This Abroad Life will leave you speechless. Today’s subject woke up one day and had to suddenly move to the USA. She talks about surviving on almost nothing, avoiding an arranged marriage, becoming a citizen and family drama.

Let’s start from the beginning. When did you move to the USA?
I moved here in 2009 for school. But that’s not the real beginning.

I’m listening.
You know those children that always got good grades and did everything right? That was me. My dad and my mum were separated and I lived with my mum. We didn’t have much money, so my dad was meant to be in charge of paying my fees. When I graduated from secondary school in 2004, I immediately applied to go to Babcock. I passed the Babcock exams and needed to pay an acceptance fee. When I told my dad, he gave excuses until Babcock deferred my admission to the next year because I couldn’t pay on time. In that same period, he bought a new Benz. There was a new woman in his life and he was being flashy.

Ouch.
I was hurt. My mum still jokes about how miserable I was and how I stayed in bed all day, crying myself to sleep. I decided I wasn’t going to depend on anybody for money again, so I went out and found a job at an events planning agency. I was 16, and the job paid ₦20,000. A lot of that money was going to transportation and feeding, and I was really stressed, so I quit.

The next year, I thought my dad was finally going to pay the fees — he said he was going to. This time, he just ghosted us. And so, I had to stay at home for another year. I got a job as a sales manager at a store in VGC and that’s what I did for the next year or so.

That’s tough.
I retreated and lost a lot of my esteem. The people I finished secondary school with were in their second and third years. I only kept in touch with about two of them because I was embarrassed the rest of them would laugh at me.

It was during my sales manager job that my mum’s mum called me one day and suggested I take the SATs. It was funny. I couldn’t afford Babcock. How did she want me to study abroad?

I took the test, got good grades, applied for scholarships and got them. I didn’t spend a penny for that entire process. Someone paid for the test, and someone gave me free books to study.

Then I got rejected for my visa two times. I had to defer my admissions from fall semester to spring semester and back to fall semester again just to make sure I didn’t lose them.

Wow.
If I was doing all of this on my own, I would have given up. But my mum is a very religious person; she kept saying stuff like, “God said you will go to America. Believe it.” On my third visa interview, she followed me to the embassy and stood outside. My situation hadn’t changed, so I was sure I wasn’t going to get the visa. The guy on my line had rejected everyone before me, but somehow he gave me the visa. When I went out and told my mum, she started rolling on the floor in the Lagos embassy. I wanted to enter the ground.

Hahaha. What happened next?
I decided to go to Lagos State University. I got in to study public administration and I was waiting to resume. I’d gotten the American visa, but it’s not as if we had money for the cost of living in the US or even a plane ticket. I had some money saved from my job. At least if I didn’t go to Babcock, I’d be a big girl in LASU.

Then my mum got a call from the United States one day. It was from a cousin she hadn’t spoken to in over 10 years. Let’s call her Aunty Bisi. Aunty Bisi said God laid it in her heart to bring one of my mum’s children to the US. She said she was willing to sponsor my visa and work through the entire process with us. When my mum told her I already had a visa and a college admission, she said, “Oh, so your child is coming to America but you didn’t tell me.” My mum told her I was going to LASU instead because we couldn’t afford America, they exchanged a few more pleasantries, and the call ended.

A few hours later, Aunty Bisi called again with one instruction: to get me to the airport as soon as possible, because my flight was leaving that night.

Continue: https://www.zikoko.com/citizen/i-went-from-earning-%E2%82%A620000-to-200000-abroad-life/

nice story... her resilience is

afelica:
nice story... her resilience is

Indeed!