A Long Walk to Water

Southern Sudan, 2008

An eleven-year-old girl, Nya, is going to fetch water in the heat of the Sahara. She doesn’t mind carrying the empty container on her head, but the heat is stifling.

Southern Sudan, 1985

Salva, a young man from a successful family from the Dinka village, sits in class listening to his teacher teach Arabic—not the language of the tribes but the one of the Sudanese government. Though his body sits at attention, his mind wanders. He thinks about the bowl of milk that his mother will give him after school to tide him over until the evening meal. He thinks of guarding his father’s cows and playing with his brothers. He imagines making the clay cows he and his friends and brothers carefully craft in their game of cow “ownership.” They also shoot their bows and arrows, occasionally hitting some game, which the boys enjoy together.

Salva’s dream is interrupted by gunfire. After the initial gunfire ceases, their teacher tells the children to run for the bush—not to run home because the gunmen will surely be going there. The shots are a result of the revolution—the government, located in the north, wants the entire county to convert to Islam, while the people of the south resist.