I was previously living in a small grass thatched house. I had no hopes of improving this kind of life were it not for GiveDirectly coming to our village and giving us the transfer. I am now happy that very soon I will be moving into my newly Iron-roofed house and spacious enough unlike the one I live in.

GiveDirectly has done well in my village because our living standards have been uplifted through the money we received from them. Since we received the transfer, those people whose houses were in pathetic condition have been able to construct new houses using the transfers. Also, through the transfer, we now own assets in terms of livestock unlike before when we owned nothing at all. GiveDirectly should support us more with the money to improve our economic life. I am personally thankful for the support. However, I feel this project should be continued in our village because we are still needy instead of giving the transfers once as GiveDirectly does.

I spent KES 34,700 of my second transfer on purchasing 46 iron sheets and nails in order to complete my new 3-roomed house. I had begun its construction using the first transfer I received but it came to a halt after the money to buy extra materials got depleted in the process. My new house is now complete and ready to be used, and very soon I will be moving into it. In addition to this, I also purchased three goats to keep. I am hopeful that they will reproduce and increase in number and have many of them. They will help me out in future in case I am faced with a financial crisis. Lastly, I spent the remaining amount to buy foodstuffs for my family and in paying for other household expenses. This transfer has enabled me to provide daily food and my family is enjoying a good diet since GiveDirectly came to our village, unlike before where we could stay for days without food due lack of money to meet the basic needs for my family.

Previously I could till a small piece of land because I couldn't afford to work on a large piece of land. This led to low productivity with low-quality farm produce. Having bought oxen, I'll be able to till a four-acre farm thus looking forward to improved productivity with good quality produce. This is the biggest difference in my daily life.

It was around 6:30 in the morning when I had just woken up when a message alert streamed in my phone. My instincts showed me that it was Mpesa message but I didn't know who had sent the message. I hurried to my phone, read the message and to my surprise, I had received money from GiveDirectly. I felt so happy, shared the news with my spouse then we planned on how to spend the money.

I bought two oxen and an ox-plow with a portion of the money I received from GiveDirectly which I'm planning to use to plow my farm. This will save me the cost of hiring people to work on my farm which was so expensive. In addition to that, the current house I have is in a bad state and I'm afraid it might fall at any time leaving me homeless. I, therefore, bought building materials which I'm already using to construct a new decent house. I also bought goats for rearing because goats give birth frequently, and they are easy to manage. I'm therefore planning to sell them in the future to raise money for purchasing a dairy cow that will be proving me with milk thus I won't budget for milk.