Part 8
Salva reunites with his father, founds a well-drilling nonprofit, and brings clean water — and his name — to Nya's village.
Father and SonWord reaches Salva in America that his father is alive — sick, but being treated at a clinic in southern Sudan. Salva makes the long journey back and finds Mawien Dut in a bed at the small UN clinic. His father does not recognize the tall stranger at first; when he understands this is the son he believed dead, the two hold each other and weep.
A Dangerous HomecomingThe illness carries the book's whole argument: years of drinking dirty water have filled his father with waterborne disease, and he needs surgery before going home. Salva's mother is alive in the village, with sisters and a surviving brother, but his father warns him not to go — the fighting is too close, and a returning young man could be seized for a soldier. They part promising to meet again when it is safe.
Wells for SudanOn the flight back to New York, grief and hope press into a single idea: Sudan's people need clean water, and Salva — who knows exactly what its absence costs — could bring it. With American friends he founds a nonprofit to drill wells in southern Sudan's villages. Terrified before his first public talk, he remembers his uncle's advice about one step at a time, and speech by speech — schools, churches, clubs — the money slowly comes.
The Same WellIn Nya's village the borehole is finished, a pump is set, and clean water rises from dry land; her father says a school will be built, for girls and boys alike. Nya is astonished that the workers' leader is Dinka — a people her own Nuer have long fought — and crosses the clearing to thank him. He asks her name, glad the water is hers. His name is Salva, and the book's two long walks end at the same well.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Illness, giving, and thanks: contaminated, surgery, nonprofit, donation, gratitude… |
| Literary Elements | Parallel narratives that finally converge, dramatic irony held until the last page, and a resolution built on one spoken name |
| Cross-Curricular | Water engineering — how a borehole reaches the water table, why deep groundwater is safe when pond water is not, and what one well lets a village build |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Chapter 17 | A Father Found, a Plan Born — Salva travels back to Sudan and finds his father at a small clinic, sick from years of drinking dirty water. His mother is alive, but the village is too dangerous to visit. Flying home, Salva conceives his plan: drill wells. With friends’ help he founds a nonprofit and raises money speech by speech. In Nya’s village, her father announces that a school — for boys and girls alike — will follow the well. |
| Chapter 18 | Water Rises, a Name Is Spoken — The drilling crew finishes the well, and clean water flows in Nya’s village at last. Nya is astonished to learn the crew’s leader is Dinka — a man from the people her own people have fought — yet he has brought water to a Nuer village. She thanks him; he asks her name and wishes her well. His name is Salva, and the novel’s two storylines close around one working pump. |
ⓘ 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.
- Salva founds a nonprofit and gives talks to raise money.
- Salva finds his father at a clinic in southern Sudan.
- The finished well brings clean water to Nya’s village.
- On the flight back to America, an idea about water takes shape.
- Nya thanks the leader and learns that his name is Salva.
Picture a man who has not seen his father in almost nineteen years standing in the doorway of a small clinic in southern Sudan. The patient inside is thin and worn, made sick by the very water he has had to drink all his life — and for a long moment he does not know his own son, because the boy who ran from a schoolhouse at eleven is now a grown man from New York. Out of that reunion comes an idea so large Salva can hardly hold it, and so simple it fits in one word: water. Part 8 crosses the last distances in this book — between a hospital bed and a drilling rig, between a nervous speech in a borrowed room and a pump handle in a dry village, and finally between two people standing in one clearing: a girl who has walked for water all her life, and the stranger who came to end the walking.
A village can stand on dry, cracked earth and still have water beneath its feet. Under most land, rain that fell years or centuries ago lies stored in layers of sand and porous rock, held the way a sponge holds water. The top of this soaked zone is called the water table — the level below which the ground is saturated — and in dry country it may sit more than one hundred feet down. No bucket or shovel can reach it, which is why a drilling crew and its rig must come.
The rig grinds a borehole — a narrow drilled shaft — down to the water-bearing layers. The crew then lowers casing — a plastic or steel pipe — into the hole and packs gravel around it to strain out sand. A cement seal caps the top so that dirty surface water cannot seep down along the pipe. Then a hand pump is mounted over the sealed pipe, lifting rain that has trickled down through layer after layer of earth. That slow filtering, and the seal above, is why deep groundwater stays safe while an open pond, collecting runoff, waste, and parasites, stays contaminated.
When water first begins to gush from the pump's spout, the change reaches beyond thirst. Guinea worm — a parasite whose young hide in tiny water fleas swallowed with pond water — vanishes when the village stops drinking from ponds, and stomach illnesses fade with it. Hours once spent walking for water are handed back, most of all to girls, and a village with time and health can build a school, a clinic, a market. Crews train village caretakers to look after the pump, because where the well keeps working, the village can thrive.
“Reaching the water, though, is only half of the crew’s job.”
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 8 “One Step at a Time”
Salva turns an impossible goal — bringing clean water to villages across Sudan — into single steps: one speech, one donation, one well. Think of a goal that feels too big for you right now. Write about what it is, why it matters to you, and the first three small steps you could actually take toward it. 6–10 sentences. End by naming the one step you could take this week.
No right or wrong — 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 8 Complete — You Finished the Book! 🎉
You finished Chapters 17–18 — the final part 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.