"When I received this cash, I will buy a zinc and build my house, because the house that we are living in, it is not for us, secondly, the roof is old and the thatch is leaking. When the rain falls, we can't sleep, whole night we catching water. My husband and myself will used portion of the money for us to be selling in order to make life better for us. Things are very hard on us, for us to get food, he have to do casual labor job by hauling planks just to feed the home. From my side, I can go on other villagers or next village citizens farm to do casual labor job by scratching or cutting their rice at the end to get something for us to eat."

"Receiving this money means I can now restock my farm with cows. I sold all thag I had to pay school fees for my children in secondary school and college last year. I will spend about KES 80,000 to acquire two lactating cows. This will increase milk I produce by 11 litres per day. It translates to an income of about KES 550 per day. I will also improve my house by removing it and painting to protect it from rain water."

"When I received the cash transfer I want to build a structure because almost every month I have to change the taches over my house if not the room my family and I are sleeping in can be mix up with water due to rain fall."

"At around 10am in one of the fine days of September 2021, involuntarily I found myself ululating due to joy that filled my heart the moment I received the transfer message that GiveDirectly had honored their words of promise. I remember it was sweeping my home compound after arriving from fetching some water. I felt so happy because I have never received such an amount of money before and this made me to start believing that GiveDirectly is real after having some doubts thinking that their exercise of registering people had other agendas relating to 2022 politics rather than assisting the citizens."

"When my spouse and I started livestock farming, we hoped that it will supplement what we got from our retail shop business. This however has not been the case since the current drought situation is threatening to wipe out the herd. I have so far lost 11 cattle out of the 17 that I had a few months ago due to lack of water and pasture. The situation is getting worse since I see no hope when I look at the skies. There is a big possibility of the drought going on and on. Paying school fees is now a problem since I have nowhere to turn to. The little I get from my shop is only enough to buy food for my six children."

"Scarcity of food and water is the biggest challenge that I am currently facing. This is due to the ravaging drought that we are currently experiencing in our area. I buy three of four 20 litre jerricans of water per day at a cost of KES 50 each. This is very costly for me since I have to buy food every day for me and my three children. With most of the money going into buying food and water, paying school fees is now a problem to me. I am the sole bread winner since I seperated from my husband three years ago. I balance between casual jobs and my tailoring business inorder to get income. Both are very unreliable given the high poverty levels in this region."

"Receiving this money means continued education for my children. I plan to achieve this though livestock farming. I will spend KES 30,000 to buy ten indigenous goats because they do we in our area due to prolonged dry spell. As they multiply, I will sell at a profit and use the proceeds for school fees, uniform and stationary. The rest of the transfer will go to purchasing three beds and mattresses, food and water as well as treatment for my livestock."

"Water scarcity has been a big menace here. It has forced us to use only three jericanes which currently cost us 150KES. This amount of water is not enough to cook, wash our clothes and bathing. This has led to some of us take bath once in two days or go for a week without washing our clothes. This has affected our health since some of us are having skin diseases."

"The water problem is the biggest hardship I am currently experiencing. It has been 4 months now without rains and we do not have taps to depend on. Every day I have to travel for 3 hours so that I get water for the family and it is not clean. This has brought a lot of struggles because I do not have enough time to perform my tasks of burning charcoal and provide for my family's needs."

"Poverty! I have many problems with little income. I am a charcoal business woman and my husband has no job. I need to pay school fees for my children and feed thm.. Getting food and water is a big challenge in our area. All water pans have dried up and we depend on motorcycle operators to bring water from Bamba town which is more than 20 kilometres away and this commodity is very expensive. Each 20 liters jerican of water costs 100 KES."