A Long Walk to Water is a beautiful story about perseverance that is portrayed many times by a boy named Salva. In the story, the countries of Southern Sudan and Sudan are engaged in a civil war that negatively affects the lives of the Sudanese people. Another difficulty that the people face is lack of access to clean drinking water. Salva, one of the two protagonists in the book, has exhibited perseverance innumerable times by continuing to walk through a desert after accepting that his friend has died, pursuing survival even while he doesn’t know what’s going on with his family, and he has to move away from Sudan, where his family is, and come to the U.S. for a better life. After the death of his companion, Mariel, in the desert by a lion, Salva becomes paranoid. Due to his fearfulness, he starts to act fragile until he eventually encounters a hardship, in which his uncle, Jewiir, forces him to continue walking through the Okobo desert. This teaches him a lesson and tactic he uses to lead the lost boys through Sudan to Kenya to get to another refugee camp for survival. This lesson taught by his uncle also helps shape Salva’s character. Shaping his character also forces him to persevere more. …show more content…
At this point in the story, his uncle was the only person who he was close with and he was murdered right in front of Salva’s face. Now Salva doesn’t have any family, friends, and he’s not sure how his birth family is doing. So, he must survive and live off of people who don’t like him to get to a refugee camp that kicks him out, due to the instability of their government. After that horrid event, he was forced to watch his friends be murdered to get rid of the refugees. Although many horrible events happened in Salva’s life up to this point in the story, he will continue to go on and to be