There was a big lake three days' walk from Nya's village. Every year when the rains stopped and the pond near the village dried up, Nya's family moved from their home to a camp near the big lake. Nya's family did not live by the lake all year round because of the fighting. Her tribe, the Nuer, often fought with the rival Dinka tribe over the land surrounding the lake. Men and boys were hurt and even killed when the two groups clashed. So Nya and the rest of her village lived at the lake only during the five months of the dry season, when both tribes were so busy struggling for survival that the fighting occurred far less often. Like the pond back home, the lake was dried up. But because it was much bigger than the pond, the clay of the lakebed still held water. Nya's job at the lake camp was the same as at home: to fetch water. With her hands, she would dig a hole in the damp clay of the lakebed. She kept digging, scooping out handfuls of clay until the hole was as deep as her arm was long. The clay got wetter as she dug, until, at last, water began to seep into the bottom of the hole. The water that filled the hole was filthy, more mud than liquid. It seeped in so slowly that it took a long time to collect even a few gourdsful. Nya would crouch by the hole, waiting. Waiting for water. Here, for hours at a time. And every day for five long months, until the rains came and she and her family could return home.

Salva's eye was swollen shut. Buksa's forearms were lumpy and raw. A friend of Buksa's had a fat lip. They all looked as though they had been in a terrible fistfight. But their injuries weren't bruises. They were bee stings. A fire had been started under the tree, to smoke the bees out of the hive and make them sleepy. But as Buksa and the other Jur-chol men were removing the hive from the tree, the bees woke up and were not at all happy to discover that their home was being taken away. They expressed their unhappiness very clearly by buzzing, swarming, and stinging. Stinging a lot. ‘It was worth it', Salva thought as he touched his eye gingerly. His belly was a rounded lump stuffed full of honey and beeswax. Nothing had ever tasted so good as those pieces of honeycomb dripping with rich, luscious gold sweetness. Along with everyone else in the group, he had eaten as much as he could hold-and then a little more. All around him, people were licking their fingers in great satisfaction-except for one Dinka man who had been stung on his tongue. It was swollen so badly that he could not close his mouth; he could hardly swallow. Salva felt very sorry for him. The poor man couldn't even enjoy the honey. The walking seemed easier now that Salva had something in his belly. He had managed to save one last piece of honeycomb and had wrapped it carefully in a leaf.

By the end of the next day, all the honey was gone, but Salva kept the beeswax in his mouth and chewed it for the memory of sweetness. The group got a little bigger with each passing day. More people joined them-people who had been walking alone or in little clusters of two or three. Salva made it a habit to survey the whole group every morning and evening, searching for his family. But they were never among the newcomers. One evening a few weeks after Salva had joined the group, he made his usual walk around the fireside, scanning every face in the hope of seeing a familiar one. Then- "Ouch!" Salva almost lost his footing as the ground underneath him seemed to move. A boy jumped to his feet and stood in front of him. "Hey! That was my hand you stepped on!" The boy spoke Dinka but with a different accent, which meant that he was not from the area around Salva's village. Salva took a step back. "Sorry. Are you hurt?" The boy opened and closed his hand a few times, then shrugged. "It's all right. But you really should watch where you're going." "Sorry," Salva repeated. After a moment's silence, he turned away and began searching the crowd again.

The boy was still looking at him. "Your family?" he asked. Salva shook his head. "Me, too, the boy said. He sighed, and Salva heard that sigh all the way to his heart. Their eyes met. "I'm Salva." "I'm Marial." It was good to make a friend. Marial was the same age as Salva. They were almost the same height. When they walked side by side, their strides were exactly the same length. And the next morning, they began walking together. "Do you know where we're going?" Salva asked. Marial tilted his head up and put his hand on his brow to shade his eyes from the rising sun. "East" he said wisely. "We are walking into the morning sun." Salva rolled his eyes. "I know we're going east", he said. "Anyone could tell that. But where in the east?" Marial thought for a moment. "Ethiopia," he said. "East of Sudan is Ethiopia" Salva stopped walking. "Ethiopia? That is another country! We can't walk all the way there." "We are walking east," Marial said firmly. "Ethiopia is east." ‘I can't go to another country', Salva thought. ‘If I do, my family will never find me…' Marial put his arm around Salva's shoulders. He seemed to know what Salva was thinking, for he said, "It doesn't matter. Don't you know that if we keep walking east, we'll go all the way around the world and come right back here to Sudan? That's when we'll find our families!" Salva had to laugh. They were both laughing as they started walking again, arm in arm, their strides matching perfectly.

More than a month had passed since Salva had run from his school into the bush. The group was now walking in the land of the Atuot people. In the Dinka language, the Atuot were called "the people of the lion." Their region was inhabited by large herds of antelope, wildebeest, gnus-and the lions that preyed on them. The Dinka told stories about the Atuot. When an Atuot person died, he came back to Earth as a lion, with a great hunger for the human flesh he once had. The lions in the Atuot region were said to be the fiercest in the world. Nights became uneasy. Salva woke often to the sound of roars in the distance and sometimes to the death-squeal of an animal under a lion's claws. One morning he woke bleary-eyed after a poor sleep. He rubbed his eyes, rose, and stumbled after Marial as they began walking yet again. "Salva?" It was not Marial who had spoken. The voice had come from behind them. Salva turned. His mouth fell open in amazement, but he could not speak. "Salva!"