Chapter 4

At exactly 10:10 am Andrea left the house for the board office. She waited as the bus stop for ten minutes but couldn't find a bus going in that direction so she decided to take a taxi.

Fifteen minutes later she got to the place and alighted from the car, she paid the taxi and took a deep breath before entering the place.

The registration office was on the second floor of the four storey building so she went there directly. Immediately she stepped out of the elevator she saw a young lady probably in her mid twenties in office clothes sitting behind a desk. She approached her "Good morning ma", Andrea said

"Good morning dear", the young lady replied with a smile.

"How may I help you", she asked.

"My name is Andrea Anderson and I applied for this years ABLFS Scholarship, I got a message last week for me to come here this morning", Andrea explained,

"Oh yes that's right, do you have your documents?" the lady asked

"Yes ma'am I do", Andrea replied,

"Then go straight ahead now, after walking for three minutes you are going to reach a large corridor when you get there turn left and go straight for a while longer you are going to see a large conference room with a large glass door, enter there and someone will come attend to you best of luck", the lady told her and Andrea smiled, she followed the lady's instructions and reached the large door, she opened it and entered.

On getting to the conference room she met a large crowd of students, she walked in and sat down in a hidden corner. She was surprised to see the number of students that had applied for the ABLFS scholarship, the scholarship was as a result of the contribution of rich and well meaning citizens of New Zealand who came together to sponsor the education of brilliant and hardworking students whose dreams are held back because of the financial conditions of their family.

The first stage of the scholarship was for applicants to write an exam and only those who passed are selected, in the second stage the applicants upload their school results, credentials as well as citizenship certificate to the board's online portal and only those with more than average school results as well as the citizenship of New Zealand are selected and the third stage is when the applicants and their guardians are called in for an interview and if they are able to answer the questions they are asked satisfyingly the awardees are then selected and called in and that's the final stage.

Every year the ABLFS scholarship awards only a hundred students all over New Zealand. Today was the day of the selection and the final stage of the award, Andrea looked around and realized that there were more than Five hundred students in the hall, choosing only a hundred students from this crowd was going to be tough, now the rest depended on luck this was why she was nervous.

After about ten minutes the judges came in and Andrea felt her heart jump to her throat. The entire hall became silent. There were four people in front of them three men and a woman. One of the men took the microphone and began

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen my name is Andrew Locks but you can all call me Mr Locks I will be the supervisor to all the students that will be awarded the scholarship and you will be contacting me for anything whatsoever throughout the span of time that your scholarship is going to run".

"As you all know the ABLFS scholarship scheme only awards a 100 students per year so most of you here today won't be getting the scholarship but you will be getting a certain amount of money for compensation even though it might not be enough we hope it might help in your educational endeavors and you can always apply again next year"

"Meet Mrs Riana James, the head of ABLFS Scholarship Scheme New Zealand, she will be the one announcing the awardees. Best of luck to all of you and God Bless".

He handed over the microphone to the lady

"Good morning students, Mr Locks here as said everything that is to be said so all I want to say is give an advice: Once the scholarship is awarded and you all get to your various universities please do not forget what you went there for and the poverty that caused you to apply for this scholarship in the first place, focus on your studies so you can change your own life situations and have your own footings in life. God bless all of you"

She concluded and began to call the awardees all through the time Andrea had her hands locked together in prayer. When the 97th person was called Andrea realized her name wasn't mentioned and became very nervous, and when two more people were called she became very disheartened and her eyes had already become misty with tears until she heard another man who wasn't Mr locks say

"All morning we have been calling the names in ascending order of excellence in the exam you all did and now the person we are going to call now is the person who topped the exam with a score of 96.5 please give a round of applause to Miss Andrea Annie Anderson" , Andrea was shocked when she heard her name and even more when she heard a deafening applause around her she knew she did well in the exam but topping it, that was completely unexpected. "Please come out on stage miss Anderson" The man requested. She stood up and approached the stage with shaky legs.

When she got there the man shook her hands and the woman hugged her,

"Welldone Miss Anderson, this scholarship is meant for students like you" Mr Locks said and gave her a certificate.

"This certificate has the details of all the field s of your study the ABLFS Scholarship Scheme covers. It covers your accommodation and Tuition as well as Admin fees. But because of your excellent performance the board as decided that this Scholarship is also going to cover your books, any expenses inside the school, your travel expenses as well as yearly allowance until you graduate. And if you graduate with excellent grades your Masters and Post Graduates will also be sponsored by ABLFS. Congratulations"

When he was done, Andrea couldn't stop her tears

"Thank you so very much sir" She said in between sobs

"You don't know what this means to me, thank you" She said crying and smiling at the same time.

"You are welcome, Miss Anderson. We can see how much this means to you", The woman said. Mr Locks picked up the microphone and said "All of you that have not been awarded the scholarship please leave the hall, the receptionist outside is going to give you the promised compensation. We are Sorry and thank you"

After he said that the non- awardees stood up and left, once they were gone the judges took the awardees on an orientation of how the scholarship will run and after a few minutes they gave all of them the award certificate and told them to leave with the exception of Andrea.

After all of them were gone, they told Andrea about all the documents she would be needing for her travel plans and how she was going to settle down over there, they spent an hour personally orienting her and once they were done. Andrea ran out of the building all excited she couldn't wait to tell her family the good news.

She went to her family's favorite desert shop and bought everything her siblings wanted, she also bought a huge Vanilla cake for her parents and her. Once she was done she took a Taxi home and decided to wait for her family to surprise them. She was so excited she couldn't describe it.