Jomo Kenyatta was born Kamau Wa Muigai to parents Muigai and Wambui. They were ordinary people whose main preoccupation was farming in Gatundu village. The exact date of Kenyatta’s birth is not known for certain but is presumed to be around 1895.

Kenyatta was born some twenty-five miles north-east of Fort Smith at Ngenda, a land of sugar cane and cattle pasture where two rivers met. 

After Kenyatta’s birth and his passage from infancy to childhood, Muigai and Wambui had another son, Kungu. Earlier, there had been an older boy also called Kongo who had died. The second Kongo bore the same name as Muigai’s father. Among the traditional African communities, a child learnt many skills from the father depending on what the father was thus Kenyatta spent most of his childhood herding the family’s flock, usually with other boys from neighboring families. 

Mwai Kibaki was born in Gatuyaini village in Othaya on November 15, 1931.  He was the youngest in Kibaki Githinji and Teresia Wanjiku’s family. The young Mwai was often left in the care of his elder sister, Waitherero, as their mother busied herself in the garden. Born in a large peasant Kikuyu family, Mwai grew among his eight siblings.
 
 Like many of his colleagues, young Mwai spent most of his early childhood assisting in the family chores. Due to the patriarchal nature of the Kikuyu society, Mwai’s chores tended to incline towards outdoor activities such as tilling land and taking care of the family livestock. During this time Catholic missionaries had established their base in the nearby Karima Mission. They started going into the villages looking for boys to attend school.