After the death of my husband, I am alone as the head of the family and the only breadwinner of the house. My only source of income which is working on the farm is no longer available because of the persistent drought we have been experiencing in our area. I have turned to making Makuti for sale. I earn very little from it because I do not make many because of an insufficient supply of the raw materials from the coconut plant. Upon receiving money from my transfer, I spent KSH 1300 to pay for my two grandchildren who were out of school due to school fee arrears for them to sit for their end of term exam. My daughter, who is their mother, works in town as a house help and did not receive her salary on time. I then spent the remaining amount of money in buying food. Because of the financial challenges I was having, I could not buy food for the past three days and this forced me together with my grandchildren to sleep hungry and survived on water and some wild fruits we picked from the farm.

When my spouse left me, I was left with the responsibility to take care of my four children. I currently run a small chapatti business. The money I earn from it is not enough to suit all our needs. The major challenges I am currently facing are to be able to provide for my family and also have enough to pay school fees for them. When I received the first transfer I split the transfer into two and spent KSH 600 to pay a school debt that my kids owed in school. I also spent the other half of KSH 600 to buy food for my family. With my second transfer, I spent it the same way. The difference this time is that the drought had really hit us hard and business was not doing that well. When I received the transfer I spent KSH 2000 buying food for my family. The food at this time was already very expensive and we had no option but to buy the food since there was nothing to find on the farms. I also spent KSH 1000 to pay some exam fees for my children and also clear some debt I owed to the school so that they would continue with their education. With the third transfer, I spent KSH 2000 to buy food items for my family members. The food items I bought were used to celebrate the festive season on Christmas and also during the happy New Year. Among the things I bought were several bags of both wheat and maize flour, rice, sugar, and tea leaves. I saved the remaining KSH 1000. I plan to buy some pieces of iron sheets so that I can repair my leaking roof.

I have no complaints when it comes to the help that I receive from GiveDirectly because through the funds I receive I have managed to provide by putting food on the table for my family unlike other times where it was difficult and even managed to save some money in order to renovate my house.

At the time I received the money we were almost running out of food in my house and so the money came in at the right moment and I went ahead and purchased a bag of maize which contained twelve packets of maize flour for KES 1,200 and two kilograms of sugar for KES 200. My children also had pending debts in the tuition fee so I gave them KES 600 to be split equally between the two of them. I also bought laundry detergent worth KES 100 and as for what was left which was KES 900 I decided to save that money since I had plans of renovating my house and by letting the money accumulate would be more helpful.

I was very happy that day because apart from getting food and helping my grandkids, I managed to save some money of which for the longest time I have wanted to start different projects aimed at constructing my house. For instance, my roof is grass thatched and so I will keep saving until I get enough money to buy iron sheets and instill them.

I was really worried seeing my grandchildren back home due to debts in their tuition because I really want them to gain knowledge and get an education unlike me who is illiterate because with literacy they can at least achieve something for themselves some day and gain a skill that would take them far in life. So with managing to pay for them tuition was very much pleased.

After I received the transfers I went ahead to take care of my nourishment because I am old and I do not have job so sometimes there is scarcity in food so I managed to purchase five packets of maize flour which sold for KES 500 which would manage to take me sometime. Apart from that, unfortunately two of my grandkids had been sent back home from school and this situation was troubling for me so I gave them KES 300 to split in half between the two of them so that they could at least manage to enroll back to class. I also managed to buy laundry detergent at KES 150 and as for the rest of the money I decided to save it which was KES 350.