Chapter 1
Describe Salva as a student, his school and what he learns.
Salva is a good student and likes school but can be distracted. He started school at age 10 and is learning Arabic. He goes to school only during the rainy season because then the school is only 1/2 hour’s walk from his home.
How does Nya spend her time?
Nya spends her time walking for water
What has been the purpose of Nya’s journey every day?
Nya walks to supply the water needs of her family.
What additional information did you learn about Nya in this chapter?
Nya has a five year old sister, Akeer, and a smaller baby brother. After Nya’s first trip for water, she will eat and leave again for the pond - a total of 8 hours of walking every day, seven months of the year.
Chapter 2:
Describe the rebels. How do their appearance and actions affect the people?
The rebels hold guns and seem fierce and watchful. Salva wonders what will they do and where is my family.
Describe Salva’s family and home life.
Salva’s father is successful, he owns many cattle and is the village judge. He has other wives. Salva has 3 brothers and 2 sisters. They take care of the herd, love to play, hunt, and make cows of clay.
What is happening around Salva as he runs away from the school?
While Salva is running, the rebels are attacking his school. There are smoke and flames
How do tribes tell themselves apart from one another?
Tribes are different according to dress and scar patterns on the forehead of its members
How do they survive on their walk?
They walk, they sleep on the ground, they have only what they can scavenge from their surroundings. Then they walk some more.
Chapter 2:
Why does the group leave the rebels? Why do they leave Salva in the barn the next morning?
The group leaves the rebels because where the rebels are, there is also the fighting.
Why does the teacher urge them to “run into the bush.”
The teacher knows the rebels will go to the village and the boys are not safe there. But running to the bush means they are running away from their families.
What three questions occupy Salva’s thoughts?
Salva’s 3 questions... where are we going? where is my family? when will I see them again?
Why must the old woman move on? Couldn’t she take Salva along?
The old woman is moving to be in a village where there is water. The soldiers will leave an old woman alone; it would be dangerous for her to travel with Salva.
Why do the boys, Buksa and Salva, fall behind? What have they discovered?
The boys fall behind because they are young, hungry, tired, weak. Buksa has discovered a bee hive.
Chapter 4:
What does it mean they are “walking to nowhere”?
This means they have no destination, their walking is aimless, they want only to get away from the rebel fighting.
What are the issues for which the rebels are fighting the government?
The rebels are fighting for their independence from the northern part of Sudan. The government wants all of Sudan to be Muslim, the religion of the north.
When the people organize by village, what does Salva discover?
Salva discovers a dozen others from his village but no one from his family. He does recognize a few people and this does comfort him.
How does the woman from the Jur-chol tribe help him? What is the history between the Nuers and the Dinka tribe?
The woman from the Jur-chol tribe brings him food and lets him stay in the barn. The Dinka and Nuer had a long history of trouble over land and many had been killed in battles over 100 years.
Why doesn’t the group want Salva along? Why is he ultimately taken along by the man and woman?
They don’t want him because being young he will slow the group down and there is not enough food. A man and woman take him because “he is Dinka.”
Chapter 2:
Does Salva consider himself a man? Do the rebels consider Salva a man?
Because “his father always told him to act like a man” - Salva does think of himself as a man when the rebels try to split the people into two groups. The rebels make him join the group of women and children and say “you are not a man yet.”