CONTINUATION...
The following week, Sunday to be precise, the situation had got much better. You live a day at a time, they say. I had developed a nightly hustle routine to secure money I would use the following day. I would search for opportunities everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram..mention them. The fact that I am a night owl nicely worked in my favour. That Sunday night, my efforts of getting something small to spend on Monday were proving to be futile.💔 It was already some minutes past 2 am. I decided to sleep and let tommorrow 'ikuje venye itakuja'.
I was doing my last Facebook scroll before calling it a day when I came across a post by a user. It was a lady. The post stated, "Urgently looking for someone to complete an online training for me within the next few hours". She needed it done ASAP. As per her instructions, it was these video slides with questions at the end. "It's not hard, I just don't have the time", she explained.
I checked the post's timestamp and it was 2 minutes old. I did my due diligence, conducted a quick profile stalking. Her bio read, "Toxic feminist, LGBTQI safe, pro sex-work, hater pro max and so much stuff. The profile was followed by over 31K people. I decided to give it a try.
I left a comment below the post and she replied almost immediately. Something struck my mind. I decided to ask her first how much she was paying for the job. She replied with a, "how much do you charge?". I was baffled😂🤯. I requested if she could pay me a 10% upfront as a security.
"That's a bit hard because what if you dont complete it? It's for my work and I can't risk. I just need someone who will do it and finish then I send the pay", she replied.
I decided to take a leap of faith and assured her, "I will do it and I will finish".
"Its a work training. I need it to be completed within the next 2 hours so if you dont, I won't go to work today. I'm leaving the house in 2 hours. That's how tight my schedule is and I will not have time to look for someone else." She replied.
I realized the gravity and urgency of the matter and vowed to get it done, even though I still had no idea what the work was about. I bet it was the first time someone was trusting me🤝 with their career, and I was determined not to dissapoint.
I finally asked, " What's it about?"
She mentioned it was related to aviation, airport operations, safety and such stuff.
"Can I handle it ama lazima nikuwe na aviation knowledge?" I asked.
"No, it doesn't need any knowledge. Ni zile trainings where you go through halafu ziko na maswali at the end. The questions are exactly what is in the slides".
I told her to bring it on, 'kaende kaende'. I 'okoad' some airtime and purchased bundles. Then out of nowhere, she asked, "Do you have a VPN?" I was like Oh my Gosh😱. My then naive self had no idea what that was, or where to get it. I assumed the question. She sent the link and the login details. She said again, "I hope you have a VPN coz I'm not sure it will accept juu ya location and they might pick up on it". Panic set in💔. What could I do? I threw caution to the wind and decided to do it anyway.
The password she sent did not work⛔. I notified her. She said that the password was functional from her side. 'Hapo nikajua baas. The VPN thing has 'rambad' me'😂😂. I however gave it another shot and it worked.😊
My client's employer was a very reputable foreign🌎 airlines company✈. True to her words, the tests were not that difficult. It was just a training of routine procedures of airport crew and the flight attendants. Flight pre-starts, emergency protocol,⛑🏥 client handling and such like stuff.
They were about 5 modules, each containing videos of about 20 minutes length, plus answering the questions. After completing a module, your score is displayed, and anything below 80% you have to retake the module. I aced them all until the last module, whose videos couldn't play.
'Kumbe' I had ran out of data💔. I tried to 'okoa' again to finish up the work but Safaricom had done that thing😂😂. So I texted telling her I was 90% done except for the very last part, then asked, "ama unaweza ninunulia data nimalizie then utakata kwa mshara?"😆 I know it sounded awkward.
She delayed to respond. It was now some minutes to 5 am.
After some minutes she came back online and apologised for keeping me waiting.
"Just quickly doing the video ones halafu will let you know when you can continue. Just doing them now", she added.
I replied okay. Then she went mum for around 10 minutes.
Then she resurfaced with a, "Hata I have finished it so I'll just pay you. Is 4K ok?"
I rubbed my eyes😯 and pinched myself a little just to make sure I was not dreaming! She meant 4,000 shillings for such a 'small' work? Frankly, I was not expecting the pay to exceed 500 shillings.
I quickly pasted my mpesa number and wrote in bold the name it will reflect, then waited. After about 5 minutes, she replied,
"Sawa. Doing it right now. Let me know when it goes through . Thank you so much. I really appreciate. If I have another training I will be contacting you." I was super excited.
The wait began. 5 minutes, 10, 15, 20...😫 It was now some minutes past 6 am. I was beginning to give up and catch some sleep💤 while lecturing myself that in these online 'streets', not anyone is to be trusted. But a part of me felt the lady was principled and could not pull such a stunt on me.
Immediately it struck 6:23 am, a notification 🔊popped up on my screen that an amount had been deducted from my mpesa account to pay for Fuliza, an overdraft service. I rushed to the messages and found it. 'Bwana' I had received a cool 4 K,💰 direct💱 from an account of one of the most prestigious banks in this country. I jumped in excitement and made a loud, happy cry,😄 one reserved for special moments, like when my Arsenal makes me proud in EPL games.
My roommates stired in their sleep, asking what was wrong.
I told them 'hakuna', everything was alright.
I rushed back to tell her 'asante, nimepata'🤝.
She replied, "Perfect, have a lovely day", and added a smile emoji😊. I wished her the same before rushing out to catch a mug of freshly prepared tea🍵and some hot mandazis at Stage.
It was one of the best things that happened to me that year.😊😊😊