Your best friend when you’re missing home; utransto

Studying in another country has its perks; you get to be free, you get to see another side of the world and you get to meet lots of new people. However, it can often be a challenging experience when you’re feeling homesick and want to reach out to family and friends back home. Sure, the internet is a global village and has made contact over thousands of miles easier than ABC but there are certain distances that sometimes even the internet can’t cover up.

Any individual that is traveling to a new country; whether it is for the purpose of a vacation or even for settling down there for a couple of years, they will be wanting to share everything they experience with their loved ones back home. Similar was something that happened to me when I first moved to Kenya from the US a couple of months ago to complete my higher studies. It has been three months here and it still has not made life any easier. Every day, I feel more and more homesick and I just cannot go one whole day without making any sort of contact back home, mostly with my mother.

Kenya is a country located in the continent of Africa and it is one of the most diverse tourist attractions of the world. From vast national parks to breath-taking landscape, Keya truly has everything for the modern traveler or vacationer. The infrastructure in the country is not greatly advanced which often hinders my ability to use the internet effectively. Being a student on a budget, there is only a limited amount of credit I can afford monthly and there are times when I am out exploring and I want to share each and every experience with my mom but I am unable to do because I cannot connect to the internet.

This was until my mom discovered utransto. utransto is a service that lets you top up your mobile phone from anywhere in the world and helps you stay connected with your friends and family even if they are in places where there is no access to the internet. I was talking to my mother on the phone the other day when I ran out of credit. Saddened by the fact that I will not be able to tell her how my day went, I was just putting my phone away when it rang, notifying me that my sim had been topped up by my mother all the way from the US within a matter of minutes. All she had to do was download the app, select a destination, add my number, choose a payment method and voila! I had credit again.

Ever since then, I have not missed any opportunity to involve her in all of my activities and informing her about my whereabouts. utransto has made life so much easier and more convenient and I rarely feel homesick anymore. It feels as if my mom and my friends are here with me as I am in touch with them almost every minute of the day.