GiveDirectly has literally been our knight and shining armor because it has played a huge role in reducing our financial burden especially since I am a retired teacher and I am yet to receive my pension which made the financial situation in my family difficult since I could barely provide but through this funds I have manage to revive my chicken business and my daughter even paid her own tuition fee. The only thing that I would seek that GiveDirectly look into would be the amount of allocation of funds we receive from like KES 3,000 to KES 5,000 since it would assist us in making substantial changes in our day to day lives and I would not have to ask my daughter to chip in and help like I did the previous time but either way I am most grateful.

The drought that our village experienced last year took quite the toll on us especially since most of us in the village are subsistence farmers who rely on the harvest for nourishment throughout the year for ourselves and families. Therefore when I received the money I immediately went ahead to cater for my nutrition of the family and so I ended up using KES 3,000 which was everything I had received on two bags of maize which was around KES 3,200, beans, green grams and even sugar. Everything has been and still is so costly due to the changes in economy that my daughter who fortunately happens to also receive the transfers ended up chipping in so that I could manage to afford the rest of the items I bought because the money I had was not enough.

I remember that day, I was on the farm even though we are in a drought. I was busy trying to find some remotely eatable vegetables. I was worried about how I was going to feed my family. I kept checking my phone every time there was a beep to see if I could get lucky. Luckily at around nine am the message I got showed that I had indeed received the money. I left everything behind and went to withdraw the money. I was so happy.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that as a farmer during this drought we have barely survived with unripe cassava and now we can buy proper food for the family. I am also able to buy food for the chickens and even water which would reduce the number of livestock dying from hunger and thirst. I am grateful for the transfer.

With this first transfer, I decided to buy medicine and a drinking trough for my chickens. I decided to do this because during this drought, many animals have been dying and I did not want that to affect my chickens as they are a source of income. I bought the trough for drinking water to help with the thirst and stop them from going to the kitchen to destroy everything in search of water. I was also able to buy medicines treating worms and bacterial enteritis.