Man Drives Hours Everyday To Bring Water To Thirsty Wild Animals During Drought

In a land as arid as Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park, no visitor arrives with more fanfare than the water man.

It would be Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua. And when he rumbles down the dusty road with some 3,000 gallons of fresh water, elephants, buffaloes, antelopes and zebras come running.

We aren’t really receiving rain the way we used to,” he says. “So I started giving animals water because I thought, ‘If I don’t do that, they will die.’”

Mwalua spends a few hours in the car each day to fill the dry watering holes with vital water.

“Last night, I found 500 buffalo waiting at the water hole,” he says. “When I arrived they could smell the water… They started drinking water while I was standing there. They get so excited.”