A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

by Linda Sue Park

If he were older and stronger, would he have given water to those men? Or would he, like most of the group, have kept his water for himself?

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.

Later, he would learn that at least a thousand people had died trying to cross the river that day, drowned or shot or attacked by crocodiles.

There were times when some of the boys did not want to do their share of the work. Salva would talk to them, encourage them, coax and persuade them. Once in a while he had to speak sternly, or even shout. But he tried not to do this too often.

And one day at a time, the group made its way to Kenya. More than twelve hundred boys arrived safely. It took them a year and a half.

Salva had been in Rochester for more than six years now. He was going to college and had decided to study business. He had a vague idea that he would like to return to Sudan someday, to help the people who lived there.

How could memories feel so close and so far away at the same time?

The man smiled. “What is your name?” he asked. “I am Nya.” “I am happy to meet you, Nya,” he said. “My name is Salva.”