This document discusses how the author and his brother, at ages 10 and 12, chose to live independently in Loitokitok, Kenya after their grandmother passed away. When they realized they were out of water one week, they cried at first. Then his older brother asked what crying would accomplish, and they decided to take responsibility by going to the river themselves at night to draw water, despite dangers from wild animals. This formative experience taught the author to fully take responsibility for his own life.

1. Take 100% responsibility for your life
Muthiora Wa Mwathi.
By a stroke of fate, my brother and I at the age of 11 and 9 years respectively chose to live with
our paternal grandmother in Loitokitok, Kajiado District of the Rift Valley province. This was
240 kilometres from Nairobi where our parents lived and in those days the journey used to take
12 hours at the minimum due to the condition of the roads – which were basically cattle tracks.
My Brother was 12 years and I was 10 years old when our grandmother passed on – a
wonderful Christian woman - full of real Joy. Our parents then required of us to go back to
Nairobi to stay with them but we chose again to stay put in Loitokitok.
Our father, who has always believed in the possibility of every difficult situation life has thrown
at him, he has been my role model throughout my life, allowed us to stay back, knowing that
after a month we would be crying to go back to Nairobi. A young man in the neighbor hood
was asked to keep an eye on us and ensure our safety.
We took care of our cooking, washing, Laundry and basically all the chores in the house. We
would draw water for the use in house during the weekends, from the river that was 5 km from
home. The weekends were our “bath days”- and would ensure our cleanliness throughout the
week!
Two weeks after the demise and burial of our granny, the young managers of the home forgot
the most important chore for the weekend– drawing water from the river for use in the house
for the week. As expect, by Thursday of the following week the water pots were empty.
This news were revealed when we got home and at about 6.30pm –having spent a good amount
of time playing on our way back from school.
Since it was too late to go to the river and we did not have water for the evening meal we did
what any 10/12 year olds would do.
We cried!
After crying for a while, my elder brother asked a rhetorical question that I believe has guided
my life since then in taking full responsibility of my life.
“Suppose we cry until tomorrow morning, what will happen?” and I answered innocently –
“we will have no water and hence we will sleep hungry!”
We immediately made a decision that we would go to the river irrespective of the dangers and
draw water at that hour.
Amboseli National park is a few Kilometres from Loitokitok and hence at the time wild
animals, lions, buffaloes, Elephants etc would roam in Loitokitok. We picked up the water jerry
cans and rushed to the river and came back with the water at around 9.30pm.

2. That single act has guided me throughout my life.