LINKING L'AFRICA

http://www.waterforsouthsudan.org/salvas-story/
Salva's Charity website, go and donate!
http://www.lindasuepark.com/
This is the author of the story!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion
Lions, a major player in the role of life in Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe
Another African animal, that is most delightful.
http://water.org/
Water is essential for human life, here's a website all about providing water.
http://freerice.com
This is a glorious educational game, that donates rice to needy folks worldwide with each correct answer.
http://www.southafrica.net/sat/content/en/us/us-home
Here you can sign up yourself and your family for a most exciting trip to south Africa!
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
This is a nifty tool that you can use to make sure you don't live near a dangerous drought zone, like Salva did in the story!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator
Salva encountered many-a alligator in his travels throughout the story, here you can learn all about the spiny little demons.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html
Not only did Africa contain Salva at the time of his journey, it also contained the beautiful pyramids, here you can view numerous pictures and whatnot of the pyramids in all of their glory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War
This is a link to all things that are Sudanese Civil war, the very war that Salva escapes from in the novel.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5424.htm
The government of the United States loves nothing more than to educate us on African countries, as such, here is the U.S. background view of Sudan.
http://www.wydasudan.org/dinka-tribe/
Here is a short blurb about Salva's very own tribe, the Dinka People! They are mostly nomadic nowadays, take a gander her on this website, and maybe even donate some dinero to their well being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuer_people
This is a link to the Nuer Tribe, the tribe that the African girl Nya belongs to in the story. They largely disliked Salva's tribe back in the day, and were constantly warring with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdXwgoZvUZE
To top off the list of links, here is a short YouTube video, of roughly 5 minutes, that details a typical trip to build a well in a Sudanese village in modern day with Salva and his charity organization.

THESE BE PICTURES, PICTURES OF AFRICA

Book Cover

SALVA DUT

Linda Sue Park (The Author)

Salva's Charity Logo

Child Affected by the Drought.

Lions, An African native

AK-47, A favorite of the Rebels

Giraffes, More African Natives

Cracked Earth, Courtesy of the Drought

Typical African Village

All of these pictures perfectly represent the theme and happenings of the story in A Long Walk To Water. Study them deeply, learn from their pixels, and become one with the earth mother.

Modern Art, Modern Africa

This picture is an artist's representation of the tragic journey that Salva and his band of Lost Boys went on, in order to reach the refuge camps in Kenya. The terrors are apparent within the canvas, through the likeness of the blazing hot sun, the cloudless sky, and the fearsome alligator nearby the route of travel. The alligator is extremely important, because at one point in the story Salva is forced to either swim across a river of alligators, or be shot in the face by evil soldiers. This post is here to remind us all, when we all travel through Africa at some point within our lives, that alligators are a-plenty, and alligators are unforgiving.

ANIMOTO ALL ACROSS AFRICA

http://animoto.com/play/jwJMZl44xgJx1q00vygreg

This animoto is all about Salva Dut and his magnificent journey to bring water to all of Sudan. Look into the deeper messages portrayed by the crude representation of cinema. Go donate 10 bucks or something, that'll serve a village in sudan for months. Yay Charity!!!!

http://www.waterforsouthsudan.org/

YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE MOSAICS

This is a word mosaic, which has been created for your viewing pleasure through a glorious website known as  wordchef.com. Every single word within the mosaic is relative to the tragic events that take place within A Long Walk To Water. Notice the presence of words such as: Uncle, Dinka, Tribe, Need, Drought, etc. Very beautiful, no?

A Long Walk to Water, It's excersise, essentially.

 Hello my friends, and welcome, welcome to blogging it up round 3. The greatest thing about round 3 is that it comes after rounds 1 and 2, respectively. The other great factor is that it comes right before number 4, which is the end. This semester has been started off rather well, with a reading of the first 48 pages or so of "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park. The story is a time-traveler, as it alternates between two different stories of africans in alternative time periods.
     The first, is Nya, who lives in the oh-so-prosperous time period of 2008. the other is the life of a young sudanese boy named Salva, Salva Dut. Throughout the tale I could not help but notice the similarities between the life and actions of Salva, and those of a holocaust victim. The long walk to water is an African genocide, really. The group Salva joins up with after his school is shot up by extremists goes for days without food, and walks almost 19 hours a day. This is an eerie similarity to the death marches that took place in the holocaust.
     Within the first 48 pages Salva loses his one friend that he has actually met on the journey, to, you guessed it, a lion attack. In the dead of night, Marial had been swept away by a mysterious cat of the desert. Much like Roy being drug off the stage by his beloved tiger back in the day. The book carries a lot of realism with it, seeing how it is based off of a true story. It's not actually a bad read, much better than that pirate ninja business I've been reading about on the ning.
I've been asked to describe this book in one word: Thebestbookyouwilleverreadthattakesplaceapproximatelywherethelionkinghappenswhichmakesitawesome.

Salva Dut, In all his glory, Drinking Water, at long last

LANGSTON HUGHES, DEEP ROOTS IN MAH LIFE

Dear Langston Hughes,

                Sir, I do realize that it has been long since you have passed, but that has not stopped me from writing this letter to you. Recently this semester in my search for magic through literature I stumbled upon a copy of your collection of poetry, The Dream Keeper. This book, along with being the shortest read on the list, actually taught me some valuable lessons.

                Earlier on in my life, I regarded poetry as arts for the women. Men usually stuck to something much more masculine, like ceramics, or basket weaving, or lumberjacking. These poems were not only artsy and entertaining, but I found that many of them related to my very own life, almost exactly on point with experiences of my own. The poem Baby, “Albert!/Hey, Albert!/ Don’t you play in dat road./You see dem trucks/A goin’ by/ One run ovah you/ An’ you die./Albert, don’t you play in dat road” (Hughes 47). When I was but a boy, I used to love riding my bicycle. Riding my bicycle as a child was the most exhilarating and empowering activity out there. Typically it was all good in the hood, so to speak, when I went on a ride. My parents weren’t worried; for they knew I wouldn’t venture far, and would always use the proper protection. One day, however, I didn’t equip my protective equipment, and all went astray. I was speeding around the corner of the block, cruising by a neighbor’s driveway, when all of a sudden a pair of taillights lit up on a nearby truck, and they headed directly for me. There was no hope whatsoever for avoiding the dastardly mobile, as it approached with much ferocity in its eyes. The driver of the F-150 was lacking as far as paying attention went, and slammed his truck right into my little bicycle. The impact was devastating, and completely ruined my fine specimen of cycling, along with my face at the time. The driver dismounted the beast and hobbled over to me, asking if I was alright, I told him I was fine, and carried my broken bicycle, and bones, home to my parents.

                My parents weren’t upset that I had almost been killed, they were just glad I was okay. They realized that I had directly contradicted the rules of going on a bike ride by myself, and that was venturing about without my proper protective gear. Looking back, perhaps if I had listened to my parents, much like in the poem Baby, I might have been saved a lot of pain and grief over the loss of my favorite bike of all time, and much of my childish facial tissue. In the poem entitled Youth you said, “We have tomorrow/Bright before us/Like a flame” (Hughes 65). My grandfather once had a similar saying, “What day is it today sonny? The best day of the rest of your life, that’s what!” Perhaps my grandfather had a poet in him, who knows. Anywho, my journey of self remembrance would not have been possible without The Dream Keeper.

                                                                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                                            Michael Wilkison