My new goal is to expand my business of buying and selling eggs. I use to do this business before but unfortunately, I had to close it down since I was not making much money and I had various basic needs to meet. I managed to restart it again with part of the transfer money that I recently got from GiveDirectly. I would like it to expand so that I can get more income that will enable me to pay school fees for my two children in secondary school comfortably. It has been a struggle to get money for their school fees. From the little money that I make from the business, I usually take some and use in paying the merry-go-round self-help group contribution. The lump sum money that I get when it is my turn to receive the contributions, is what I usually use in paying school fees for the children.

GiveDirectly staff taught us well in the meeting that they held with the community members before starting the enrollment process. They took their time to explain everything about the program and they allowed us to ask questions. The enrollment process was also fair and no one who deserved to be enrolled was left out. Other than that, GiveDirectly also did well by allowing people to choose for themselves how to spend the transfers. I hence do not see anything that went wrong that I would recommend to them to change.

When I got my recent transfer, I had already made plans to build another kitchen house. I thus spent approximately KES 19000 doing so. The kitchen house that I use to have was a grass-thatched mud house and I have been hoping to build another that is roofed with iron sheets. It had become quite tiresome for me to get grass every time to replace the old ones since I am getting old. Lack of funds is what made me not to be in a position to achieve my wishes. I am thus happy and so much grateful to GiveDirectly because I managed to achieve our dream of building another kitchen house, something I never thought I would be able to achieve soon. Other than the above, I also spent KES 8000 on buying two bags of maize for our consumption which pushed us for a while before it got finished. The remaining transfer amount that we saved is thus what we have been using in buying maize and other essential household items such as sugar, soap, etc.

It was at night and we were taking supper with my family. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was a message ringtone. One of my children checked it and he immediately broke the good news to us that it was a message saying that we had received the promised transfer of KES 55000 from GiveDirectly. We were so happy on hearing this and we celebrated together. We went to bed that day with smiles on our faces. In the morning, we sat down and we planned together on how we were going to spend it.

The transfer has brought a very big difference in our lives as a family. We are now relieved and with some peace of mind having managed to build another house. We have not yet fully completed it but once it is so, we will be able to have enough space for ourselves and the children. We can now hence fully concentrate on other things, that is, finding money for our children's school fees.

We spent the first transfer money on various things that were important to us. First, we bought some materials for constructing another house, that is, eleven iron sheets and some nails. This took approximately KES 8500. We had the trees for the construction hence we didn't buy any. Apart from that, we bought a cow at KES 33000, and some three sofa seats at KES 1900 per seat. We also used KES 5000 on paying school fees for one of our children who is in secondary school, and I gave KES 1000 to my children to use in buying some clothes. With the remaining amount of money, we used it in paying for the labor cost of constructing the house. Building the house was our biggest priority upon receiving the transfer. This is because we had only one house and the space was no longer enough for us all, that is, us together with our five children. We were not in a position to build one before because most of the money that we get usually goes to the payment of school fees for our five children, that is, two in university, two in secondary school, and one in primary school. My husband usually does the business of buying and selling cows while as for me, I am a farmer and I usually sell milk from my cows to earn a living. We are thus so much grateful to GiveDirectly because we couldn't have managed to build another house.