a miracle!!!
"Good morning Mr Ken," Ben muttered. "Good Morning to you," Ken replied impulsively without looking at him. He had so many problem to worry about. The field trip to Mzamzi had been cancelled by the coordinator, Mr Phillip, without any previous warning. His reason was that some millitants were said to have kidnapped a German en route Mzamzi. They were demanding the sum of twenty million dollars before they could release him. Even though Philip had the assurance of government-provided security, he was not prepared to take the risk barely a day after the horrible incidence which was all over the news. The planned journey to Mzamzi was for a field study on house fly, Drosophilla melanogaster.
Mr Ken was doing this project as part of his PHD project in molecular Biology but he was collaborating with the faculty of Biological sciences of the University of Pretoria under South African government sponsorship. The project's major goal was to do a fresh study on house fly to see if the genetic pattern had changed since Charles Darwin's observations recorded on his historic genetics publication. House fly was the same specimen used by Darwin. Its quick reproduction made it a good specimen for such study. Mzamzi countryside was said to be a heaven for housefly in a particular season. They breed in numbers and were attracted by the weather and some seasonal food.
Mr Ken had flown from Alabama to SA about two days earlier. He had thought that the school would provide him an accommodation. For this reason, he did not budget for one when he was planning for the journey. He realized very late at the time he had landed in SA that there was no free accommodation for him. The school indeed provided an accommodation around the school but it was not free. His choice of SA for his research was hinged on the thought that he would get the partnering school to take care of most of his needs. As this did not go his way, Ken was mad. He was confused on what to do next. The PHD program had taken a chunk of his savings already.
At his Leisure, Mr Ken Logged into his steemit account to make some publication about his journey to South Africa. He took time to chronicle every event from his house in Alabama to the airport all the way to South Africa. He talked about all his experience in SA so far and his frustrations. Ken made this publication around 1400hrs UTC without any expectation. The article was well written with pictures and interesting narrations. He just wanted to inform his followers in steemit about his journey and experience in SA. Little did he know that he had won a jackpot by that simple publication.
A whale in steemit read the article and was carried away by its simplicity and sophistication at the same time. He upvoted it with his full vote which gave the article the first 100 dollars. He did not stop there. He resteemed Mr Ken's article and boom, before five minutes it was number one on the trending page.
Ken had dozed off after eating a mushroom pizza. He hated mushroom pizzas but that was the cheapest on the menu in the restaurant where he went to eat. The other food on the menu were majorly local foods and he was not in the mood to try any of them. He woke up around 2300hrs UTC and saw too many upvote alert on his phone. He was surprised because none of his post had ever attracted such alert nor earned him anything more than twenty dollars. His best post was the one he made when he first joined steemit. It was an "introduce-yourself-post". He earned twenty dollars on it. After that none had come near that.
light in the tunnel
Ken decided to log in to his computer to find out why all the upvote buzz. When he got to his blog and checked the new post he made about nine hours ago, he could not believe his eyes. The post had three thousand five hundred dollars in earnings already. He wanted to shout but remembered he was not at home. People would think something was wrong with him. He checked the laptop again to be sure of what he saw and it was real. He immediately put a call to his wife. He had called his wife before he slept concerning his disappointment on the accommodation issue. The wife had promised to get a loan of about ten thousand dollars for him.
"Honey!" He shouted. "The loan will not be necessary again." "Why Sweetheart?" She queried. Mr ken smiled on the phone and told the wife the steemit story. He had urged the wife severally to open a steemit account all to no avail. The wife did not cherish writing but most importantly, she didn't think she needed to write articles on steemit just to make one dollar per post. She used to see Ken's earnings which were mostly in one dollar range. "I am going to open a steemit account right away," she replied excitedly.
Ken had booked to stay ten days in the hotel. It would cost him about five thousand dollars. He made a deposit of five hundred dollars on arrival and hoped for the wife to send him the loan money she was going to get. That won't be necessary again he thought. The steemit post had earned ten thousand two hundred dollars in its third day. Going by 50:50 steem power and steem dollar, he was already sure that he would be able to pay up his accommodation charge. But again another miracle had happened. Steem dollar price had skyrocketed overnight from ninety cent to five dollars. Ken could now eat anything he wanted in the hotel instead of going to the local restaurant to eat mushroom pizza.
The following morning, Ben called Ken to pass a piece of good tiding to him. There was a three day extension added to his stay because of the kidnap incidence. The school had agreed to pay for all the accommodation and feeding related expenses for the three days only. That was a good way to start a day ken thought. To be continued....
