[Amani]

I realized something about myself. I spend entirely too much time on my phone. But I can't help it, my Infinix Hot Pro is an extension of my very inner self. Me and my cellular device are practically one being - conquering the world through technology and learning new things...

But really on a serious note my phone is really important to me because it's the thing I use for almost everything, especially Google. If I ever need to know anything Google is my go to place. It tells me everything I need to know, like, literally. My advice? Don't sleep on Google guys, it knows almost everything.

So, as usual, I was on my phone surfing my social medias...Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...all that stuff, when I got the sudden notion to look for companies who were looking to hire foreigners to work for them. I say foreigners because my family and I just recently moved to South Korea almost a week ago. My mom is a professional English teacher who absolutely loves her profession. Ever since I was really little, I don't remember how little but I think I was pretty young, we've flown from country to country while my mom taught English as a second language to children and adults of every age group and background. This included Arabs along with Indians as well as a large percentage of people from the African continent. No one was excluded during my mom's teaching journey and now our travels have brought us to Asia.

Only God knows where we'll end up next, but I'm hoping we'll be going to Malaysia.

South Korea is pretty cool. I like it for now. I mean, I like it better than I liked our most recent location which was Cairo in Egypt. Seoul is just so much cleaner compared to Cairo. No offense to the Egyptians...y'all make excellent Hawawshi.... and Kufta, but back to the point, I'm getting way off story.

We've been in Seoul for only a week so far, but my mom wasted no time in looking for potential work in her field. Here's the thing about finding a job in Korea....there are plenty of work opportunities available, but the actual hiring process takes so long. Even though my mom has set up a couple of interviews with a few organizations, she still has yet to actually begin working.

And meanwhile we're kinda broke. Not like the penniless kind of broke, but definitely the not having the cash we need to stay afloat type.

There's one quick detail I want to tell you about me and my family. We've never been wealthy. Actually to put it bluntly (cause ain't no body got time to be dressing up words) we've been poor. I just don't see why I should sugar coat this fact...we're poor but we're also proud! Ain't no shame in being poor. Y'all know that saying that says poor people are the happiest? Well even though that is a lie, it has turned out to be true for me and my family. We've struggled but we've built a strong family unit and managed to be happy in spite of the hard times we've had. That's why my family and I are so close, especially me and my sister Maya. She's 5 years younger than me but she's really the closest friend I have. Her and my BFF Nadinah are my best and closest companions. A little later on I'll tell you more about my family. Right now I have to finish telling you about how I accidentally found the job of a lifetime that little did I know was about to change our lives forever.

So as I said in the very beginning, I was on my social medias and then I switched to Google. I was just getting so impatient with how long things were taking so I decided to take matters into my own hands and look for jobs online that were hiring immediately. I typed "tutoring jobs for English tutors in Seoul South Korea" and a bunch of results popped up.

Now as a rule you never click the very first link (don't ask me why, it's just how it is alright?) so I clicked the third link. I followed it to a site titled "yourenglishcareer.net" I'd never been on this site before, but it looked legit. I read the introduction at the top of the page which went like this:

Welcome to yourenglishcareer.net. Our company specializes in offering quality job opportunities to professional English teachers looking for well paying employment with reputable contractors. If you're a student looking for professional and qualified teachers, yourenglishcareer.net has some of the best English instructors world wide. Search our extensive database and find the right contractor/instructor for you.

Or something like that. I can't remember exactly how it went but I liked the introduction so I kept reading. That's when I saw it, the ad that would be the beginning of everything.

It was under the featured ad section. I clicked it and read the job description:

Position of work: Private English Tutor

Hours/shifts: Must be flexible/ Is negotiable

Salary: 1,000 USD hourly

Requirements: Masters in English literature, TEFL Certification, Minimum of 4 years teaching experience, High School graduate (or GED), Native English speaker

Additional information:

We're looking for a highly experienced English instructor who is patient, has very good people skills, and works well in a group setting. The instructor must have a flexible schedule and be able to deliver lessons at all times of the day or night. We prefer a warm and friendly type personality for this job.

I'll be honest, even though there was a lot of information to consider, all I saw was this one little line - Pay rate: 1000 USD hourly. Not monthly, not weekly, hourly! Like, that's more money than my mom's ever made in her life! I read it again, this time paying more attention to the requirements and got so excited to see that my mom met them easily.

Upon reflection, if I hadn't been so distracted by the amount of money my mom would be making, I would have realized that the ad didn't mention who they were, and therefore would have disregarded it as a scam. As it was I ran excitedly to my mom and showed her the ad.

"Mama look at this!" I shouted, very much not containing my excitement. My mom was laying down in her room, using her Lenovo Tab 2 and eating popcorn as per her usual way. When I barged in yelling...I kinda scared her...and popcorn went flying all over the room.

"What?! What happened?!" she replied frantically. I looked down at the popcorn, taken aback by the outburst.

"Uh....nothing Ummie. I just want to show you what I found on the internet."

She looked at me annoyed. "Girl you had me thinking something happened to one of your brothers!"

"No, they're in the living room playing Minecraft." I had to reassure her. My bad, I didn't mean to scare her. I was just excited you know? I passed the phone to her and she looked at the ad.

"Is this real?" she asked, doubtfully reading the information.

"Why wouldn't it be?" my naive self replied. The possibility of it being a scam never even occurred to me. I was just that clueless sometimes.

"That's a lot of money just for tutoring," she pointed out.

"Yeah but that's what we need to be making. We're a big family and it's not like it cheap to live here."

"You mean me?  Not we. You don't work to pay no bills."

I paused at that. That really wasn't the point, but I could tell she wasn't as convinced about it as I was.

"What can it hurt to just try? Send in an application and see what happens."

My mom sat there for a long moment debating about it. I could see her inner dialogue as individual thoughts passing over her face. For a second I thought she would say she wouldn't do it.

"Send me the link."

I suppressed an urge to jump and whoop "hurray"! Instead I sent her the link on Whatsapp and she applied. And that was that...until three hours later she got an email from them asking to meet her the following day.

"That was quick," my mom said, surprised.

"Are you gonna go?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm gonna bring Ismael with me."

Hey that wasn't what I expected her to say. My brother Ismael was a year younger than me, brown skinned and looked a lot like me, except I was the oldest, and I usually went with Ummie everywhere, and I said as much.

"You can come too if you want," she said. I got super excited and couldn't wait until the following day came. It might sound silly but the possibility of me and my family being well off soon made me happy. Being poor was all well to do, but just sometimes it got tough not having what you needed all of the time.

As I said before way more was about to happen than just my family becoming rich. I found out just how much the very next day...

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A/N:

Hey everyone! Liking the story so far? If so please don't forget to vote and leave a comment. I want to hear from you! Give me your opinions I'd love to hear what you think. Stay tuned for new chapters coming soon. And again thanks for reading! -