A Long Walk to Water recap

In 1985, eleven-year-old Salva Dut flees fighting in southern Sudan and becomes separated from his Dinka family. He walks with other refugees toward Ethiopia, befriending Marial and finding protection with his uncle Jewiir, but both are killed during the journey. After years in an Ethiopian camp, Salva survives a forced river crossing and eventually reaches camps in Kenya. He is resettled in the United States, later finds his sick father alive in Sudan, and decides to bring wells to communities without safe water. In 2008, Nya, a Nuer girl, spends each day walking for contaminated water until a drilling team comes to her village. Their successful well permits a school to be built. The team's leader is Salva, whose long journey has become the foundation for work that transforms Nya's future.

In 1985, eleven-year-old Salva Dut is at school when fighting from Sudan's civil war reaches his village. His teacher sends the boys away from the gunfire, and Salva runs into the bush instead of toward home. He joins fleeing villagers but is soon left behind because the adults fear a child will slow them down. An elderly woman shelters him briefly, then helps him join another group when she can no longer safely keep him. Hungry and uncertain whether anyone in his family survived, Salva continues east with strangers. Buksa, one of the walkers, locates a beehive and the group finally eats. In a second timeline in 2008, Nya walks for hours to a pond, fills a container with muddy water, and carries it home, only to repeat the journey. Her family's daily survival depends on water that is both distant and unsafe.

Salva befriends Marial, a boy near his own age, and their companionship eases the fear of the march. Salva then discovers that his uncle Jewiir is among the travelers. His uncle, a soldier, becomes the group's leader and watches over him. The comfort is brief: Marial disappears during the night and the travelers conclude that a lion took him. Salva is devastated, but his uncle urges him to keep moving by concentrating on the next small part of the journey. The group reaches the Nile, where local people help make boats so they can cross. In 2008, Nya's younger sister Akeer becomes seriously ill from contaminated water. The family gets her to treatment and is warned that clean water could prevent the illness, though no safe source is available near their home. Nya continues walking while wondering why strangers have begun examining the ground near the village.

After crossing the Nile, Salva's group enters the Akobo desert, where heat, thirst, and exhaustion kill some travelers. Armed men later attack the group, take supplies, and kill Uncle Jewiir. Without his protector, Salva feels close to giving up, but survives by reducing the enormous journey to one manageable step at a time. He reaches a refugee camp in Ethiopia and remains there for years. When the camp is violently closed, soldiers force the refugees toward the Gilo River. Many people are shot, swept away, attacked by crocodiles, or drowned. Salva reaches the far bank and, though still young, helps lead other displaced boys onward toward Kenya. In Nya's village, workers begin drilling. Nya cannot understand how their noisy equipment will find water in dry ground, but the project continues as the villagers gather materials and wait.

Salva reaches refugee camps in Kenya and spends years at Kakuma and Ifo, learning English and waiting with little certainty about his future. He is eventually selected for resettlement in the United States and joins a family in Rochester, New York. As a young adult he receives word that his father is alive but gravely ill in Sudan. Salva travels back and reunites with him at a clinic; illness caused by unsafe water has left his father weak. The meeting inspires Salva to organize well-drilling projects for Sudanese villages. In 2008, the drill in Nya's village finally reaches water. After the water is made safe, the new well ends Nya's exhausting daily trips and allows the village to plan a school that girls can attend. Nya thanks the project's leader and learns that he is Salva, a Dinka who has chosen to serve her Nuer community. His survival and education have been turned into clean water and a different future for children like Nya.

After years in refugee camps, Salva is chosen to resettle with a family in Rochester, New York. He learns English, studies, and eventually receives word that his father is alive in a clinic in Sudan. Their reunion confirms how severely unsafe water has harmed his family and gives Salva a purpose: he organizes a project to drill wells in rural Sudan. In Nya's village, the strangers who have been drilling finally reach clean water. The well removes the need for her twice-daily journey and makes a school possible, allowing girls such as Nya to attend. When Nya thanks the visiting leader of the project, she learns that he is Salva, a Dinka man helping a Nuer community despite the historic conflict between their peoples. The two timelines meet in a shared result: the endurance that once kept Salva walking now brings safe water and new opportunities to Nya's village.