the camp when they go out hunting.
  • Akeer is sick.
  • The family has to make a choice: to go to the clinic which is a long way away or stay and take a chance she will get better.
  • Nya's father decided that Akeer needed the medical help.
  • The nurse tells Nya's mother that Akeer got sick from the water.
  • She should boil the water counting to 200.
  • Nya's mother knows that by the limited amount of water she can get from the clay by the time she counts to 200 there will be no water left.
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  • He is 11 years old.
  • Goes to school.
  • He has 2 sisters and 2 brothers
  • Dad is a judge in the local village, has cattle, and is considered to be well off.
  • Drinks milk after school
  • Each brother has a job assigned to a number of cows
  • and small animals
  • There was gunfire outside the school
  • The teacher tells the children to run to the bush and not to look back.
  • Salva finds his village group called Loun-Ariik.
  • He could not find any of his family members.
  • The whole group that is walking is surrounded by rebel soldiers.
  • They took all the men from the group to carry equipment and fight for the rebel soldiers
  • The men protested and one was beaten
  • Salva stayed behind with the women and children
  • The group found a barn to sleep in for the night
  • When Salva wakes up he is alone everyone had left him behind.
  • He came out of the barn and saw a lady with a ritual marking on her forehead and knew she was from the Dinka tribe.
  • Two tribes were fighting for land and water: Dinka and Nuer
  • She gives Salva peanuts and water
  • He thinks about how he will find his family
  • He stays and works for her for 3 days in hopes that she will keep him around.
  • The water is drying up because winter is coming
  • She tells Salva that she is leaving to go to another village and he can't go with her because the rebel soldiers will leave an old woman alone.
  • He sees a group of people from his village coming to the house and he wonders if any of his family is among them.
  • The group takes Salva with them because he is one of their own but with reluctance because he is a child.
  • The walk away from the fighting toward the unknown.
  • They meet the Jur-khol tribe.
  • No one has any food left.
  • Salva is slowing down from starvation.
  • He meets Buksa.
  • Buksa finds a bees nest by listening.
  • They set the tree on fire to smoke out the bees and make them sleepy.
  • Everyone got stung but they did get the honey.
  • As they continued walking the group got bigger.
  • Salva has not found anyone from his family yet.
  • At the campfire Salva trips and finds a friend his own age who is also looking for members of his family as well.
  • He finds a friend named Marial.
  • Marial has also been separated from his family.
  • They are the same age.
  • Marial says they are heading east to Ethiopia.
  • Salva is afraid that if they leave the country he will never find his family ever.
  • One day they are walking and Salva hears someone call out his name.
  • It is his uncle.
  • Uncle Jewiir is the younger brother of Salva's father.
  • Uncle use to be in the army and carries a gun.
  • The group looks at him as a leader.
  • They catch a topi (young antelope) and the group gets to eat for the first time in a very long time.
  • Everyone gets sick because their bodies are rejecting the food.
  • The group walks and walks and walks.
  • They are now in lion country.
  • At the end of the day the boys drop into a deep sleep from exhaustion.
  • When they wake someone is wailing and Salva soon learns that his friend Marial has been dragged off and eaten by a lion.
  • He hoped the lion had killed Marial instantly and he didn't feel fear or pain.
  • The group makes it to the Nile river.
  • The group will have to cross the river.
  • There are many skilled people in the group.
  • Everyone helps to gather papyrus reeds and stalks to build boats.
  • They begin crossing the Nile.