Just for water Premium

With World Water Day just past, here is a book that tells you all about the difficulty of getting water.

Going was easy. Going, the big plastic container, held only air. Tall for her 11 years, Nya could switch the handle from one hand to the other, swing the container by her side, or cradle it in both arms. She could even drag it behind her, bumping it against the ground and raising a tiny cloud of dust with each step.

There was little weight going. There was only heat, the sun already baking the air, even though it was long before noon. It would take her half the morning if she didn’t stop on the way. Heat. Time. And thorns

The cover said: “Based on a True Story”. Sometimes you read fiction and it kind of does your head in — all that magic, the flying around, extra-terrestrials and so on. Something real might be good for a change. The book I was reading was A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story by Linda Sue Park.

The first paragraph had me hooked. The 11-year-old carrying an empty plastic container is Nya. She does not go to school. Her daily chore is to fetch water from the pond, which is two hours away. She has to do this twice a day, daily. In the dry season, Nya has to dig the ground for water. When her sister falls ill, the medical clinic tells them they have to boil the water before drinking and cooking with it because the water contains germs.

Two protagonists

But, the story is not just about Nya. There is another child; a 11-year-old boy named Salva. The common factor tying these two characters is that they live in Sudan and they have to overcome deadly dangers to improve not only their lives but that of others too. The story alternates between Salva and Nya and is set in 1985 and 2008.

Salva is one of the ‘lost boys’ of Sudan. Lost Boys refers to a group of over 20,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced and orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War. But Salva is a survivor. He endures hardships and loneliness, survives an attack by rebels and killer lions.

By the end, I had tears in my eyes. There was a deep hurt within me. I sniffed and snorted forgetting that Siddarth was asleep on the bed. But it was too late. My sniffling had woken him up. “Maaaaa” he screamed, “there’s something under my bed.”

“Uh oh! Just shut it, boy,” I muttered, “there are children out there fighting for water and survival. And here you are scared of a monster under your bed! Grow up!”