After spending most of the second transfer that I had received on the purchase of a piece of land, I am now eager to venture into other income-generating businesses. I would want to stock up my business so as to boost my daily income. Since my two boys are fast-growing, I would love to buy additional land where I can put up houses for them.

This initiative gave a new face to every household and more so the whole village. We were given a chance to listen and decide on how to spend the transfer independently without been coerced. I can't see anything to complain about, but to just encourage GiveDirectly to keep supporting other villages as well.

I run a small business selling vegetables and my husband is a mason, though his job does not come very often. Sometimes he can go for days or weeks without getting any contract. In such times, we are forced to sleep hungry if we don’t have any food left in the house to consume. We are staying at my husband’s ancestral land and did not have land of our own. When we received the second transfer, we sat down with my husband and agreed to buy a small piece of land where we can build a house since we have two grown boys. We identified the land and made a deposit of $330 and agreed with the land owner to complete the balance bit by bit. The house we currently live in was also in a bad state and would have fallen anytime, thus we bought cement for $100 to have the house repaired. The remaining cash we used to purchase foodstuff.

It was around 9 AM when I was preparing breakfast for my children then my phone started ringing in such a way that it indicating an incoming message. I had to ask my spouse who is also my helper to confirm who had sent the message and its content. Upon checking, he confirmed it was an Mpesa message from the GiveDirectly. I was so happy becasue I was so sure that I would achieve all my desired goals. We waited for two days and started utilizing the money without wasting even a single coin.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that through GiveDirectly, I have been able to sleep in a better environment. I have been married for over ten years and I had to go through the pain ever since. I have been sleeping on the traditional beds which were never comfortable. I was always complaining of backaches because of the discomfort from sleeping on this bed. However, I never had any alternative and I had to bear with the situation. My children, Again there was no privacy because my family was big( six members) and we were sharing the small traditional beds. The coming of GiveDirectly has transformed everything because we are now sleeping comfortably with no pains and fatigue like before.

I spent part of my first transfer on buying three wooden beds at KES 18000 and three mattresses at KES 16200 respectively. This was a priority becasue we have been sleeping on the traditional beds which were small and I was always uncomfortable. My children could always complain of back pains and this affected their health day by day. In addition to that, I bought three bags of bags ad sand at KES 2500. This was purposely for the renovation of my house since it had holes all over the walls and during the winter seasons, we could always be attacked by the cold nights. Also, I cleared school fees of KES 2000 for my four children who are in the nearby primary school. With the remaining amount of money, I bought enough foodstuffs for my family and I am glad we no longer skip meals like before.