A Long Walk to Water

Salva’s determination in the face of difficulties creates the narrative structure for the book. Salva encounters multiple obstacles that could prove to kill or injure him, and yet, he perseveres. At the novel’s start, Salva runs into the bush to escape the combatants, separating him from his home, family, and safety for nearly 20 years. Thus begins his “long walk,” as the title describes—the long walk symbolizing Salva’s perseverance. His first obstacle occurs when the first group he meets, who might have aided him on his way to a refugee camp, abandons him. An old Dinka woman feeds him peanuts, possibly saving his life, but she too must leave him, and he joins with another group. Salva makes a young friend in Marial, who is then eaten by a lion, and he comes to rely on the protection and extra food that his Uncle Jewiir provides, only for Jewiir to be killed by Nuer tribesmen. When Salva finally makes it to a refugee camp, his safety is again taken away when soldiers force the refugees into the crocodile-infested Gilo. Salva sees over 1,000 people die along his journey, including friends and family, but he must carry on.

In the parallel story, young Nuer tribeswoman Nya walks miles every day to retrieve water from a dry lakebed, digging into the mud to access the tiny quantities of muddy water on which her family depends. When her younger sister Akeer becomes dangerously ill, the family must walk for two days to access medical care. The doctors tell them that the dirty water caused the illness and they must boil their water before drinking it, but the family lives on so little water that the evaporation from the boiling process would leave them with no water at all. Through all these hardships, Nya perseveres, supporting her family no matter the cost to herself. The book’s title has two meanings, referring literally to Nya’s long daily walk to retrieve water and metaphorically to Salva’s years-long journey through the wilderness in search of safety. Both characters display extraordinary perseverance, making it through their trials one step at a time.

By the time he emerges from the Gilo, Salva has mastered the “long walk,” having learned the key from his uncle: “one painful step at a time” (49). He carries this lesson to both refugee camps and keeps himself alive through willpower and endurance. It is only when he leaves Sudan for America that he finally makes it to “water,” or a safe place where he can rest. Tellingly, Salva doesn’t rest in America, but he sets out to provide his people with a better quality of life. Rather than merely persevering, by the end of the novel, Salva has become an activist and a catalyst for change. No longer content to just survive, Salva creates opportunities for children facing similar obstacles to those he faced, as depicted in Nya’s narrative.