My wife and I have been sleeping on sacks on a small unstable bed for quite a while. I had always hoped to get us a much more comfortable sleeping space. My aim was to get a good bed and a mattress for this. I am an old man and my work now is burning and selling charcoal. It's a very strenuous job for my age and this has its toll on my body and general health. I had wanted to start a small shop to sell general items but I had no cash that could allow for this. After receiving transfers I felt it wise to patner with my son and pay for my grandchild's school fee who is in secondary school and has a large debt.

I so happy that now I can sleep comfortable as we had a very uncomfortable bed beforehand. I am happy that I can eat to my fill because of give directly. I am also happy because the money was unconditional and that I could focus on my most pressing needs without being instructed by anyone on what to do with my transfers.

I was able to work on the shop I wanted to biuld with both the first and second transfer. I used the first transfer to pay the carpenter working on biulding the house which was 6000 shillings. I bought posts to use to build the shop at 3400 shillings. I spend 7000 shillings from the second transfer to buy small and big wood cuttings to help in the construction. I also bought iron sheets worth 14000 shillings using my first transfer. I used my second transfer to buy a bed and mattress for my wife and I which cost me 13500 shillings. I also paid 5000 shillings to my grandchild's school. A big chunk of the transfers went into food. We have four years of drought which has taken away our ability to be self reliant with food. We used to plant maize for maize meal but now we buy prepackaged maize meal. It takes three bags of maize meal to feed my entire family in a day. I have used my transfers to feed my family since I began getting them to this point. I wasn't making enough from my charcoal business to sustain my family as I would get 1200 shillings on a good week of sales and this meant my family wasn't fed satisfactorily. Now we eat and are filled and we have the energy to go about our daily duties.

I was seated at home at around 9am when I heard some ululations from friends not knowing what was going on. I became curious and before inquiring what was happening I received a message in my phone. Upon checking it was the Transfer of KES 55000.00 from GiveDirectly. I was so excited and joined the rest in rejoicing the goodness of GiveDirectly for seeing us through during a really time of need.

Initially I was suffering; sleeping on sacks was something I didn’t see it coming to an end. But as of now, I enjoy my sleep and am very much comfortable. I am also sure that the business I started will change my life style positively because it will be an income generating project for the family. Sometimes back I used to work as a shopkeeper though I didn’t think one day I would own one. Using my shop keeping experience, I will manage my shop well for a better future.

After taking my time thinking on how wise I would spend the money, I opted to start a shop business. This thought was as a result of me having a continuous flow of income since the business aim was to generate profit. I also bought a good bed and a nice mattress for KES 11000.00. I bought these items because I had a small traditional bed where I place sacks to sleep on.