Summary: Chapter 9, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2008

Nya and her family return to their village. Several months pass. 
One day, not long before the family must leave again for the camp, a Jeep drives into the village. Two men climb out. Dep, Nya’s brother, takes them to their uncle, who is the chief of the village. The strangers, Nya’s uncle, and other men from the village drink tea and talk. When Nya asks, Dep tells her that they are talking about water.

Summary: Chapter 9, Salva: Southern Sudan, 1985

Salva, his uncle, and the rest of their group reach the desert. On the first day of the three-day journey, Salva’s shoes disintegrate. The minutes seem like hours. He walks barefoot under the blazing sun, every breath sapping his energy, thorns tearing at his feet, his lips cracked. He takes only the tiniest of sips of the water from his gourd. 

As dusk approaches, Salva stubs his toe on a rock and loses his whole toenail. In unbearable pain, he begins to cry so hard he can barely breathe. He falls behind the group. Uncle appears at Salva’s side, calling out his full name. “Salva Mawien Dut Arrik” he says loudly. Uncle points to a group of bushes and prompts Salva to reach it. Then, always calling Salva by his full name, Uncle continues urging him forward toward other landmarks, one step at a time. With nightfall comes rest.

The next day, the travelers come upon nine men lying in the sand. Some make weak gestures for help, others are motionless. One of the women, tears in her eyes, approaches the men. She wets a cloth and places it on the dry lips of one man. A man from Salva’s group warns her that helping them is useless. She will not have enough water for herself.

Summary: Chapter 10, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2008

The meeting ends. Nya and the other children follow the men as they walk past her house to a tree. Another tree stands in the distance, some fifty feet away. Nya’s uncle and one of the strangers walk to the halfway point between the trees. The other man from the Jeep walks to the second tree and examines it. The strangers speak to each other in a language Nya does not know. One of the men translates for Nya’s uncle. The man tells her uncle that here, at this place between the trees, they will find the water. Nya wonders how they will find water where there is none.

Summary: Chapter 10, Salva: Southern Sudan, 1985

Salva reaches for his gourd, but Uncle tells him that he will need his water. Three women give water to the men, who, now revived, stand up and join the group. Salva walks past the five dead men. He wonders if he would share his water if he were older and stronger.

As they walk through the desert, Salva talks with Uncle about his family, and his fear that he will never find them once they reach Ethiopia. Uncle tells Salva that his village had been attacked and burned, and survivors are unlikely. Salva learns that Uncle will not be staying with him but will be returning to Sudan to fight. Salva must be brave. Uncle will look for his family.

After two days without food, the travelers reach trees and a muddy pond. The water is not safe to drink, but they build a fire to roast a dead stork. Armed men approach. One of the men, with scars of the Nuer tribe on his face, approaches Uncle. The man takes Uncle’s gun and ties him to a tree. After looting everything the group has, the men pick up Uncle’s gun and return to the tree. Salva watches. A man aims his gun at Uncle, and fires three times. Then the men run away.

Analysis: Chapters 9–10

Now back in their village, not much has changed in Nya’s routine. One might even characterize her days as monotonous. Walking to the pond and back twice each day, every day, to fetch water is Nya’s childhood—survival and responsibility to family, the precarious balance represented by the water container Nya carries on her head. So, when a Jeep appears, the reader can imagine the excitement and curiosity that stirs among the villagers. Like Nya, the reader doesn’t know who the two men are or even why they are there. We only know that their visit has something to do with water. Though neither Nya or her brother Dep can understand how their visit would have anything to do with water, and are unable to imagine water at their village, the reader can sense that things are about to change. 

As Salva’s story continues, so do his struggles, with the days bringing even more suffering and desperation. He becomes as dry and parched and desolate as the desert he is crossing. His ordeal seems similar, though harsher, to Nya’s experiences in the earlier chapters, when she walked in the baking sun, thorns in her feet, driven by thirst to the pond. For Salva, to breathe takes effort and energy he barely has, and it becomes nearly impossible to go on after he stubs his toe.

Just when it seems Salva can endure no more, his uncle appears at his side to provide the support and encouragement Salva needs to take just one more step. When Uncle calls out Salva’s full name, he seems to call forth in Salva the full force of the Dut Arrik family unit to propel him forward. Uncle, who does not leave Salva’s side, strengthens Salva’s resolve by giving him a series of tiny goals to reach—landmarks just ahead on the desert landscape. What Uncle is implicitly teaching Salva, about leadership and perseverance and resolve, about not becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of life’s tasks, foreshadows the man Salva will become when it is his turn to wear the mantle of a leader. 

When Salva’s group finds men lying in the desert sand, near the point of death, the situation presents a moral dilemma. Are those in Salva’s group morally bound to share their water and perhaps save the lives of the wanderers they have stumbled upon? This choice would possibly endanger their own lives. Or does their moral obligation lie with saving their own lives, and thus not sharing their water? Would sharing a little bit of water even help the men who seemed like they were dying anyhow? There are two different responses—three people in Salva’s group choose to share their water, the others don’t. Park leaves it to the reader to contemplate if there was a “right” response or a “smart” response. Salva, whose uncle has told him to keep his water, wonders what he would have done if he were older and had more of a choice in the matter.