"I am physically disabled. I live all by myself in the village. I depend heavily on my two sons who are casual laborers in the city. This means that when they do not send me money at times I do spend several days without eating anything. I have always depended on my small farm at the back of my house to grow small food products such as cassava, maize, vegetables, and other foodstuffs. This has not been possible for the past few years and it has made me fully dependent on my sons for my survival. When I received the second transfer I spent a huge portion of the transfer on buying food. The drought situation has made everything expensive and with no food, on my farm, I have to buy everything from the shop. I spent a total of KSH 2500 on buying food. To me, this was the right step to take since my sons had not sent me anything for the last two months and my food stock in the house was almost getting finished. I also spent the remaining KSH 500 in buying water for my use at home. With my condition, I cannot go about fetching water. Water is very hard to find these days and one has to walk for several kilometers to get it cheaply otherwise you have to buy it at very high prices from the vendors."

"I sell tap water in my compound, with the pronged drought I can sell more than KES 1500 per day. I bought water tanks for storage and this helped many people in my village. Selling water to the nearby people and seeing them getting it a near place gives me joy because they used to get it from a 2 hrs walking distance."

"Our village has faced drought for the last two years. It is hard to get clean water for domestic use. A 20 litre plastic of water goes at KES 50. Last week, we received relief water from county government of Kilifi. The water will serve me for two weeks. The water brought happiness in my life."

"I live in a semi-permanent iron-roofed house which I am so proud of. I am still stabilizing my household and so far I have acquired items that can enable my startup. It has been my wish to have access to clean water for domestic use. Currently, I get clean drinking water from my in-law's parents' home. They don't have a big water tank thus we are forced to go to the river after a rainy season. This is so tiring and clean water is not guaranteed since we fetch water from a river stream where all animals drink from and other dirty things are washed into by flowing water. To me, receiving this money means clean water at my doorstep. I am planning to spend KES 25000 to buy a water thank. I will be collecting clean water from my roof thus have clean water for my household use. This means less work and a healthy family."

"I am a primary school teacher employed by the school body of governors and therefore my salary is very little. My husband has no job and relies on charcoal burning business which is very unstable because there no forest any more because we have exhausted all the trees for charcoal burning. My house is about to fall down, I have no food in the house and now there is no water for drinking in this area."

"Times are already hard enough and I can't say there's much to smile about but I'm always happy whenever I'm done doing my household chores and get to rest. This is normally afternoon when I have fetched water and finished cleaning."

"I have a two-room house but I only managed to roof one of them with grass. The other room which serves as the kitchen is not roofed and therefore, I can't manage to cook from there when it rains because it usually floods and the water overflows to the other room. During this rainy season, I have started cooking from the other room and since it has beddings and clothes, I am afraid that one day it might catch fire and burn us all inside. I planned to buy iron sheets to roof the whole house but raising enough capital has been the biggest challenge. Receiving this money means that I will buy the roofing materials in bits until they are enough to roof the entire house."

"My area is prone to drought and often I have to get someone to fetch water for household use. I have one water tank which I use in collecting rain water but recently there has been no rains and my household lacks water. I have to either fetch water in the morning before going to school or after and I'm normally tired from my teaching job in the evening. I wish to have sufficient water for my household by buying another tank to add to the one I already have. The estimated cost for the tank is KES 15,000, and the remaining money from my first transfer I will pay school fees for my 4 children who are still in school."

"Early one morning, I left home for the water point and I didn’t carry my phone with me. When I returned home at around 8am, I saw an envelope like on the screen of my phone and I was wondering what it might be thinking that someone has tampered with the settings of my phone. I contacted my helper to see what it may be and to my surprise, it was a message that was received at around 6am from GiveDirectly stating that I have received a transfer of KES 55000.00. I was over excited since this was my 1st huge amount of money to receive from any source."

"Upon withdrawing the money, I bought 10 iron sheets for KES 9000.00 with a plan of building a new house since the one I had was old and very small. Thereafter, I bought a bicycle and a water tank of 300 liters capacity for KES 10000.00 and KES 3000.00 respectively. The bicycle aids me in fetching some water while the tank is for storing water. I also paid KES 15000.00 school fees for my 3 children who were ever being sent home for fees. After settling the things I had prioritized, I saved the remaining amount for food and water for the family."