Personal Journey In Salva's A Long Walk To Water

“Each time, 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” (Park 41) A personal journey is what a character goes through to change or improve themselves. The character Salva from A Long Walk to Water was a young boy that lived with the dinka tribe in Sudan. When he was at school, he had heard gunshots and had to leave the country without any knowledge of where his family is. A personal journey is an adventure that teaches a character valuable lesson. In the book A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park we follow Salva’s journey after he has to flee the country after war breaks out. Salva’s personal journey impacted him by making him more self sufficient,

Throughout his journey he had to endure many scary things that most children would not be able to survive. An example of this from the text is, “Gunfire! Everyone, DOWN! The teacher shouted. Some of the boys moved at once, ducking their heads and hunched over. Others sat frozen, their eyes and mouths open wide Salva covered his head with his hands and looked side to side in panic.” (Linda Sue Park pg.5-6) This made Salva more brave because he had to leave his village due to war. He has no idea where his family is or if they’re even safe. Salva was very brave for being able to do this and keep walking farther away from his tribe every day. Another factor that made Salva more brave was when he had to watch his uncle be killed. This was very hard for Salva especially after his friend Marial died. Marial was a young boy that Salva met in one of the groups he joined. Marial also had no idea where the rest of his family went and him and Salva bonded over that. After Marial was killed by a lion Salva was devastated because Marial was like the only family that Salva had. However after this event Salva would never leave his uncle’s side and his uncle was like his bodyguard, since he was the only family that Salva knew he’d ever see again. But Uncle Jewiir was killed by Rebels Salva had to move on without him. The text states, “As Salva watched, one of the men aimed his gun at Uncle. Three shots ran out. Then the men ran away.” ( Park

This can be seen through his work building wells in different villages in Sudan, helping his sick father, and helping refugees. Salva went back to Sudan to help other people that were not as fortunate as him and build them wells so they can access water. Once Salva got to America he realized there were still people in Sudan living how he lived or worse, having to walk eight hours a day to get water. Since Salva had access to more people, money, and resources in America he could get them help. He overcame his fear of publicly speaking so he’d be able to make speeches at schools and churches, which helped him raise money. Once he raised enough money and was able to acquire a team of workers he built wells for the villagers in Sudan. This caused children like Nya, a young girl who lived with the Nuer tribe, (the enemy of Dinka) Nya was not able to attend school due to her daily job of walking to get water for eight hours a day. After Salva installed the wells girls like Nya were able to attend school just like the boys in her village. The text states, “Why would a dinka bring water to us?” She wondered aloud. “I heard uncle talking about him,” Dep said. “He has drilled many wells for his own people. This year he decided to drill for the Nuer as well.” (Park 114) This was a very difficult task to complete to help others, and Salva did it all himself. Salva was also able to go back to Sudan to see his father