Summary
Chapter 9
2008
Nya and her family are back in the village. One day, a jeep pulls up and two men emerge. They talk to the oldest boys, including Dep, who take them to the village’s chief. Nya asks Dep what they’re talking about and he says it is about water. Nya is confused, as there is none anywhere near here.
1985
Salva is awed by this desert where nothing green grows. It will take three days to cross, and none of them have decent shoes. The first day feels like the longest Salva has ever experienced. The sun feels “relentless and eternal” and “even breathing became an effort” (52). Thorns hurt his feet, his lips crack, and it feels impossible to not drink all his water. He stubs his toe on a rock and the pain is so immense he begins to cry. He can barely see for his tears and begins to lag behind.
Suddenly Uncle is by his side and calls Salva by his full name, loud and clear. He tells him he need make it only to that group of bushes he can see. Uncle hands Salva a tamarind and he sucks on it.
When they reach the bushes, Uncle tells him to make it to the next rock, the next clump of rocks, and so on. When Uncle uses his full name, Salva remembers his family and his village and manages to keep going. Finally, the sun sets.
The next day is exactly the same: dust, heat, and pain. Up ahead, though, the group glimpses other people. As they get closer they see nine men collapsed on the ground. Five are dead. One woman pushes forward to give water and someone else says they cannot spare it. She wets a man’s lips anyway. Another voice warns that the men will die and so will they.
Chapter 10
2008
Nya watches as all the men walk and talk, looking at a space between two trees. Nya is confused; she knows the village like the back of her hand and there is not a single drop of water there.
1985
Salva reaches for his gourd to help the dying men but his uncle tells him he cannot, for he is too small.
The women’s water, though, revives three of the men: they stumble to their feet and leave their dead companions behind. Salva tries not to look at the dead or think of the vultures.
By sunset, the group will be out of the village and into the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia. Salva walks near his uncle and voices a concern about his family not being able to find him here. Uncle looks at him and says sadly that he’s talked to others and heard the village of Loun-Ariik was attacked and probably burned. He says that few people survive village attacks and no one knows where the people are who made it to the bush.
Salva thinks for a minute, then says that at least Uncle will be with him in Ethiopia. Uncle replies that he has to go back to the fighting in Sudan. Salva is shocked and clutches Uncle, but Uncle tells him he will make friends and a new family. Salva is uncomprehending.
Finally, he decides he must not act like a baby. He asks Uncle when he goes back to Sudan to look for his family and send them word where he is. Uncle does not answer right away but says he will. Salva has a bit of hope now.
The group is sustained only by almost being out of the desert. They have not had food in two days and water is almost gone. They finally know the desert is receding a bit when they see a muddy pond.
There is a dead stork at the pond and they prepare it to eat. Suddenly they hear loud voices and turn to see six men armed with guns and machetes approaching them.
The men order them to sit down and put their hands on their heads and everyone quickly obeys. One man walks up to Uncle. Salva can see his Nuer scars. The man asks if he is with the rebels and Uncle says no, that they are just going to the refugee camp.
The men tie Uncle to a tree and then start looking through the group’s possessions. Salva trembles but for the first time is happy he is so small, as no one will take his clothes. The men pick up Uncle’s gun.
Salva thinks they might leave since they robbed everyone. He hears the men laugh at Uncle, and three shots ring out. The men run away.
Chapter 11
2008
The village works to clear the land between the two trees. Nya continues her walk to the pond, but she watches the progress. She is doubtful: how can there be water under the ground? The earth is dry and hard.
1985
Uncle is buried and the group does not walk that day in order to mourn him. Salva is too numb to think, but once they start walking again he finds himself feeling bolder and stronger. Uncle is gone, Marial is gone: it is as if their strength will help Salva finish his journey.
Unfortunately, now that Uncle is gone the group’s attitude toward Salva is different. They grumble that he is young and small and no one shares anything with him. He has to beg for scraps. This makes Salva feel stronger, though, since everyone underestimates him. He tells himself he will prove them all wrong.
They arrive at the refugee camp and Salva is stunned at the sheer number of people there. They are everywhere, in masses and clumps and curled up and milling around. There are men and women and children and old people, but mostly there are boys and young men who ran away to escape fighting in the war.
Salva is organized with children arriving without their family. He feels a stranger again. He looks around at everyone he sees, vowing to find his family if there is even the slightest chance they are still alive.
Since he’d been walking for weeks, he feels that it is strange to stay in one place. He is restless, though it is a safe place from the war.
He always watches the new arrivals, hoping to see someone familiar. One day he is excited to see an orange headscarf, and immediately thinks it is his mother. He tries not to lose her in the crowd.
Chapter 12
2009
Nya thinks the big red drill looks like an iron giraffe. She watches the men, the drill, and the trucks. The women of the village gather rocks that are later pounded into gravel.
Nya hears many different sounds but never the sound of water.
1985
Salva realizes with a sinking heart that it is not his mother, and Uncle’s words come back to him. He seems to be standing on the precipice of a giant hole; he is completely alone. He remembers them all and wonders how he can go on. Then, though, he thinks of how Uncle guided him through the desert one step at a time and he decides he can get through life in camp the same way. He only has to get through this day, then the next.
If someone had told him he’d be in Itang for six years, he would not have believed it.
1991
It has been six years and Salva is now seventeen. Rumors jump around the camp that it is going to be closed soon. Aid workers confirm this to Salva –that the Ethiopian government is close to collapse and since the refugee camps were run by foreign aid workers with the support of the government, it was unknown what would happen if the government was gone.
One morning long lines of trucks filled with soldiers carrying guns pour into camp. They start shouting that everyone has to leave Ethiopia. There is instant chaos. It is pouring rain and the people become one huge horde. Salva is carried along with them.
It becomes clear the soldiers are chasing them toward the river. Salva knows it is the Gilo River, which not only has a rough current since it is the rainy season, but is also filled with bloodthirsty crocodiles.
Chapter 13
2009
Nya muses on how one must have water to find water, it seems. The crew goes to the pond, piping water into a huge plastic bag-type thing, but the bag often springs leaks.
The drilling crew is discouraged by the leaks but their boss keeps them going. Nya knows he is the boss because of the way he laughs and supports and talks to his workers. He rarely gets angry.
Work continues.
1991-92
The soldiers prod the people forward. Some jump into the river of their own accord, and are swept away. A young man jumps in and begins to make some progress, but to the people’s horror the telltale flick of a crocodile’s tail appears, and the man is pulled under the water.
Suddenly the soldiers start shooting at the people in the river. Salva is confused but knows he has to jump in. A boy next to him grabs onto him and he is pushed under. He cannot breathe. The boy lets up, though, and Salva sees that the boy was shot and was floating away. He realizes the boy pushing him under actually saved his life.
It is a horrifying scene: “the rain, the mad current, the bullets, the crocodiles, the welter of arms and legs, the screams, the blood…” (79). It feels like years but Salva makes it across. Later he learns at least a thousand people died in that crossing, whether from bullets or crocodiles. Salva does not understand why he was one of the lucky ones.
Now, more walking. Salva does not know where he is supposed to go. Not Sudan, not Ethiopia. Kenya, then –there are refugee camps in Kenya.
Salva starts walking. By the end of the day, he has become the leader of about fifteen hundred boys, some as young as five.
There is fighting here in this part of Sudan, so they travel at night and sleep during the day. Walking at night is difficult and sometimes they go in the wrong direction. Other boys join them. Most have terrible stories.
Salva remembers Marial and is strengthened. He doles out jobs to the boys and makes sure everything is shared equally. Sometimes boys do not want to do their job, but Salva rarely yells at them. He tries to encourage and coax them.
It seems as if Salva’s family was there and helping him, and he always thinks of Uncle and the desert.
Salva keeps this as his mantra: one day at a time. Finally, more than twelve hundred boys make it safely to Kenya. It has been a year and a half.
Analysis
If the perils of Salva’s journey were not already clear, here they are made manifest in unforgettable ways. Yes, Park does not depict scenes in a manner that would be inappropriate for younger readers, but she does not shy away from the horrors of Salva’s story.
There are both natural and human forces that menace him in these chapters. First, the desert is a formidable foe. Salva almost wants to give up but his Uncle encourages him to continue by calling him by his full name, which reminds him of his family and his identity, and gives him a strategy to keep going that he will utilize for himself and others for the rest of his life—one step at a time, one day at a time. When his uncle says his name, “Salva would think of his family and his village, and he was somehow able to keep his wounded feet moving forward, one painful step at a time” (54). Salva learns much about how to motivate someone in seemingly impossible situations through his uncle’s example. The dying men that the group encounters also exemplify the desert’s dangers, and Salva “felt sick at the thought of those men—first dying in such a horrible way, and then having even their corpses ravaged” (59). It is passages like this that encourage readers to ruminate on the horrors and traumas of war.
The lawless and cruel men with guns and machetes who rob the group and kill Uncle represent another foe. There are always people who will use immoral methods to secure their own survival, especially during times of war, and these men choose to rob and murder. Salva has thus lost his uncle as well as his friend and (to the best of his knowledge) his whole family. Amazingly, though, Salva does not languish in his despair but “felt stronger” (65) beneath his despair. He knows there is no one he can rely on but himself, and as he does not wish to die a terrible death like the men in the desert, all he can do is endure. In fact, he decides to prove the rest of the group wrong that he is weak and useless.
Man proves to be an enemy again when Ethiopian soldiers decide to empty the refugee camp. Like many African nations in the post-colonial period, civil war and coups were common, and Ethiopia was simply the next in line to fall. Salva and the others in the camp are no longer wanted, but instead of just forcing them to vacate the camp, the soldiers push them to the Gilo River. Here there is a terrible confluence of natural and human foe, for the soldiers drive the people into the river with its swift current and hungry crocodiles. It is perhaps the most monstrous scene in the book, and it is one that Park depicts in an unforgettable way.
In the aftermath of this trauma, though, Salva steps into the role vacated by Uncle. He has learned lessons from his travels that allow him to be a leader to the “Lost Boys” who are forced out of Ethiopia but cannot return to Sudan. On the journey to Kenya Salva does his best to keep the boys safe, to keep them alive, and to keep them possessive of at least a modicum of hope. Uncle’s lessons on how to motivate oneself and others prove immensely useful to Salva as he leads twelve hundred boys safely to Kenya.
