Tag: A long walk to water

As you already know in class we are reading A Long Walk to Water. This blog post is about Salvas philosophy and perseverance.

Salva’s philosophy, to manage things ‘bit by bit, one step at a time’, could help me in life because it is basically saying don’t go too fast. In life, you don’t want to rush in anything. Whether you’re taking a test or just doing something hard. You should slow down and think about what you’re doing. You should think in pieces and steps. Here’s a way to describe this: Imagine that you and a friend were walking. You were walking to a candy store. It was very hot, and your friend wanted to get there first. So, he rushed ahead. While he bolted for the candy store you took your time. By the time you got there your friend was still panting and sweating like a maniac while you were cool and still got the same thing at the end, just in a better condition. Most people would probably pick the one where you still had your breath. If not, I don’t think you like this philosophy too much.

Perseverance is important because life is not complete without it. You need to persevere to do something. If Einstein hadn’t persevered to find the Theory of Relativity, we wouldn’t even see the world the same way we do now. If the 13 colonies hadn’t persevered, The would still be a part of England!  Sometimes you just have to persevere to survive. Salva is a great example of this. This is because he had to keep on going to get to Ethiopia and after that, Kenya. In the book, it states that to get to Kenya from Ethiopia it took 1 1/2 years. That takes A LOT of perseverance. This is a very important example because it shows the importance of perseverance very clearly.

You can better develop the ability to persevere by trying new things. You don’t go too big, just try something simple, like a new sport. Or maybe even go a little smaller and try learning about a new topic. This helps you develop the ability to persevere better because if it’s something you don’t like you can challenge yourself to follow through with your intentions. Then, even if you don’t like it, you have to try and keep on going. You have to keep on walking.

 

In class, we are reading a book called “A Long Walk to Water”. It has the views of two people Nya, who is a fake person but shows the view of an everyday girl who lives in Southern Sudan  and is fighting for life walking to a far away pond two times a day to get water. Salva, a real child who is placed in the midst of the civil war between Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan. He is fighting for survival. Our teachers gave us a few questions to answer about the book these are two of them.

The qualities of effective leadership are when, the leader is brave. A leader who is filled with cowardice is not a good leader. This is because, a leader has to be someone who can protect innocent without hesitation. One who cannot do that, is not good because, a leader is at some points, a protector. This brings up another idea of, how people see a leader as. A leader is someone who has a effect on people. For example, If you have a bucket of water and a rock. If you pour the whole bucket of water on the rock at one time then, it has no effect on the rock. But, if you pour the water on to the rock, drop by drop, eventually it will have an impression made into it. This can be a good or bad impression. A good leader is the kind who goes drop by drop. Another quality of a good leader is being open minded.  This means to examine a problem from all angles. Otherwise, the leader would be biased and that would not only make him unfair but at the same time it would make that person unlikeable. These are just a few qualities of leadership.

Salva demonstrates these qualities many times in the book. One time he was brave was when he went to give the suffering men water. This is an act of bravery because he’s willing to give up their main source of life (something they have little of) to strangers that he has never met. Bravery can come in all ways. Salva’s way was, sacrifice. One time he had an open mind was after uncle’s death. His death had made it to be so that no one looked after Salva. Faced with this problem, Salva kept his face up and said “They think I am weak and useless. There is no one left to help me. They are wrong and I will prove it.”  He looked at the problem with pessimism and optimism. These are some ways Salva demonstrated these qualities. Further on in the book we will most likely fine more.