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Summary: Chapter 7, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2008

For several days, Nya’s sister Akeer has been complaining about a stomachache. Now Akeer is too weak to even moan. The sickness is not uncommon. It begins with cramps, stomachache, diarrhea, and sometimes a fever. Akeer is at risk of dying from starvation and dehydration. The nearest medical clinic with the medicine Akeer needs is several day’s walk away. She may not be strong enough for the journey. 

Summary: Chapter 7, Salva: Southern Sudan, 1985

Terrified, Salva stays within an arm’s length of his uncle as they continue walking. A hungry lion had dragged Marial away while sleeping. Uncle reassures Salva that he has a gun and will shoot any lion who dares come near. Uncle says that everything will be alright, but Salva wonders how this could possibly be true. He has lost his family, and now his friend. 

As they walk, the land around the group grows greener. Salva can smell water in the air. They reach the Nile River, which they will cross. Beyond it is desert and Ethiopia. 

Some in the group know how to build boats out of reeds. They work quickly to gather the reeds, hoping to avoid the fighting nearby or bombs from above. Salva feels useful doing something rather than nothing so he helps. Two days later the boats are finished, tested, repaired where needed, and ready. They push away from the shore into the river.

Summary: Chapter 8, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2008

Nya and her mother take Akeer to the clinic, a big white tent bustling with doctors and nurses. After just two doses of medicine, Akeer is much better. She is thin and weak but back to her happy, laughing self. A nurse explains that Akeer’s sickness came from the water. From now on, she needs to drink only clean, clear water. If clean water is not available, they must boil the water to destroy the germs. 

Mother’s face betrays her worry. As it is, Nya is only able to retrieve a small amount of water from the lake. If they are to boil it, it will evaporate before they are able to count to two hundred as the nurse instructed. They would return home soon, where they could boil the water carried from the pond, but not the water they drink at the pond. They wonder what they will do next year, at the lake.

Summary: Chapter 8, Salva: Southern Sudan, 1985

As Salva’s boat skims across the water, he stays awake by counting the strokes of his uncle’s oar. They reach an island in the middle of the river. 

The group disembarks and goes into the village where they beg for food from the fishermen. Uncle, however, doesn’t have to beg. The fishermen give him food, which he shares with Salva. Salva sucks on a piece of sugar cane. Back home, hunger had never been an issue. The sugar cane reminds Salva of the mangoes his father sometimes bought. He wonders if he will ever again see his father riding home, mangoes stuck between the spokes of his bicycle.  

At dusk, the fishermen retreat to their tents and pull netting over themselves just as a dense cloud of hungry mosquitos appears. The mosquitos feast on Salva and his group who are unprotected. After a sleepless night, bites cover Salva. The bites that he can reach bleed as he scratches. 

In preparation for the journey across the desert, the group fills their containers with water. They climb back into the boat to finish the journey across the Nile. The Akobo desert awaits them on the other side.

Analysis: Chapters 7–8

Nya’s family, much like Salva, experiences the ironies brought about by the struggle to survive. Water, necessary for life, is the very source of Akeer’s debilitating, life-threatening illness. If she doesn’t drink the water, she dies. If she drinks the water, she (and her family) risk dehydration and death caused by its impurity. The family must make a choice: risk the long journey to the health clinic, which Akeer seems too weak to endure, or risk her certain death if she stays at the lake.  When the doctors tell them that they must boil their water, the family faces a conundrum. The irony lies in the fact that though they have a solution that will prevent them from getting sick, there may not be enough water left for them to drink once it is boiled. The situation is dire; the family needs a clean source of water to survive.

For Salva, loss has been and remains a reoccurring theme. He has lost nearly everything that he once had—family, friends, home. Though the appearance of Uncle brought Salva hope, the horrific death of Marial, carried off by a lion, devastates him. While Uncle promises to protect Salva and even tells him, “Everything will be all right,” Salva must wonder, given what he’s experienced thus far, how that possibly could be true. But somehow, Salva doesn’t give in to the suffering. His story keeps moving forward, as if he doesn’t have time to dwell on what he has lost.

Both Nya’s and Salva’s lives hang in precarious balance. On a daily basis, Nya and her family experience the scarcity of the most basic human need for survival: water. They could probably never imagine smelling water in the air as Salva does when his group approaches the river. Presumably Salva, unlike Nya, has plenty of water to drink now that they are at the river. The hope is that the river will be life-giving to them in another way, in that it will play a role in their continued survival when it carries them somewhere safe. But stagnant water near the island breeds mosquitos, which bite Salva’s group and cause additional suffering. Mosquitos also carry the threat of disease. At this point, even the food the fishermen give Salva seems to send him into a depressive state of remembering that he once had plenty of food, and that his family is no longer with him.

Both Nya and Salva seem to realize that cooperation and contribution to the group are not optional if they expect to survive. Nya must support her family by helping her mother travel with Akeer to the medical clinic, far away from the lake. After learning that their water must be boiled, the family will rely even more on Nya to collect enough water for them to drink. For Salva and his group, the only way they can cross the river is by raft. Perhaps Salva could have used his age as an excuse to watch rather than help the men build the raft, but he chooses to pitch in and contribute, feeling pride in being useful. Both Nya and Salva accept the fact that they have a responsibility to contribute to the group for their own survival.

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