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| Inside Robinsons mall which was not nearly as impressive as the other malls and it was rather small. |
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| Leaving Robinsons mall is an overpass you can walk across to the other side of the road. This is the main drag I usually walk up a couple times a day. McDonalds is right behind me. |
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| Awwwwwwwwwwww..... the tea towel lady! Lets just call her...... "Babu". The same Pakistani character in the Seinfeld episode where day after day Jerry Seinfeld watches from his apt window down at poor Babu outside his Pakistani restaurant so desperate for a customer every day that Jerry finally takes pity on him and goes into Babu's restaurant to help him out. Well as I walked into KFC a young 12 year old girl (Probably tea towel ladies daughter?) was aggressively trying to get money out of me and I had to shoo her away. |
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After I ordered my chicken and coke I found a nice comfortable table to sit down and enjoy it and as soon as the 12 year old girl saw me sitting by the window she immediately came over quickly pressing her face up against the window looking directly at me but I pretended she wasn't there hoping she would go away but after 5 minutes she is still there waiting for me to look up and see her as she gives me a cute face with her fingers together rocking it back and forth from her mouth while rubbing her stomach trying to tell me she is hungry. I had read all about this online from other expats in the Philippines and it is usually the parents put them up to this as they seek out westerners sympathies for children and dish out money. I felt heartless to do this but I shook my head "no" since I do not endorse begging and it would only hinder them. Kind of like feeding the ducks at the park. Anyhow the girl left.
As I sat in the nice air conditioned restaurant chowing down on my food I couldn't help but stare intently watching the tea towel lady out in the sun desperately trying to sell anybody her tea towels. I am sure many of these people look 10 years older than their actual age just from a rough life of survival. After watching for 10 minutes I could feel my heart strings pulling and I was feeling complete and utter empathy for her and I could see she had a 3 year old son with her and I found myself rooting for her thinking "
Come on, just buy one lousy tea towel off of her!!" as most people ignored her or shook their heads "no". Sometimes I just sit there and pretend to switch places with them (Like in the movie
TRADING PLACES) and me being out there selling tea towels that no one wants all day long in the baking sun while trying to feed my family.
Anyhow after 25 minutes not one person bought a lousy tea towel off of the tea towel lady. There were 2 other young women on the same block selling the same tea towels but it was tea towel lady I just felt complete empathy due to seeing her and her kids trying to eek out a living and just the desperate look on her face for a sale. So when I left KFC she came up to me and I asked her how much her lovely tea towels were and she said 50 pesos so I said sure I will take the blue tea towel which put a smile on her face. Sometimes a sales person who is in a sales slump just needs one little sale to boost their confidence back up.
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Oh my precious little blue tea towel!! What would I ever do with out my blue tea towel?? I looked everywhere trying to find this blue tea towel today and THANK GOD that woman was in the niche market of selling blue tea towels. I can't believe how lucky I am to have my blue tea towel. Maybe if I run out of toilet paper I will have a use for it.
Maybe I will go back tomorrow and buy all of her tea towels off of her and try to corner the market on tea towels and drive the price up? |
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