Ji Hyo felt tired. She has been working since 6 am this morning. It was already 9 pm. She was tried and hungry. Her last meal was at 1:30 pm where she was given plain buns and sweet potatoes. But these were good enough to give her the energy she needed for the afternoons.

“Ji Hyo, this is your dinner.” An elderly woman, Choi En, who leads the maid quarters passed her a bowl of rice, a plate of dishes consisting of some vegetables, a 2 small stripes of pork, a few cubes of tou fu and 2 plain buns.

"The buns were leftover from the afternoons. I hope you don't mind having them. As maids, we shouldn't waste food." Choi En said. 

Ji Hyo’s eyes lit up when she saw her dinner. Back in her hometown, it was always just plain porridge, sometimes when her family have more money, they will get sweet potatoes. But tonight she got a bowl of rice to herself and there’s meat.

“Thank you , thank you so much.” Ji Hyo bowed more than 5 times to Choi En.

“You did well today. I can tell you are a hardworking girl. Keep it up and you will get food to eat every day and money to send home three months later.” Choi En told her. Choi En sort of like Ji Hyo. She had seen many maids, she can tell that Ji Hyo is hardworking, work fast, learns fast and responded well to requests. 

“Go and take a shower and rest well, you have to wake up at 4:30 am tomorrow. You have 15 minutes for your breakfast and by 4:45 am, you have to help in the kitchen.” The woman reminded her.

Ji Hyo quickly ate her food. As she stuffed the rice into , tears rolled off her face. How she wished that she can share these food with her siblings and her mother at home.

“Kwang Soo will be thrilled to see the rice and the meat and the tou fu.” Ji Hyo whispered to herself.

Ji Hyo, she is only 16 years old. She came from a family who does farming for their daily livelihood. They are not exactly rich but they are happy. Things were going well when natural disasters strike. Their fields were attacked by locusts.

Ji Hyo and her family tried their best to save and salvage their harvest. But there were millions of locusts, they couldn’t fight all. They can only witness their sweats and efforts wiped out by the evil locusts.

Ji Hyo’s father cried his heart out. He is a farmer all his life, the fields and the harvest were his heart and soul. Soon her father passed away due to depression. Her two elder sisters were married to far away provinces and were also struggling with their livelihood. They couldn’t help.

As the third child in the family, and the eldest after her 2 sisters were married, Ji Hyo knew she had to keep the family going. She volunteered to work at another province as a maid. Her mother and her two younger brothers, Kwang Soo (14 years old) and Jong Ki (13 years old) took all means and efforts, borrowed some money from their relatives, barely enough for Ji Hyo to make it to the Kang Famly to work as a maid.