Long Walk To Water

For people to survive they need at least their most basic human needs met: food, water, safety. Only after those needs have been met can they move on to thinking about their wants. Some people sadly never get the opportunity to even begin to think about the things they want because they hardly have the things they need. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park follows the stories of two people growing up in Southern Sudan in different timelines. They both face struggles beyond what people growing up in first world countries could imagine. Nya and Salva hardly get to think about the things they want because they are struggling just to maintain the things that they need, water and safety. With a war erupting around Salva's timeline he spends his …show more content…
Water for Nyas' village allows the children to go to school because they are not spending all day walking to get water. An education allows the kids to progress in life and learn to read. For Salva water meant freedom, if he had water he could walk longer and find a safe place to stay. Water represents hope because it allows Salva to stay alive and fight for a place in the world. The title of the book being A Long Walk to Water is very symbolic because literally in Nyas timeline she had a very long daily walk to the pond to retrieve water. Salva walks hundreds of miles to find a place to live and goes many months without enough water or even food. Salva then creates his clean water project to hopefully make people's lives …show more content…
Salva has created a clean water program and was able to raise enough money to bring wells into a few African villages. The water here represents progress because Salva was able to make money for a cause and then make some people's lives easier back home in Africa. The Last refugee camp that Salva ended up in was adopting the boys out to homes in Canada and The United States. After stressful months of waiting for his name to appear on the list of boys getting out of Africa, he was flown to New York. His life was changed completely he was living in a neighbourhood with paved roads and enough food and water to go around. In New York, Salva went to college and studied business and after his father becomes ill back home in Africa he has the idea to bring clean water home. Salva starts campaigning and doing presentations in front of the people in New York, he eventually raises enough money to build wells in a few villages. The two timelines intertwine while Nya is waiting in line to fill her water bottle from the new well that was just finished in her village, she introduces herself to Salva and thanks him.
A Long Walk to Water is a true story about the important roles that water plays, both symbolically and literally. Water is the center of people's lives and people that have easy access to water do not consider how important it really is and just how hard some people work for it. Water allows people to have hope and