Previous Next

Summary: Chapter 13, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2009

Every day, the workers drive back and forth to the pond and pipe water needed to operate the drill into a bag as large as the truck’s bed. Sometimes the bag springs a leak, the drilling stops, the workers repair the leak, the drilling restarts, and then the bag springs another leak. On it goes, and the workers want to stop the project. Their boss, though, encourages them to keep going. He banters with them, he persuades them, and when all else fails, he gets angry at them, but not often. They patch the bag again, and everyone, including the boss, keeps working. The drilling continues.

Summary: Chapter 13, Salva: Ethiopia-Sudan-Kenya, 1991–92

Salva watches from the riverbank as soldiers fire their guns into the air. They use their rifle butts to force people into the water. A young man being swept downstream disappears into the water, the victim of a crocodile attack. The soldiers begin shooting at the people in the water. Salva jumps into the water, and a boy grabs him around the neck, dragging him under. The boy’s grip loosens, and Salva rises to the surface and gasps for air. The boy has a bullet hole in his neck. A thousand people died that day trying to cross the river, but Salva is not one of them. He reaches the other side.

Salva cannot go home. War rages in Sudan. Certain death awaits him back in Ethiopia. He will walk to the refugee camps he hears are in Kenya. Others follow, and soon Salva is the leader of over a thousand boys. The five-year-olds remind him of his brother, Kuol, who, Salva realizes, is no longer five. The group travels by night to avoid the fighting and bombing. Other boys join them and share tales of hardship and danger. 

Salva organizes the group and gives everyone jobs to do. Some look for food, some gather firewood, some help carry the younger boys when they are too tired. Salva urges them on when they are discouraged. He scolds or shouts, but only rarely. He feels the presence of his family helping him. One step at a time, a year and a half later, and the group makes it to Kenya.   

Summary: Chapter 14, Nya: Southern Sudan, 2009

The sound of the drill fills the air. On the afternoon of the third day of drilling, people gather at the drill site as the leader calls out instructions. Suddenly, there is a new sound. A whoosh! Water shoots into the sky from the hole. The people cheer and laugh at the workers who are now thoroughly wet. Nya claps her hands to the rhythm of the song of celebration that has broken out as she watches the water spray out. Nya’s smile disappears. The water gushes forth, a muddy brown.

Summary: Chapter 14, Salva: Ifo refugee camp, Kenya, 1991–96

Salva, now twenty-two years old, has lived in two refugee camps in Kenya for the past five years. Kakuma, the first camp, felt like a prison. After two years, Salva left Kakuma and walked with a group of men for months to camp Ifo. Here, they found the conditions much the same as at Kakuma. 

Strong and healthy, Salva wants to work and save money. But with no work available, all he can do is wait. And hope.

Michael, an aid worker from Ireland, takes an interest in Salva and begins to teach him English. Salva works hard, eager to learn to read and write before Michael leaves the camp. Michael also introduces Salva to the game of volleyball. 

Excitement spreads through the camp with the rumor that 3,000 men will be chosen to go to the United States. If your name appears on the list posted at the camp administration tent, you can go for an interview and then, if chosen, to America. Salva’s name does not appear on the list, nor on those posted in the days and weeks that follow. He lives in a cycle of hope and hopelessness Then, one day Michael rushes to him with the news. Salva hurries to the tent to confirm that his name is on the list, Salva Dut—Rochester, New York. He is going to the United States.

Analysis: Chapters 13–14

There are several ironies to Nya’s story in Chapters 13 and 14. First, it is ironic that the workers in Nya’s village have to go back and forth to the same pond Nya does in their trucks every day to fetch water for the project. The bag the men fill with water seems less dependable than the container Nya balances on her head, as it springs leaks and needs constant patching. It is also ironic that water is needed in order to operate the machinery that drills for water. And then, when the water finally does shoot forth out of the ground, it is muddy, not clear. Nya wonders if this is life-giving water or if all of the work has been for naught. Muddy water spells death, not life. There is a fine line between living and dying, between hope and hopelessness.

As Salva’s story of survival continues, the cruelty of both humans and nature takes center stage when the soldiers force the refugees into the crocodile-infested river, viciously shooting at the thousands trying to reach the other side. The water, a source of life and survival, is yet again a source of danger, much as it had been for Nya’s sister, Akeer. It seems a miracle that Salva survives, given the randomness of the gunfire, the raging torrent of the river, and the hunger of the crocodiles. The boy who, in his panic grabs Salva and drags him under, ends up the victim of gunfire that hits him instead of Salva, thereby likely saving Salva’s life. Salva could have let the guilt of his own survival overcome him, especially when so many others had died. But instead, he seems to recognize that life has chosen him, and he comes out of the water a leader, ready to inspire others as his uncle had inspired him. 

Nya observes the boss demonstrating leadership skills with his crew that give the reader a hint as to whom that boss might be. There are direct parallels between how the boss encourages, persuades, and seldom raises his voice or scolds the workers with how Salva urges on the thousand boys he is leading to Kenya. Here was his opportunity to put into practice what he had learned from the example his uncle, and his own father had set. When the boys become discouraged, Salva persuades and cajoles them to continue, and rarely resorts to scolding or shouting at them. He is calm and focused, and no doubt becoming a role model for the younger boys. Nya watches the boss organize the workers, breaking up the huge job of drilling for water into manageable responsibilities and tasks, just as Salva organizes the boys and gives them all jobs to do, moving them forward, one step at a time. Nya does not know who the boss is, but the reader can make an informed prediction.

Hope is again a predominant theme as Salva’s story continues. As she did in Chapter 12, Park condenses Chapter 14 to include the five years in which Salva is seventeen to twenty-two years old, and where, regardless of the refugee camp he is living in, life continues to be hard, and Salva is always on the edge of despair. The reader begins to understand that for Salva, hope is just as important as basic necessities, but “it was hard to keep hope alive when there was so little to feed it.” Motivation to learn can be difficult for a person with little hope, but Salva is motivated. He befriends Michael and is eager to learn English. When he discovers that only orphans will qualify to go to America, he has to let go of the hope of finding his family in order to be chosen. Even then, “he felt he was being torn in two by the hoping and not hoping.” The fact that Salva spends days and weeks checking for his name on the list demonstrates that, after all he has been through, he has not lost hope.

Previous section Chapters 11–12 Next section Chapters 15–16

Take a Study Break