Summary
Chapter 14
2009
The drill goes on for three days. One day the workers seem excited and suddenly a whoosh of water shoots into the air. Nya is stunned to see that it is new water. Everyone cheers and a woman sings a song of celebration. Nya frowns, though; the water is very muddy.
1992-96
Salva is now twenty-two and has been living at refugee camps in Kenya. The first, Kakuma, was very isolated and felt like a prison. Most there were orphaned boys and young men. Local Ethiopians did not like the camp. Ifo was not much better, for there was little food and there was no work. The days were long and empty; it was hard to keep hope alive.
Salva met a lot of workers there, including Michael from Ireland. Salva had always wanted to learn English but it wasn’t until Michael that he learned. Michael helped him learn to read and to play volleyball.
One day a rumor begins spreading through the camp, that about three thousand boys will get to go to America. The rumor is confirmed, and people can talk about nothing else. After a few months, a list is posted for people making it to the interview step. Most of the boys are younger than Salva.
Time passes, and Salva’s name is not on the list. It feels like he is being torn between hoping and not hoping.
One day, though, Michael comes running up and tells him he is on the list. It is true: he is going to Rochester, New York.
Chapter 15
2009
Dep explains to Nya why the water is muddy and that they have to keep going deeper. It will be a few more days before they can drink it. Nya sighs; another walk to the pond.
1996
The boys are being called “The Lost Boys” in America. Salva will be traveling with eight other boys. An aid worker is sent to help them but she is hard to understand. Salva worries he will miss something.
The boys take a truck from Ifo to Nairobi. There are endless forms and photos, but there are also new clothes. Salva is surprised when he is told it is winter in America and he will be cold.
On the plane, Salva marvels that everyone has a seat. He also marvels at the world outside his window, which seems so big. A flight attendant comes by and offers him Coca-Cola. When Salva sips it, he remembers sharing one back at home with his family. He is very happy.
The journey to Rochester requires three planes. Salva bids goodbye to the other boys, as he is the only one going to Rochester. The sheer number of white people here intrigues Salva. His thoughts wander to his new family, and he hopes they will be there waiting and that they like him.
Chris and Louise and their four children are indeed waiting for Salva, and he feels his shoulders relax. It is hard to follow what they are saying but they are very kind. They give him even more clothes.
The frigid air outside shocks Salva, but he sees that everyone seems used to it. He is amazed to be stepping out of the terminal into his new life. He blinks away his tears and steps out.
Chapter 16
2009
Nya’s father and other men pick up spades and take them to a spot beyond the second big tree. Nya asks what they are doing and her father replies that they are clearing the land. She asks for what, and he smiles that she should be able to guess.
1996-2003
Salva has been in Rochester for a month. He is amazed by so much—the paved roads, the electricity, the snow. He cannot believe he is on the same planet.
His studies occupy a lot of his time, though bettering his English is quite difficult. He takes up volleyball.
After being in Rochester for six years, Salva decides to go to college and study business. He thinks he might someday want to figure out a way to help Sudan, although sometimes the problems his country faces overwhelm him.
One day he is startled to receive an email from his cousin working in Zimbabwe. The message is incomprehensible: Salva’s father is in a United Nations clinic for stomach surgery. Salva is stunned. His father alive? It is impossible to contact the clinic or get more info, but Salva immediately starts planning his trip.
It takes months to arrange everything and Salva worries something will have happened to his father. Finally, back in Sudan, he takes a jeep along a dusty road. He wonders at how everything seems so similar yet so different. His memories are both close and far.
After several hours he arrives at the clinic and asks for Mawien Dut Ariik.
Chapter 17
2009
Nya guesses that maybe it will be a house or a barn, but her father smiles that it is a school. He adds that all the children will go to it since no one has to go to the pond. Nya is speechless. This means she will be able to go too, which her father confirms.
2003-2007
Salva approaches his father, whom he recognizes even though the man is much older. He introduces himself as the man’s son, and Mawien is skeptical for a moment until recognition fills his eyes. The two embrace.
Mawien sprinkles water on his son’s head as a blessing for someone lost and then found. Salva learns his mother is still alive, as are his sisters and one brother but his two other brothers were killed in the fighting. He also learns his father is ill from guinea worms in his stomach due to bad water.
A few days later Mawien is released and Salva promises to come to the village when it is safe for him. They hug goodbye.
On the plane home, Salva gets an idea of how he can help the people of Sudan. He begins to work on it once in Rochester. There seem to be a million problems to solve but he has a lot of help.
It is more work than he imagined, and the months pass. He realizes he has to raise money and the only way he can do this is by telling his story. The first time he does this is in a school cafeteria, and while he is nervous, the sight of children’s faces bolsters him.
Three years pass. Salva has spoken many times to hundreds of people. Whenever he becomes weary or frustrated, he remembers his uncle’s counsel of taking one step at a time.
Chapter 18
2009
Nya’s Uncle announces that the well is named in honor of Elm Street School, the American school that funded the well. Everyone in the village lines up for water from the new well.
Nya holds her bottle under the pump when it is her turn. The water is cool, clear, and delicious. The day becomes a celebration.
An old granddad marvels that he never knew that water was there.
In a few days, the school will be done too. There will be a marketplace next year, and maybe even a clinic. People will come from miles around for water and they are not to be refused. The elders will help resolve disputes.
Nya cannot believe she will never have to walk to the pond again. She looks at the leader, leaning against the truck. Dep comes over and tells her the man is Dinka. Nya is stunned; she knows the Dinka and Nuer have been enemies for centuries.
Nya walks over to the man. He says hello. She is a little shy, but she finds her voice. She says thank you. He asks her name and she tells him. He says his name is Salva.
Analysis
Salva’s story steadily improves, though his experiences in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya will forever shape him. He learns he is one of the boys going to America, and he is able to live with a kind American couple and their family. He learns English and prepares to go to college to study business. And, perhaps most amazingly, he learns his father is still alive and is able to visit him and receive a blessing from him. He also learns other members of his family are still alive.
Salva demonstrates the strength of his character when he decides to form his nonprofit, Water for South Sudan. He could have remained in a comfortable existence in America, going to college and getting a job and making money, and that would have been understandable, given the difficulties of his early life. But instead, Salva decides to persevere to bring water to Sudan. There are “a million problems to be solved” (107) and “it was much more work than he imagined” (108). Weeks turn into months and into years. Salva has to face one of his biggest fears to fundraise—speaking in front of an audience. He “knows that his English was still not very good. What if he made mistakes in pronunciation? What if the audience couldn’t understand him?” (108.) Salva doesn’t let these fears deter him, and when he sees the children he remembers what is at stake.
Salva’s character is clear in two other ways. One is acknowledged by Nya, who observes: “[The workers] wanted to stop working. But their boss kept them going…The boss would encourage the workers and laugh and joke with them. If that didn’t work, he would talk to them earnestly and try to persuade them. And if that didn’t work, he would get angry. He didn’t get angry very often. He kept working—and kept the others working, too” (77). This passage reveals that Salva is excellent at working with and managing people, that he is not mean or unfair, that he works alongside those whom he leads, and that he is fervently dedicated to the project even when it seems impossible.
The other example of Salva’s sterling character is when Dep tells Nya that the man who brought the well to them is actually Dinka. Readers know Nya is Nuer but not 100% that the man is Salva, so this comes as a pleasant surprise. The Dinka and Nuer have been fighting for centuries and it seems incredible that a Dinka man has brought water to the Nuer people. Nevertheless, Salva has managed to put aside his tribal affiliation for his people in a larger sense, bringing water to those whom history would dictate he should hate. Nya’s musing that “the Dinka and the Nuer did not look very different physically. You had to look at the scar patterns on people’s faces to tell the tribes apart” (114) is Park’s way of subtly telling her readers that people are not really that different from each other when it comes down to it.
As for the conclusion of Nya’s story, she learns lessons from watching Salva bring water to her people even though he comes from a different tribe, and from Salva’s perseverance even when it seemed too difficult to complete the goal. She was always skeptical hearing the claims that there would be clean, drinkable water in a place where there had never been any before, but perhaps now she will see that hope and hard work can go a long way in achieving the putatively impossible. Finally, Nya’s ability to go to school signals a potentially positive change for gender relations and for the community’s health and sustainability as a whole.
