Part 3
Akeer falls dangerously ill at Nya's lake camp, while a lion takes Marial and Salva's group reaches the Nile.
Fear at CampAt the 2008 dry-season camp near the great lake, Nya's family digs into damp clay for water. Camp is a different kind of work and a different kind of fear: whenever her father and brother Dep go out hunting, her mother waits in dread, because the land is contested and men from rival groups have met there with violence.
Akeer's SicknessThen a closer trouble arrives: Akeer, Nya's little sister, doubles over with cramps, and the cramps become a sickness her family cannot stop. A hard question opens before them: the nearest clinic is days of walking away, and Akeer is very small. Is the journey itself more dangerous than the illness?
Uncle's RifleIn 1985, Uncle Jewiir, lately a soldier, takes Salva into his care. He has no news of Salva's family, but with one shot of his army rifle he brings down a young antelope — Salva's first real meal since his flight, so rich his stomach rebels all night. After a month the group enters the land of the Atuot, the people of the lion, where one ten-hour march toward a hoped-for water hole finds nothing.
Lion and NileSalva walks beside Marial by day; at night the boys sleep close to Uncle's gun. One night Uncle shakes Salva awake, apologizing, unable to finish his sentence; morning confirms that Marial is gone, taken by a lion without a sound. Grieving, Salva now stays within arm's reach of the rifle. Uncle gives him a destination — east, to Ethiopia — and the part ends among reeds at the Nile, the widest water Salva has ever seen.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Loss, land, and endurance: reunion, scarce, prey, grief, ordeal… |
| Literary Elements | A parallel narrative running twenty-three years apart, foreshadowing in lion country, and cliffhanger chapter endings that hand dread from one chapter to the next |
| Cross-Curricular | Desert-survival physiology — what dehydration does to a walking body, how long a person lasts without water, and why sips must be rationed |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Chapter 6 | Uncle’s Rifle — At the lake camp, Nya’s mother lives in fear whenever the men go out hunting, for the land around the water is contested. In 1985, Uncle Jewiir takes charge of Salva’s group, feeds everyone with a young antelope brought down by his army rifle, and leads them into the land of the Atuot — the people of the lion. After a ten-hour march that finds no water, Uncle wakes Salva in the night with words he cannot bring himself to finish. |
| Chapter 7 | What the Night Took — The truth comes with morning: a lion took Marial from the sleeping camp without a sound. Salva carries his grief forward, keeping close to Uncle and the rifle, and Uncle gives him a destination to walk toward — Ethiopia. In Nya’s time, little Akeer’s stomach cramps become a dangerous sickness, and her family must weigh a days-long walk to a clinic against waiting at home. The chapter closes with Salva’s group at the bank of the Nile. |
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
- A single rifle shot brings down a young antelope, and everyone eats.
- Salva learns a lion took Marial and stays close to Uncle’s rifle.
- Uncle takes charge of the group and promises to look after Salva.
- The travelers reach the bank of the Nile.
- Uncle wakes Salva in the night with news he cannot finish.
Picture a column of people asleep on open ground, in a country whose grass is tall enough to hide a lion. No fences, no walls, no doors — only the dark, the small sounds of the night, and one man lying with a rifle within reach. A boy of eleven sleeps in that column, near his best friend, nearer still to his uncle. When he is shaken awake, the night has already taken something without a sound — no scream, no struggle, just an empty place where his friend had been. Part 3 is about what a boy does with a loss like that: he gets up, and he walks. Twenty-three years later, in the same thirsty country, a small girl named Akeer drinks the only water her family has, and her own body begins to turn against her. Two stories, one hard lesson: in this land, water decides everything — who eats, who moves, who lives.
A walking human body is, before anything else, a machine for holding its temperature near 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). Every step your muscles take produces heat, and on a hot day the only way out for that heat is sweat. As sweat evaporates from the skin, it carries heat away with it — which is why a person hiking in extreme heat can lose about one liter (about one quart) of water every hour. The system works — but only as long as there is water to spend.
The trouble is that the body has no storage tank. Lose just 2 percent of your body weight as water and thirst sets in; at 4 percent, muscles weaken and attention begins to deteriorate; by 6 percent, headache, dizziness, and a racing heartbeat arrive. Beyond a 10 percent loss, sweating can shut down and the blood thickens until the heart struggles to push it; heatstroke — the failure of the body's cooling system — is close behind. A resting person in mild weather can endure about three days without water, but someone walking under desert sun may collapse within a single afternoon.
This is why, where water is scarce, experienced desert travelers conserve it instead of drinking it. The gut absorbs only about one liter per hour, so a gulped supply is mostly wasted; small, steady sips replenish the blood at the same rate the body can use it. Wise travelers also spend less: they walk in the early morning or at night, rest in shade through the hottest hours, and keep clothing on, since covered skin loses sweat more slowly. In a place where the next water may be days away, discipline is not caution — it is survival.
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 3 “The Person Who Got You Through”
When Salva loses Marial, what keeps him walking is not courage alone — it is Uncle: a steady presence with a rifle, a plan, and a promise. Write about a time when one person’s presence helped you through something hard — a relative, a coach, a friend, even a stranger. Describe what you were facing, what that person actually did or said, and how it changed what you believed you could do. 6–10 sentences. End by telling what you would say to that person now.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 3 Complete!
You finished Chapters 6–7 of A Long Walk to Water.
Here are your auto-graded results:
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Linda Sue Park. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Linda Sue Park’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.