Recently, while in Honduras I came a across a little girl who touched my heart. She was selling her goods with the only English word she knew – “pleeeaaaassseeee”. At first, I was annoyed at her approach. I said no at first, then watched her go person to person doing the same thing. With each clingy request, she was rejected. The more I watched, the more compassion I felt. I did not like her approach, but considering her size, it did not appear to be her choice either.
Finally, I decided to approach HER.
I said in a language she did not understand, ” I will give you three dollars for the prettiest one, but you need to pick it out for me”. She did not understand, but I could see in her eyes she was delighted at our exchange and I don’t think it was about selling the baubles going up her arm. We continued our ‘not understanding each other” display, but her smile got bigger and bigger as I physically tried to be understood with body language. I can be quite animated. I ended up picking one and paying her the three dollars.
With the three dollars in her hand I expected her to take off – mission accomplished! But her hanging around with a big grin for a few seconds just looking at me told me that this little person enjoyed our exchange even if she had no idea what I was saying. My buying the piece did not seem to be what made her feel good.
And I recalled the importance and value (in all situations before us) of kindness.