Child made of steel

In a small village, I lived with my 70-year-old grandmother and my 2-year-old brother without any trace of our biological mother. We lived happily even when our dear father just abandoned us for his new fiancé. We were only children and never questioned or demanded anything as long as food was available for us to eat. Our grandmother loved us wholeheartedly and protected us from any pain. All this happiness had to come to an end when she passed away in 2007. We saw our dad for the second time in our lives when he came to bury his mother, our grandmother. Our father had to carry us to the city to his new wife who turned our innocent lives into living hell. Since our father worked from a neighboring country, he would only come back home every four months. During his stays, we would be offered some food with ease, unlike during his absence when we starved and had to steal the food for survival. Our father always stayed for only 2 weeks, and then left for his job again for four months. At only 7years of age, she made me collect 60litres of water from a water source that was 3 kilometers away from our home. I collected this water in four rounds with my crying 3-year-old brother on my back. I had to fetch this water every morning at 6:30am, then get ready for school. We had to walk 4 kilometers from home to school with my 3-year-old crying brother from Monday to Friday.